macOS 10.15 Catalina on Unsupported Macs

[MidniteBass]

Hi everyone. Love using this patcher for older machines, really happy to see my older 2008 to 2010 MacBooks running Catalina smoothly. Have run into some issues getting Catalina patcher to install on my iMac 8,1. The first half always goes through fine, but when rebooting it immediately goes back to the patch installer (when using a bootable installer). I thought it might be something with APFS not reading correctly and possibly being a hardware issue, but I then installed Mojave using the patcher with no issues as APFS. I then tried using the "Install on this machine" option while on Mojave, and as before the first half of the install goes through fine, but when restarting it goes back into Mojave. Does anyone know what might be causing this? Have tried holding down the option key at boot (someone else had the same issue but did this and saw the MacOS install option for the second half install) but no luck, only saw my main drive.

 

[K two]

Hi everyone. Love using this patcher for older machines, really happy to see my older 2008 to 2010 MacBooks running Catalina smoothly. Have run into some issues getting Catalina patcher to install on my iMac 8,1. The first half always goes through fine, but when rebooting it immediately goes back to the patch installer (when using a bootable installer). I thought it might be something with APFS not reading correctly and possibly being a hardware issue, but I then installed Mojave using the patcher with no issues as APFS. I then tried using the "Install on this machine" option while on Mojave, and as before the first half of the install goes through fine, but when restarting it goes back into Mojave. Does anyone know what might be causing this? Have tried holding down the option key at boot (someone else had the same issue but did this and saw the MacOS install option for the second half install) but no luck, only saw my main drive.

Boot ROM version #?? Look up in System Information/Hardware on 9th line down. You have a working @dosdude1 v.1.4.4 USB patcher? Before proceeding further boot CMD - r, once in Recovery under the Utilities menu run Terminal, enter csrutil disable then immediately reboot.

 

[hollow-again]

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?

View attachment 1755532

I think I may have bricked my MacBook Pro. I can’t reinstall Catalina. It crashes after a few minutes during install. And I can’t install El Capitan (the last supported OS). I get an error saying no eligible packages found.

 

[K two]

I think I may have bricked my MacBook Pro. I can’t reinstall Catalina. It crashes after a few minutes during install. And I can’t install El Capitan (the last supported OS). I get an error saying no eligible packages found.

Not bricked, restart CMD - r, if successful run Disk Utility on the boot drive, if OK, Restore from Time Machine. A good working BU on an external drive is ESSENTIAL when dabbling with unsupported Macs. And utilizing a TM BU, one can employ Migration Assistant on a pave>full re-install to restore things to normal. If the HDD was replaced w/SSD, the old HDD could be used with Migration Assistant, as well. FWIW

 

[trifero]

I think I may have bricked my MacBook Pro. I can’t reinstall Catalina. It crashes after a few minutes during install. And I can’t install El Capitan (the last supported OS). I get an error saying no eligible packages found.

there is a very known problem with El capitan reintalling. About date.

 

[fussel132]

Hey guys,
I was checking out the Home Application a few hours ago and there seems to be some issues with showing the stuff. As long as the Devices/Scenes are turned on, everything seems to work properly. But if a device is turned off, I only see a shadow of where the button should be. Anyone ever noticed or had that issue? A workaround to fix that? For me it seems to be a graphical issue. I have attached a screenshot below.
Greetings,
Fussel132

 

[trifero]

Hey guys,
I was checking out the Home Application a few hours ago and there seems to be some issues with showing the stuff. As long as the Devices/Scenes are turned on, everything seems to work properly. But if a device is turned off, I only see a shadow of where the button should be. Anyone ever noticed or had that issue? A workaround to fix that? For me it seems to be a graphical issue. I have attached a screenshot below.
Greetings,
Fussel132

Same here. In a Macbook Pro 17 2011. I think its because of the integrated GPu.

 

[macinfo]

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.

I didn’t know of a distinction between matte and glossy, one having CCFL backlight and others LED. I thought that all early 2008 models got the LED-backlight treatment. Ahh, now I remember that there was a special dosdude-patch for the 17inch model which had problems ’cause of its CCFL backlight.

Just looked here https://everymac.com/systems/apple/...-pro-core-2-duo-early-2008-penryn-models.html

Partial screenshot of that page:

 

[Larsvonhier]

Same here. In a Macbook Pro 17 2011. I think its because of the integrated GPu.

It´s not because of the integrated GPU, but because of the GPU that´s integrated. (Small pun for non-mother tongue speakers).

