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macinfo

macrumors regular
Aug 29, 2007
178
485
Another (real) speciality is the CFL backlight in non-glare (matte) screen versions of this machine. Support for function-key-changing the screen brightness is gone since a while (10.15.4 or so...).
Mhh, for me changing screen brightness with function keys is working (MBP4,1 10.15.7 build 19H15 dosdude1 patcher). Maybe the later Security Updates break that function?
 

windrider42

Contributor
Aug 19, 2018
72
73
Alberta
No, just the usual - X-Protect and MRT needed to be updated but overall this build uses less OS overhead than previous. Used CatalinaOTAswufix.app, USBOpenCoreAPFSloader3.app and @dosdude1 Catalina Patcher v.1.4.4 on USB upon reboot. Big thanks to @jackluke for his great update tools.

Hello to all,

Reporting successful installation of latest (beta developer ?) supplement resulting in:
System Version: macOS 10.15.7 (19H1026)
Used method as described in post #13,956 on this page (see above)

I did experience a freeze after last reboot in the install process, however, resolved this by shutting down MacBook Pro by pressing (and holding) power button, then rebooting into the USB stick with dosdudes1's patcher, applying patches, rebuilding caches and restarting. Note, that it took several attempts before patches took hold. On few reboots patches were not active; I had to activate patcher updater (in utilities folder) before successfully patching, then rebooting the system.
All functions seem available.
I updated successfully as well to 19H1026. I also used Silentknight to update files needed as K two pointed out

And I also experienced a freeze after last reboot into the install process as well. And same I shut down, and ran dosdudes1's patcher, applied patches and rebuild caches.

After that no issues.
 

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Larsvonhier

macrumors 68000
Aug 21, 2016
1,611
2,983
Germany, Black Forest
Interesting. Because all machines I encountered divided into CCFL backlight for matte screen and LED backlight for glossy ones. The CCFL cannot be controlled by F1/F2 keys out of the box and not even with latest dosdude1 patches. There was some additional pre-release patch from dosdude1 that could be applied (he made it available for testing during early 10.15 or even late 10.14 days). Then somehow lost interest in the patch, despite feedback from me and others that it still worked a long time. Only recently (10.15.4 I´d recall) it semi-broke and was only usable when no external screen (via DVI) was attached. Otherwise you´d encounter a login-crash-login-loop until the external screen was detached.
 
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Tweedynamite

macrumors newbie
Apr 2, 2021
6
6
Performance is acceptable for our useage. Some remove and replace the Apple GVA Framework to eek-out a higher video frame rate. See the Mojave on unsupported Macs thread for details, try #18,692 on p.748. Use caution. 🧐
Thanks a lot. I’ve tried to follow your tip and replace the Apple GVA Framework but despite I’m admin, I don’t have the rights to overwrite anything in the system. So I’ve tried to disable SIP from terminal in recovery mode, but it’s impossible « on a modified system », says MacOS. Any thoughts ?

I assume it might be a newbie question, sorry. I made a Hackintosh several years ago on snow leopard, but I’m a bit rusty nowadays.
 
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trifero

macrumors 68030
May 21, 2009
2,944
2,772
Thanks a lot. I’ve tried to follow your tip and replace the Apple GVA Framework but despite I’m admin, I don’t have the rights to overwrite anything in the system. So I’ve tried to disable SIP from terminal in recovery mode, but it’s impossible « on a modified system », says MacOS. Any thoughts ?

I assume it might be a newbie question, sorry. I made a Hackintosh several years ago on snow leopard, but I’m a bit rusty nowadays.
sudo mount -uw /
 

Tweedynamite

macrumors newbie
Apr 2, 2021
6
6
sudo mount -uw /
Sorry I’m not sure I understand. What’s the goal of the command ? Should I type it in recovery mode before I run csrutil disable ? Or should I simply run sudo mount -uw / in my session to access and modify system files ?
 
