macOS 10.15 Catalina on Unsupported Macs

[Blackriton]

Have a read through this thread:

macOS 10.14 Mojave on Unsupported Macs Thread

The cMPs are notorious on having poor Bluetooth connections. The Bluetooth aerial is at the back of the machine and all that metal case can cause difficulties for the Bluetooth signal. It may therefore be worth checking this. How is your mouse if you place it near the back of the machine? If it...

forums.macrumors.com

As you will read, BT Signal problems are not unusual for the cMP. My cMP3.1 had no issues but I needed to attach an external aerial to boost the BT signal in my cMP5.1. From your description of your problems I suspect this is the issue

Big thanks Flacko. You were absolutely right. I tested the mouse and the JBL sound case near the back of the MacPro and it was instantly recognizeda and working !!!!! So i need an external antenna. Is this the unique solution or a small bluetooth dongle may be also another solution ????????? Thanks for advices.

 

[quaccOS]

I'm back on 10.15.5 (19F101). I wanted to start fresh on 10.15.2 to mess around with my extensions, but there is no way to obtain an older version of Catalina installer app.
Can't wait for macOS Ventura… or macOS Weed…or macOS Granite…macOS High Silica…macOS Mallard? Yes.

 

[Blackriton]

Big thanks Flacko. You were absolutely right. I tested the mouse and the JBL sound case near the back of the MacPro and it was instantly recognizeda and working !!!!! So i need an external antenna. Is this the unique solution or a small bluetooth dongle may be also another solution ????????? Thanks for advices.

Finally I decided not to get an external antenna or a dongle. Moving the tower 50 cm closer to my desktop has solved he bluetooth weak signal problem !!!! Wifi and Bluetooth are working now perfectly on my MacPro 2008 3,1 with a Broadcom Card 94360CD on Catalina 10.15.5 patched with Dosdude1's brilliant work. Thanks for all the help I got during this wifi-bluetooth new install situation.

 

[Flacko]

Finally I decided not to get an external antenna or a dongle. Moving the tower 50 cm closer to my desktop has solved he bluetooth weak signal problem !!!! Wifi and Bluetooth are working now perfectly on my MacPro 2008 3,1 with a Broadcom Card 94360CD on Catalina 10.15.5 patched with Dosdude1's brilliant work. Thanks for all the help I got during this wifi-bluetooth new install situation.

Ok, I was just about to send you some details but will hold off as this is more a cMP hardware issue and not a patcher problem so a bit off topic. It seems to be luck of the draw with BT and the cMP. Basically poorly designed BT aerial, fantastic Faraday cage of a case and BT cards that have a range of output power. If you just happen to get a slightly lower power card then the rubbish aerial at the back is insufficient for a reliable BT signal. As you and many others have found out.

 

[jhowarth]

Finally with the help of a friend with small hands, we managed to connect the 3 wifi antennas connectors on the Apple Broadcom Wifi+Bluetooth Card I bought recently 94360 CD. After reboot, everything was recognized in the System Report and Wifi works perfectly with AirDrop, Handoff and Continuity on my MacPro 3,1 under 10.15.5.
Only problem not resolved : Bluetooth still not working correctly : I throw out all the bluetooth plist in the Preferences and reboot but the Bluetooth SystemPrefs Panel can't see an external Bluetooth JBL soundbox (its was duly working with the original Bluetooth card I removed now from the MacPro ) and with an Apple Mouse2, its sees the Mouse and say its connected but the mouse is not working-moving afterwards..........I don't want to reinstall the all system and I am looking for other workarounds to correct the bluetooth problem. I ordered also a new wifi card adapter as it may be possible that the adapter is the culprit for the bluetooth problem.

I still would suggest trying a clean install on an external drive if you have one available just to confirm that the bluetooth issues don't disappear in that case. It will clarify whether this is a configuration issue or really a hardware problem. Also, I assume that you have removed the restraining screw from the original motherboard BT board and pulled it. If you have left it in place, you may be still be running off that BT but without an antenna.

