macOS 11 Big Sur on Unsupported Macs Thread

[RITAMA]

View attachment 939814

Thanks to @Muhammad Faruq I am running on my MBP mid 2012, 13" the macOS Big Sur Beta 3 with everything working! Thanks also to @jackluke for his assistance and advice and special thanks to @Barry K. Nathan for his patcher that made all this possible. Great work guys and I am humble to be able to learn from you. Thank you guys!

Congrat.
finally succes, but batery notice service.....

 

[jackluke]

I have a question for jackluke. I saw he somehow solved the problem of disappearing icons in the dock in a light theme, and also my text disappears in the Safari browser. When I type it myself. Is this somehow possible to solve?

EDIT: In dark mode, I see the icons. I think it's the reduce transparency bejunkle. Can someone please post the reducetransparencyfix? I can't find it.

Try this: https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...unsupported-macs-thread.2242172/post-28706998

 

[jackluke]

This new thing Big Sur is doing with these snapshots confuses me on what’s actually going on. I just know it means I can’t use sudo mount -uw /. This app that you linked in your reply; does that get used on the working installation of macOS Big Sur to fix the deal with the snapshots? Or is this just for the install usb?

For fixing the "sudo mount -uw /" you should use the ASentientBot method of apfs_systemsnapshot and diskutil apfs deleteSnapshot from an USB BigSur Installer (in my case worked also from BigSur normal booting), and now with a patched prelinkedkernel BaseSystem.dmg you can do that also from a non-APFS legacy USB Mac using for example the micropatcher .

Or could even use the weird method of power off the BigSur installation during the stage3 installer (use CMD+S or CMD+V) when you notice the run of this command apfs_sealvolume (because after this also the snapshot booting is made), this also worked .

 

[MacHacJac]

Try this: https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...unsupported-macs-thread.2242172/post-28706998

Thanks man. Worked like a charm!

 

[MacHacJac]

So happy to know that my 2011 15" MacBook Pro will work with big sur, for now I'll just await the dosdude patcher and the official release e.e Thanks man <3

I know, right? Unfortunately for you, though, if you have dedicated graphics, (I don't, Intel HD 3000 is integrated) you won't have graphics acceleration. At least everything else is working! Even iGPU is better than display graphics (3 mb for me LOL). I'm just glad to see I can get everything else working

 

[GSXB]

When I run the micro patcher it returns an error apple “boot plist access denied”,any suggestions

 

[sinbad21]

I have a question, with micropatcher method, which works perfectly on my MBP mid 2012 (MacBookPro9,1), there is the possibility to add --seal parameter to the set-vars.sh command. What is preferable ? With or without --seal option ?

 

[page3]

Really noob question, but I’ve not seen an answer anywhere.

Once installed (on late iMac 2013) will future updates work as normal going forward or will each update need a patch and be installed in a different way?

 

[koyado]

micropatcher method work in MacBook Pro 5,5 (mid 2009)??
Thanks

 

[Barry K. Nathan]

micropatcher method work in MacBook Pro 5,5 (mid 2009)??
Thanks

Not yet. @gosvamih's method might be the closest equivalent for now (post #2674). I'll try to get around to it next week or the week after, but I've found a lot of bugs in my patcher in the past few days and I really really need to fix those first.

 

[Barry K. Nathan]

Really noob question, but I’ve not seen an answer anywhere.

Once installed (on late iMac 2013) will future updates work as normal going forward or will each update need a patch and be installed in a different way?

Initially each update will need to be patched and installed in the same way as it was the first time (except that you install on top of the existing Big Sur installation to update it). In the worst case, this update method should be more-or-less adequate up to (and including) macOS Big Sur 11.0.6. Hopefully someone will figure out a better method before then. (It's a problem that I personally won't have a chance to look at for many weeks, I imagine.)

 

[Barry K. Nathan]

When I run the micro patcher it returns an error apple “boot plist access denied”,any suggestions

I've never seen this error but I have some ideas about what might be causing it.

Try creating the install USB with createinstallmedia again, and let me know if it still happens. If it does, then it's probably a bug in my patcher, but the quick-and-dirty workaround might be to run unpatch.sh (or recreate the USB with createinstallmedia again) then run micropatcher.sh with sudo. (And if running createinstallmedia again doesn't fix it, I think I'll have more questions to ask, so I can figure out what's going on, but I'm not yet sure what they will be. I still need to think about that.)

 

[GSXB]

I've never seen this error but I have some ideas about what might be causing it.

Try creating the install USB with createinstallmedia again, and let me know if it still happens. If it does, then it's probably a bug in my patcher, but the quick-and-dirty workaround might be to run unpatch.sh (or recreate the USB with createinstallmedia again) then run micropatcher.sh with sudo. (And if running createinstallmedia again doesn't fix it, I think I'll have more questions to ask, so I can figure out what's going on, but I'm not yet sure what they will be. I still need to think about that.)

I'm recreating the usb as we speak, I've been trying all week to install beta 4 with no joy.
the initial install starts about 14 minutes, at 12 minutes it reboots then it just boot loops
I get. black apple for a few seconds then a white apple for a few seconds then it reboots
and will continue to do so unless I intervene with the option key at which point I can see the installer
beta 2 installed no problems at all, this evades me [ Mac Pro 4.1/5.1 ]

 

[Barry K. Nathan]

I have a question, with micropatcher method, which works perfectly on my MBP mid 2012 (MacBookPro9,1), there is the possibility to add --seal parameter to the set-vars.sh command. What is preferable ? With or without --seal option ?