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trifero

macrumors 68030
May 21, 2009
2,944
2,772
Sorry I’m not sure I understand. What’s the goal of the command ? Should I type it in recovery mode before I run csrutil disable ? Or should I simply run sudo mount -uw / in my session to access and modify system files ?
Sorry. Yes, right in the present session. That will let you write in the HD.
 

fussel132

macrumors newbie
Mar 25, 2021
4
2
The command gives you read-write access (-uw) to your whole system (/) so you can modify your system files. If you modify them with Finder, make sure you restart Finder so that the changes take affect. You can do that by simply typing
Code:
killall Finder
 

Tweedynamite

macrumors newbie
Apr 2, 2021
6
6
The command gives you read-write access (-uw) to your whole system (/) so you can modify your system files. If you modify them with Finder, make sure you restart Finder so that the changes take affect. You can do that by simply typing
Code:
killall Finder
All right. Thank you all !
 
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TimmuJapan

macrumors 6502
Jul 7, 2020
373
651
Using the guide in post #13,956, I was able to update my patched Catalina OS to build 19H524 on a MBP 8,1 (2011). Awesome! You people rock!

Do the Mac gurus in this thread believe that using the method described in post #13,956, we will be able to update patched Catalina installs successfully for the next 1~2 years of security updates? I know that it’s hard to know the future😉, but what do your crystal balls tell you?
 

Ausdauersportler

macrumors 603
Nov 25, 2019
5,007
5,826
Using the guide in post #13,956, I was able to update my patched Catalina OS to build 19H524 on a MBP 8,1 (2011). Awesome! You people rock!

Do the Mac gurus in this thread believe that using the method described in post #13,956, we will be able to update patched Catalina installs successfully for the next 1~2 years of security updates? I know that it’s hard to know the future😉, but what do your crystal balls tell you?
I am not a Guru, but my crystal ball tells me (panta rhei):
  1. The method will need to be adopted with every update.
  2. Possibly we will see a new OpenCore based patcher in near future to overcome this update problems.
 

fussel132

macrumors newbie
Mar 25, 2021
4
2
Hey guys,
finally, I can commit my problem to you. It all started like a week ago when I discovered the Continuity Activation Tool. I am a happy owner of a MacBook Pro 2010 13" (MacBookPro7,1 - BoardID: Mac-F222BEC8) I was given for free last year. It came broken and not operational, but I fixed that and after upgrading RAM and SSD and so on, I installed @dosdude1 's Catalina Patcher (works like a charm, thanks!) and used it for a while, knowing that it is now 10 years old and simply don't support features like Handoff, Airdrop / Airplay and so. As a Windows User I never had experience with Macs before and if something I'll write below is completely wrong or garbage, I apologize for that ;).
But back last week where I stumbled over the CAT-Tool I was interested again in experimenting further with my MacBook. A quick fresh installation of Catalina on another drive and the experimenting could begin! Downloading CAT, not reading anything, just installing and so my first kernel panic was born. I then read that the tool is only supported till OS 10.12 and did some further research on the issue online. I quickly found this thread and began to puzzle together an instruction from the contributions by @jackluke . Doing so, I came to the following result, how to activate continuity features in MacOS Catalina on unsupported Macs:

1. Required Hardware:
For using those features, I would need at least Bluetooth 4.0 supported by my Mac, I found the BCM94331PCIEBT4CAX and was just about to order it when I read through some comments that this AirPort Card won't fit into my Mac at all. So I went on with a BT 4.0 USB dongle, because of the recommended Broadcom chipset, I chose the Asus BT400 dongle.

2. Activate AirDrop:
And thats already where the problems began. @jackluke 's instructions are clear, but sadly there are no patched drivers for MacBookPro7,1 avaiable. With searching in this specific example for changes he made to the drivers and afterwards trying to patch them on my own, it resulted in a kernel panic, but before I was able to modify the AirPortBrcm4360 with my board-id and card type without an issue. It always fails when I delete the Brcm4331 driver, I don't know if i patched it right or so (certainly not, related to my experience), but at that point, I searched for other solutions. And found some: someone in this thread already asked @jackluke for drivers for my Mac. His response was ... crushing? But further on there was another post, that things could work with Yosemite drivers. The risk of kernel panics is not that important for me because I am doing everything on a isolated system. After another hour of installing Yosemite, I thought before I proceed with editing files on my own, I tried the CAT tool and wow, it worked! Airdrop, Continuity features, everything was working properly. The only problem was, Yosemite is also 7 years old and Catalina would be nicer. So I backed up the Yosemite drivers and returned to a fresh Catalina and simply dragged and dropped the Yosemite drivers into catalina, restoring permissions and rebooted. Kernel Crash. As I was just about repatching the drivers out of the recovery mode, the mac booted at the second attempt and AirDrop worked on Catalina! From Mac to Mac and from Mac to iPhone as well as from iPhone to Mac. But it is very instable. A kernel crash at every boot is not that comftable, I have attached all the drivers/files/logs, maybe someone can help? I highly suspect the IO80211FamilyV2.kext, because I havn't have done anything to it as it doesn't exist in Yosemite. But I don't even know what this driver is for so it can be hardware limitations or the old drivers as well, I am not sure. From the kernel crash it seems to be the IO80211Family.kext so the old driver from Yosemite.