Wifi and Bluetooth Card Installation in a 3,1

Begin by disconnecting your Mac Pro's power supply and any other devices currently connected your Mac Pro. Remove the side panel of the computer. Your Mac Pro should appear as in Figure 1, with the...

www.macvidcards.com

 

[Blackriton]

I still would suggest trying a clean install on an external drive if you have one available just to confirm that the bluetooth issues don't disappear in that case. It will clarify whether this is a configuration issue or really a hardware problem. Also, I assume that you have removed the restraining screw from the original motherboard BT board and pulled it. If you have left it in place, you may be still be running off that BT but without an antenna.

Wifi and Bluetooth Card Installation in a 3,1

Begin by disconnecting your Mac Pro's power supply and any other devices currently connected your Mac Pro. Remove the side panel of the computer. Your Mac Pro should appear as in Figure 1, with the...

www.macvidcards.com

I can confirm you I duly removed the Old BT card and screw. I am quite sure its a hardware issue as described by Flacko rather than a system one because I noticed that moving 1more or less 10 centimeters around the MacPro a sound box or a Apple mouse makes a difference in Bluetooth reception ! I also moved the tower closer to the desktop and all works perfectly. The BT SystemPrefs Panel sees as connected the accessories and if I move the tower 10 centimeters farther, connection is gone............

 

[hvds]

View attachment 925135 I'm back on 10.15.5 (19F101). I wanted to start fresh on 10.15.2 to mess around with my extensions, but there is no way to obtain an older version of Catalina installer app.
Can't wait for macOS Ventura… or macOS Weed…or macOS Granite…macOS High Silica…macOS Mallard? Yes.

Found a 10.15.2 installer (version 15.2.02, 8.2GB) on a TimeMachine backup. It was downloaded, and used successfully, with patcher 1.3.0, on 11 Dec 2019.
Maybe you also have one still in TM?

 

[quaccOS]

Found a 10.15.2 installer (version 15.2.02, 8.2GB) on a TimeMachine backup. It was downloaded, and used successfully, with patcher 1.3.0, on 11 Dec 2019.
Maybe you also have one still in TM?

I don't use Time Machine…I just manually backup my photos library and important files to an external HD.

 

[jhowarth]

I can confirm you I duly removed the Old BT card and screw. I am quite sure its a hardware issue as described by Flacko rather than a system one because I noticed that moving 1more or less 10 centimeters around the MacPro a sound box or a Apple mouse makes a difference in Bluetooth reception ! I also moved the tower closer to the desktop and all works perfectly. The BT SystemPrefs Panel sees as connected the accessories and if I move the tower 10 centimeters farther, connection is gone............

But isn't this the same BT internal antenna that didn't have reception problems with the original factory BT card?

 

[Blackriton]

But isn't this the same BT internal antenna that didn't have reception problems with the original factory BT card?

Thats right. But it seems that with the new wifi antennas connected on the new adapter+card, there is some interferences problems due to a Faraday box effect inside the metal tower. Wifi signals are perfect but BT's signal is weak.....Thats why it looks a hardware problem.

 

[Flacko]

Thats right. But it seems that with the new wifi antennas connected on the new adapter+card, there is some interferences problems due to a Faraday box effect inside the metal tower. Wifi signals are perfect but BT's signal is weak.....Thats why it looks a hardware problem.

Just to clarify, the BT aerial in the cMP has a well documented trail of being problematic. If the BT card has sufficient output to overcome this then there is no problem. However, changing the card can result in a flaky BT performance as not all cards seem to be created equal (manufacturing tolerance). For example my cMP 3.1 had a poor BT performance using the original card. Upgrading to a BCM94360CD solved this although it used the same aerial. Conversely, my cMP5.1 had no BT issues with the original card but this time the BCM94360CD upgrade resulted in a poor BT performance. An external aerial fixed this. So it is a well known hardware issue and it is the luck of the draw if you are affected. There is a whole thread on the subject.