In detail: On machines with non-metal capable GPUs (intergrated or discrete) we have to rely on the OpenGL framework patches to make the GUI shine as well as possible. Some apps rely on the metal framework and have not been patched (like Zoom i.e.) to run on OpenGL as well. In some cases you´ll crash the app, sometimes rendering is missing stuff (home app, newer iMovie etc.), sometimes color schemes are amiss (maps renders satellite images too dark).
As long as we do not get the previous apps running on current macOS or just use the old ones (iMovie) or someone finds a patch to the apps or the frameworks they rely on, we have to live with that. Only in Mac Pro and some iMacs there is the solution to swap the GPU card with a metal capable one. All others might find fun in attaching an eGPU for metal - with varying results when mixed in operation with the internal MacBook GPU.

 

[MidniteBass]

Boot ROM version #?? Look up in System Information/Hardware on 9th line down. You have a working @dosdude1 v.1.4.4 USB patcher? Before proceeding further boot CMD - r, once in Recovery under the Utilities menu run Terminal, enter csrutil disable then immediately reboot.

Thanks so much!

csrutil disable

did the trick and now running great w/o issues.

 

[manuelmc]

Thanks a lot to all of you.

View attachment 1754922

Hey!
One question: Have you installed Catalina on top of Mojave in your MacBook Aluminum late 2008? Or have you installed it from scratch, formatting the hard drive altogether?

 

[K two]

Hey!
One question: Have you installed Catalina on top of Mojave in your MacBook Aluminum late 2008? Or have you installed it from scratch, formatting the hard drive altogether?

Ahoy. If considering Catalina on Aluminum Macbook, strongly suggest updating the HDD with a SSD and installing 8GB RAM. Easy to do - and while in there replace the decomposing SATA cable for good measure. The orig HDD can be used w/Migration Assistant using this adapter https://www.amazon.com/High-Speed-D...618422271&sprefix=usb2+to+sata,aps,199&sr=8-6 after the fresh macOS install to move things over. FWIW

 

[makra]

Ahoy. If considering Catalina on Aluminum Macbook, strongly suggest updating the HDD with a SSD and installing 8GB RAM. Easy to do - and while in there replace the decomposing SATA cable for good measure. The orig HDD can be used w/Migration Assistant using this adapter https://www.amazon.com/High-Speed-Dual-Drive-Adapter/dp/B01JUBGRAQ/ref=sr_1_6?crid=ERQUEJO2ZUOU&dchild=1&keywords=usb+2+to+sata+adapter&qid=1618422271&sprefix=usb2+to+sata,aps,199&sr=8-6 after the fresh macOS install to move things over. FWIW

My adapters are rather primitive USB 3.0-hard drive cases (about the same price), which afterwards grant the original HDD an afterlife...

 

[K two]

My adapters are rather primitive USB 3.0-hard drive cases (about the same price), which afterwards grant the original HDD an afterlife...

USB2 ports on early Macs are hard-pressed with a single power source adapter, they will work but not as fast as two-port powered adapters. Price point is virtually the same. The USB3 enclosures work well w/SSDs. FWIW

 

[K two]

Latest Security Update Beta runs identical to H1026. Smooth update.

 

[K two]

So far, no issues with this Security Update Beta using these tools to make the update.

 

[Larsvonhier]

Same here. All well on MP3,1 (legacy GPU), with UI improvement patch still working also.

 

[Macbook_catalina]

Thanks a lot to all of you.

 

[windrider42]

I updated yesterday as well. Went the same way as the previous post I made. It froze part way and had to shut down, then did patches, updates as well and all is good

 

[gw463]

Update 19H1030 on Macpro3.1 with OCLP without problem...

 

[K two]

No Bluetooth here! 😣 Please note - A SMC reset fixes it. (If you see this.)

 

[K two]

Jury was out for the Beta3 Update. 👀

Further - needed Validation Patch Update, MRT to 177 via SilentNight, Onyx/Maintenance and few reboots to finally get Build 19H1208 to settle down. All good, now. YMMV

 

[gw463]

Update Macpro 3.1 to 19H1208 no problem with OCLP 0.1.0 thank's

 

[Larsvonhier]

Has anyone also noticed presumably screwed SMB connections to shares?
Happened here after installing 19H1208 build.
Logging in on remote server for file access now stalls forever…
Will see if this is in H1030 also.

 

[K two]

Has anyone also noticed presumably screwed SMC connections to shares?
Happened here after installing 19H1208 build.
Logging in on remote server for file access now stalls forever…
Will see if this is in H1030 also.

SMC had to be reset after H1030 was OK in H1208. Don't you mean SMB?