3. Continuity:
To enable Continuity I would proceed with @jackluke 's own Continuity Fix script and afterwards insert his patched BluetoothFamily file to whitelist the dongle. But I don't want to do that yet as the AirDrop patch is still too instable.

To sum it up, does anyone know how to fix this kernel crash, or is there another safer way to activate AirDrop on my Mac, maybe the same way @jackluke did for the other machines? I don't know how to patch that on my own, but it seems that to do so you'll need the following information:

JavaScript:
ioreg -l | grep "board-id" | awk '{print $4}'
>>> <"Mac-F222BEC8">
ioreg -r -n ARPT | grep IOName
>>> "IOName" = "pci14e4,432b"
system_profiler -detailLevel mini | grep "Card Type"
>>> 2021-04-04 20:14:46.341 system_profiler[1231:24512] SPUSBDevice: IOCreatePlugInInterfaceForService failed 0xe00002be
>>> 2021-04-04 20:14:46.352 system_profiler[1231:24512] SPUSBDevice: IOCreatePlugInInterfaceForService failed 0xe00002be
>>> Card Type: AirPort Extreme (0x14E4, 0x8D)
system_profiler -detailLevel basic | grep "Model Identifier"
>>> Model Identifier: MacBookPro7,1
>>> 2021-04-04 20:19:16.302 system_profiler[1274:25961] SPUSBDevice: IOCreatePlugInInterfaceForService failed 0xe00002be
>>> 2021-04-04 20:19:16.312 system_profiler[1274:25961] SPUSBDevice: IOCreatePlugInInterfaceForService failed 0xe00002be

Attached are the files before the patch and after, the IO80211Family.kext is patched under Yosemite by the CAT tool and has simply been inserted into Catalina. The IO80211FamilyV2.kext is out of the driver kit by @jackluke , I've compared some of them and came to the conclusion that they are the same and not model specific so that they can be used in any Catalina installation. Also attached is the Kernel Crash Log, maybe that can be fixed by further modifying the patched Yosemite driver as the unpatched one works without Kernel Crashs in Catalina as well (I only tried that once but that can be wrong as well). The screenshot is from the current test version of catalina (very unstable!) but AirDrop works, I havn't tried Continuity out but that should theoretically work as well (I installed the modified file by @jackluke and ran his continuity fix script but havn't logged me in with my Apple ID as I firstly want to get Airdrop better working.

Thanks very much if you read till here, if you can help, a lot more thanks because I am now at a point where I don't know how to continue as I don't have experience. If you need something, just ask :)
So I did some further testing with the attached attempt of a patch and I can say, don't use it as it is incredible unstable. I tried to use the MacBook "Normally" so I started it up, wrote some text with word, send one file to my iPhone, checked the other Continuity features (Handoff and Instant Hotspot worked fine!) and shutted the MB down. In this progress I sometimes had a kernel panic at startup but at the second attempt it always worked. After the first few tests it got worse and worse, it crashed while shutting down or even randomly in mid-use (of Word, not AirDrop or so). I tried to save as much reports as possible, 8 out of 9 were issues with the IO80211Family from Yosemite, the other one occured somewhere at the last possible test and that was a graphical issue (screen was black for around 20 seconds). More than 9 "successful" boots weren't possible, because afterwards, no matter what I tried, it always ended in a boot loop. I have not compared all the crash reports but from quickly looking over them they seem to be very identical. Of course they are attached if that helps. If someone understands the issue or knows how to proceed here I would be very grateful.
Greetings,
fussel132
 

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TimmuJapan

macrumors 6502
Jul 7, 2020
373
651
I was thinking that I might upgrade my motherboard to one that natively supports Catalina. I’d prefer not to wipe my drive and start over if I endeavor down that road. I’m wondering if there is a terminal command to remove the patch updater. Does anyone know?
 