 

[gosvamih]

Following the example of jackluke #11,356 I used OpenCore 0.5.9 to partially spoof the MacBook6.1 to iMac14,2. I made USB legacy with hackintool, CPU speedstep correct in IOPlatformPluginFamily.kext/Contents/PlugIns/ACPI_SMC_PlatformPlugin.kext/Resources (add corrected plist for iMac14,2)

Correct AGPM for iMac14,2 in plist of AppleGraphicsPowerManagement.kext with data from МacBook6,1.
And launched hardware acceleration through Nvidia VP3, correct AppleGVA.framework plist from HighSierra with this

And in AppleVADriver.bundle from High Sierra add this

And installed it by script (called reset_gva in addons, framework and bundle have to be in the same folder as script).
Now:

All corrected plists (for example) and my 0.5.9 config are in addon. MacBook works fine, but only СPU temp slightly higher than early - 5 degrease upper. No, it was spotlight activity, now temperature is the same.
NightShift works without patch, and I can update system directly, but not now - I have gprs only network.

Serial Num, ROM, MLB, HW and System ID remain the same as MacBook 6.1, only board-id has changed, I can use the macbook as usual.

 

[PeterHolbrook]

I don't believe this has been brought up before. If it has, accept my apologies and kindly refer me to the relevant link. I've recently installed Catalina 10.15.5 on my Mac Pro 5,1 using dosdude1's patcher. The patcher is simply brilliant. I'm not that impressed with Catalina itself, though. It seems version 10.15.5 has a serious bug that causes backups to be sort of unreliably, if not completely useless. I suppose version 10.15.6 will fix that. Be that as it may, I have a problem with my Apple Watch Mac unlocking operation. This used to work flawlessly in Mojave (I installed the relevant BT 4.0/Wi-Fi ac module years ago), but now, in Catalina, I can use my Apple Watch as an alternative to authorization (as if I was entering my administrative password), but it fails to unlock the Mac out of the screensaver. Oddly, the entry "ContinuitySupport" for Mac-F221BEC8 (my motherboard's id) in SystemParameters.plist was set to "false" after Catalina installation (it was set to "true" under Mojave), so I edited it back to "true" (after the "sudo mount -uw /" thing, etc.), but it made no difference as far as unlocking is concerned. I also had to alter /System/Library/Extensions/IO80211Family.kext/Contents/PlugIns/AirPortBrcm4360 with the same purpose using a hex editor. Naturally, I also erased the kext cache and rebooted. In any case, I seem to be missing something.

Can anyone confirm that Apple Watch unlocking works on an "upgraded" Mac Pro 5,1 running Catalina? What does the numerical value attached to "DID ProductCode" mean? For instance, the value attributed to my machine is 18954. For some other, presumably supported machine, it's 18985. Would I get a valid Mac unlocking capability by entering that value instead of the one my Mac has now? What exactly do those numbers entail? Is there, perhaps, a third binary file or plist somewhere specifying that Mac unlocking with the Apple Watch should be crippled?

 

[gosvamih]

I can't say about Apple Watch, have no it, but for Сontinuity support I used this kexts put in /Library/Extensions
(I can use it from OpenCore also - ).

With this kexts no need patch any system kexts (manually).
And, of course, I correct bluetooth framework, to set YES for my Mac model.
I have USB 4.0 dongle GMYLE. Continuity works fine. (now I used partially - as board-id only - iMac14,2 Mac Model and with it no need framework correction)

 

[PeterHolbrook]

I can't say about Apple Watch, have no it, but for Сontinuity support I used this kexts put in /Library/Extensions
(I can use it from OpenCore also - ).

View attachment 925403

With this kexts no need patch any system kexts (manually).
And, of course, I correct bluetooth framework, to set YES for my Mac model.
I have USB 4.0 dongle GMYLE. Continuity works fine. (now I used partially - as board-id only - iMac14,2 Mac Model and with it no need framework correction)

Perhaps I didn't explain thoroughly. EVERYTHING RELATED TO CONTINUITY works, except Mac unlocking. Therefore, I don't need a fix for Continuity, only for having my Apple Watch unlock my Mac Pro 5,1 in Catalina.

 

[amishallin]

I have an issue that's more of an inconvenience than anything else. I have an RX 580 and Mojave works without issue on my Mac Pro 5,1. However, in Catalina 10.15.5 (19F101) the machine takes a very long time to reboot/shutdown. When I tell it to either reboot or shut down the dock, menu bar and desktop icons go away like its going to do something but it just sits with the wallpaper visible. I can continue to move the mouse around for about 30 seconds before it disappears. At this point the machine seems to sit idle for many minutes (fans still spin but no blinking disk activity light on SSD pcie card) before either rebooting or shutting down. When this takes longer than 5 minutes the login screen comes back up. After I login i'm greeted with a message saying I improperly shut down my computer with option to send report to Apple. There are no issues with a cold boot. Catalina 10.15.5 was installed on this machine via the Dosdude1 method.

Is this normal? Like I said this is only an inconvenience since the machine is rebooted once a week.

Edit: <sarcasm> Is this the modern day version of Win95 saying its safe to power off the computer?

 

[TimothyR734]

It happens to me even on a supported Mac with it shutting down yes it safe to power off and sometimes reinstalling macOS Catalina fixes the issue

 

[gosvamih]

After blocking with Lulu firewall some system network services, my MacBook switching off without big timeout. Early was a problem anytime like described upper. I think timeout caused by network activities.

 

[alphascorp]

I have an issue that's more of an inconvenience than anything else. I have an RX 580 and Mojave works without issue on my Mac Pro 5,1. However, in Catalina 10.15.5 (19F101) the machine takes a very long time to reboot/shutdown. When I tell it to either reboot or shut down the dock, menu bar and desktop icons go away like its going to do something but it just sits with the wallpaper visible. I can continue to move the mouse around for about 30 seconds before it disappears. At this point the machine seems to sit idle for many minutes (fans still spin but no blinking disk activity light on SSD pcie card) before either rebooting or shutting down. When this takes longer than 5 minutes the login screen comes back up. After I login i'm greeted with a message saying I improperly shut down my computer with option to send report to Apple. There are no issues with a cold boot. Catalina 10.15.5 was installed on this machine via the Dosdude1 method.

Is this normal? Like I said this is only an inconvenience since the machine is rebooted once a week.

Edit: <sarcasm> Is this the modern day version of Win95 saying its safe to power off the computer?

Hi @amishallin
I already had this kind of problem after an update of Catalina, .3 or .4 but I do not remember well, when I launched the Terminal command "killall Dock" the menu bar and the Dock disappeared completely as well as the wallpaper, leaving a black screen for about thirty seconds then all came back slowly.
Have you tried Onyx utility? this fixed this problem for me
Download and run the Onyx utility, select "Maintenance" and click the Run button.

 

[gank41]

Perhaps I didn't explain thoroughly. EVERYTHING RELATED TO CONTINUITY works, except Mac unlocking. Therefore, I don't need a fix for Continuity, only for having my Apple Watch unlock my Mac Pro 5,1 in Catalina.

I think there’s something to do with the version of Bluetooth, too? But if it’s worked once and then it doesn’t, it’s software related.
[automerge]1592764548[/automerge]

I have an issue that's more of an inconvenience than anything else. I have an RX 580 and Mojave works without issue on my Mac Pro 5,1. However, in Catalina 10.15.5 (19F101) the machine takes a very long time to reboot/shutdown. When I tell it to either reboot or shut down the dock, menu bar and desktop icons go away like its going to do something but it just sits with the wallpaper visible. I can continue to move the mouse around for about 30 seconds before it disappears. At this point the machine seems to sit idle for many minutes (fans still spin but no blinking disk activity light on SSD pcie card) before either rebooting or shutting down. When this takes longer than 5 minutes the login screen comes back up. After I login i'm greeted with a message saying I improperly shut down my computer with option to send report to Apple. There are no issues with a cold boot. Catalina 10.15.5 was installed on this machine via the Dosdude1 method.

Is this normal? Like I said this is only an inconvenience since the machine is rebooted once a week.

Edit: <sarcasm> Is this the modern day version of Win95 saying its safe to power off the computer?

I’ve been seeing this on my 2015 MBP for most of the 10.15.x releases. When restarting or shutting down, the dock, desktop items, and menu bar all disappear and I’m left with my wallpaper for what seems like forever. Maybe 30-90 seconds? Then it reboots and all is well.