Ausdauersportler

macrumors 603
Nov 25, 2019
5,007
5,826
I was thinking that I might upgrade my motherboard to one that natively supports Catalina. I’d prefer not to wipe my drive and start over if I endeavor down that road. I’m wondering if there is a terminal command to remove the patch updater. Does anyone know?
Just reinstall Catalina once you changed your hardware. It will not overwrite user data or user settings, but it will get rid of all patches.

Honestly I do not know any Apple hardware where you can change a motherboard to get Catalina support. Most time this is tied to the complete package and nowadays in particular to the GPU used.
 

TimmuJapan

macrumors 6502
Jul 7, 2020
373
651
Just reinstall Catalina once you changed your hardware. It will not overwrite user data or user settings, but it will get rid of all patches.

Honestly I do not know any Apple hardware where you can change a motherboard to get Catalina support. Most time this is tied to the complete package and nowadays in particular to the GPU used.
The logic boards of a 13 inch MacBook Pro 9,2 and 8,1 are basically interchangeable. There are some videos on YouTube of people successfully swapping them, with a very minor and safe alteration to one cable. Both the 13 inch macbook pro 8,1 and 9,2 are housed in the A1278 model number. 9,2 natively support Catalina.

Reinstalling the OS will not eliminate the patch updater, and if the patch updater is installed on a machine that natively supports Catalina, the system will relentlessly send you a pop up box believing the patch updater is malware.

Don’t get me wrong, I think Dosdude1’s tool is amazing, but there are some of us who can swap out motherboards to get native Catalina support too.😉
 
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makra

macrumors 6502
Dec 29, 2020
369
385
Northern Germany
The logic boards of a 13 inch MacBook Pro 9,1 and 8,1 are basically interchangeable. There are some videos on YouTube of people successfully swapping them, with a very minor and safe alteration to one cable. Both the 13 inch macbook pro 8,1 and 9,1 are housed in the A1278 model number. 9,1 and 9,2 natively support Catalina.
Just to make sure, you'll get what you need: MBP 9,1 is a 15" machine. The A1278 model is called 9,2.
 

Larsvonhier

macrumors 68000
Aug 21, 2016
1,611
2,983
Germany, Black Forest
Just reinstall Catalina once you changed your hardware. It will not overwrite user data or user settings, but it will get rid of all patches.

Honestly I do not know any Apple hardware where you can change a motherboard to get Catalina support. Most time this is tied to the complete package and nowadays in particular to the GPU used.
That´s not completely true that re-installing Catalina will get rid of all patches. Some framework mods (especially those for OpenGL instead of Metal API) seem to remain.
You can easily verify this with i.e. a Mac Pro that you want to upgrade from non-metal Catalina to native-metal GPUs.
Simply overwriting with new install does not work.

Instead: Make a backup of your boot/user volume. Wipe it. Install from scratch. Use the migration assistant to get your configuration back from the backup (or from a timemachine backup).

Hope this saves you some hassle, @TimmuJapan !
 
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Ausdauersportler

macrumors 603
Nov 25, 2019
5,007
5,826
That´s not completely true that re-installing Catalina will get rid of all patches. Some framework mods (especially those for OpenGL instead of Metal API) seem to remain.
You can easily verify this with i.e. a Mac Pro that you want to upgrade from non-metal Catalina to native-metal GPUs.
Simply overwriting with new install does not work.

Instead: Make a backup of your boot/user volume. Wipe it. Install from scratch. Use the migration assistant to get your configuration back from the backup (or from a timemachine backup).

Hope this saves you some hassle, @TimmuJapan !

This might be true, but special:

I do the GPU changes (non metal -> metal) on a regular basis (in iMacs) and reinstalling using the UBS installer did the job in the past. But I will not claim that this is true in all cases.

In any case having a recovery plan (i.e. backup and restore) is always good and this is the perfect situation to prove it is working :)
 

hollow-again

macrumors newbie
Apr 8, 2021
2
1
After installing Catalina on my late 2008 MacBook Pro, I’m stuck on the screen below. This happens after selecting my user and entering my password. I installed Catalina over an existing install of High Sierra. What do I do from here?

D2FAAED4-2433-4B9A-B841-72C1F35B3A0A.jpeg
 
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