 

[Peatwheat]

APFS ROM patcher. I was all set to install this for the woman’s 2008 MBP 5,1. Then a “you might brick” your machine warning came up that I’ve never seen with this tool.

Minor heart flutter engaged. I can’t find a resource that shows me where to find the ROM chip to verify this. Any help would be appreciated. I even looked on a spare board I had laying around, nothing scream ROM chip.

 

[Alex-Microsmeta]

@dosdude1 @ASentientBot strange behaviour of Google Chrome with Catalina (not only on the patched macs). A lot of people are asking unsuccesfully to the Official Google Support. Clicking on the Chrome icon it won't open and I only hear "dong" Clicking and reclicking it finally starts.

 

[trifero]

I don't believe this has been brought up before. If it has, accept my apologies and kindly refer me to the relevant link. I've recently installed Catalina 10.15.5 on my Mac Pro 5,1 using dosdude1's patcher. The patcher is simply brilliant. I'm not that impressed with Catalina itself, though. It seems version 10.15.5 has a serious bug that causes backups to be sort of unreliably, if not completely useless. I suppose version 10.15.6 will fix that. Be that as it may, I have a problem with my Apple Watch Mac unlocking operation. This used to work flawlessly in Mojave (I installed the relevant BT 4.0/Wi-Fi ac module years ago), but now, in Catalina, I can use my Apple Watch as an alternative to authorization (as if I was entering my administrative password), but it fails to unlock the Mac out of the screensaver. Oddly, the entry "ContinuitySupport" for Mac-F221BEC8 (my motherboard's id) in SystemParameters.plist was set to "false" after Catalina installation (it was set to "true" under Mojave), so I edited it back to "true" (after the "sudo mount -uw /" thing, etc.), but it made no difference as far as unlocking is concerned. I also had to alter /System/Library/Extensions/IO80211Family.kext/Contents/PlugIns/AirPortBrcm4360 with the same purpose using a hex editor. Naturally, I also erased the kext cache and rebooted. In any case, I seem to be missing something.

Can anyone confirm that Apple Watch unlocking works on an "upgraded" Mac Pro 5,1 running Catalina? What does the numerical value attached to "DID ProductCode" mean? For instance, the value attributed to my machine is 18954. For some other, presumably supported machine, it's 18985. Would I get a valid Mac unlocking capability by entering that value instead of the one my Mac has now? What exactly do those numbers entail? Is there, perhaps, a third binary file or plist somewhere specifying that Mac unlocking with the Apple Watch should be crippled?

Same here. Unlock apps works. Unlock Mac, not.

 

[hwojtek]

APFS ROM patcher. I was all set to install this for the woman’s 2008 MBP 5,1. Then a “you might brick” your machine warning came up that I’ve never seen with this tool.
Minor heart flutter engaged. I can’t find a resource that shows me where to find the ROM chip to verify this. Any help would be appreciated. I even looked on a spare board I had laying around, nothing scream ROM chip.

I was patching my dad's MBP 5,4 yesterday and opened it before flashing just to make sure which chip has been installed on the motherboard. After a couple of seconds I've found this:

Yours can be different, of course, but will likely look almost the same.

 

[andreas_stgt]

Hi, my MacBookPro 15" 2009 MBP5,3 uses this EEPROM type: SST 25VF032B. SST must be the company name like MX=MacroniX and lately Micron, so SST is an different eeprom type than MX ... i think.
Anyone used APFS Patcher with same MBP5,3 before? i ask because i dont know if only that MX25... eeproms, pic shown a few post before shows 3 MX25... - or the patcher support / cam detect also SST 25... and will use dedected SST 25 / or asks which SST 25... like asking for the 3 MX types?
Or does the patcher only support those 3 MX ... eeprom types?

I didnt run the APFS patcher already because i am unsure if it can handle non MX eeprom type. I dont know, if SST is unknown/ unsupported, the patcher tells that "unsupported ROM" = good or tries to flash (i dont think so but that would be an RISK).

EDIT: SUCESS with the SST ... eprom. Look a few posts later