The seal gets tampered by patch-kexts.sh so there's probably no point in doing it -- except that some methods of fixing the mount -uw / -66 error (or whatever) require sealing.

If you don't know that you must fix the -66 error for some reason, then --seal is a waste of time and electricity. (Well, except on Late 2013 iMacs, where the sealing can actually work as Apple intended.)

 

[Barry K. Nathan]

I'm recreating the usb as we speak, I've been trying all week to install beta 4 with no joy.
the initial install starts about 14 minutes, at 12 minutes it reboots then it just boot loops
I get. black apple for a few seconds then a white apple for a few seconds then it reboots
and will continue to do so unless I intervene with the option key at which point I can see the installer
beta 2 installed no problems at all, this evades me [ Mac Pro 4.1/5.1 ]

(I assume you mean beta 3.)

Are you using FileVault by any chance?

Assuming you're not (although this might work even if you are): Once your Mac gets into this boot loop, intervene with Option, then immediately boot into an earlier version of macOS (not an installer USB, a full installation -- it can be on a USB SSD or hard drive if needed). Once you boot and log into that macOS installation, it should offer to send a report to Apple. Choose to do so. The next window will ask for comments on what you were doing when the crash happened, but there should be a little arrow you can click on, which will expand to show the whole error report. Then you can copy and paste it, and maybe attach it to these forums (or post it directly but put it in spoiler tags or something).

From that, I might be able to figure out what's going on.

(Another thing to try: Add --seal to the command line for set-vars.sh. I don't expect it to fix anything... but who knows? It's worth trying! Edit: If this problem also happened with ParrotGeek's patcher then --seal's not going to fix anything.)

 

[GSXB]

(I assume you mean beta 3.)

Are you using FileVault by any chance?

Assuming you're not (although this might work even if you are): Once your Mac gets into this boot loop, intervene with Option, then immediately boot into an earlier version of macOS (not an installer USB, a full installation -- it can be on a USB SSD or hard drive if needed). Once you boot and log into that macOS installation, it should offer to send a report to Apple. Choose to do so. The next window will ask for comments on what you were doing when the crash happened, but there should be a little arrow you can click on, which will expand to show the whole error report. Then you can copy and paste it, and maybe attach it to these forums (or post it directly but put it in spoiler tags or something).

From that, I might be able to figure out what's going on.

(Another thing to try: Add --seal to the command line for set-vars.sh. I don't expect it to fix anything... but who knows? It's worth trying! Edit: If this problem also happened with ParrotGeek's patcher then --seal's not going to fix anything.)

Yes beta 3 I’m installing now and will post the results ASAP

 

[kinetos]

Successfully installed on 2011 MBP with barrykn's micro patcher with confirmed WiFi, sound, graphics, everything! Can someone help me figure out my menu bar though! It is not visible on the right side (see attached pic). The strange thing is when I click in that area, something like View attachment 939896 wifi pops up, so stuff is there, it's just not visible.

EDIT: In dark mode, I see the icons. I think it's the reduce transparency bejunkle. Can someone please post the reducetransparencyfix? I can't find it.

EDIT 2: Dark mode runs 3x faster than light. For any users who think light mode is slow, try dark. You'll thank me later.

I'm happy to read that I've 8,1 and 8,2 mbp 2011 so I can install big sur? What is your process to install?

 

[Arnomacmini]

I know, right? Unfortunately for you, though, if you have dedicated graphics, (I don't, Intel HD 3000 is integrated) you won't have graphics acceleration. At least everything else is working! Even iGPU is better than display graphics (3 mb for me LOL). I'm just glad to see I can get everything else working

Have you Aidrop working ?

 

[MacHacJac]

I'm happy to read that I've 8,1 and 8,2 mbp 2011 so I can install big sur? What is your process to install?

I used barrykn's micropatcher: https://github.com/barrykn/big-sur-micropatcher
Almost completely automates the process!!! Highly recommend!

 

[nandor690]

Using the commands in BigSur 16gb BaseSystem prelinkedkernel fix.zip and then HaxfixUSB.zip files will get you a complete installation on an unsealed volume. As I mentioned earlier, the resulting install is non-functional until you repeat the usual steps of moving aside PlatformSupport.plist, adding com.apple.Boot.plist, replacing boot.efi and then installing the uncompressed prelinkedkernelb3penryn.zip. Effectively, we still need a postinstall patcher program to perform those steps. Beyond that, the current experimental changes to the Big Sur installer doesn't downgrade the installed copies of AppleHDA.kext and IO80211Family.kext for legacy audio and wifi. That also should be folded into a postinstall patcher program. If you don't want to try to remove the snapshots, you can replace those by mounting the snapshots with...

mkdir /tmp/mntpoint
sudo mount o nobrowse -t apfs /dev/diskXsY /tmp/mntpoint
sudo mount -uw /tmp/mntpoint
(copy the kext to /S*/L*/E* with ditto and 'chmod -R 755' and 'chown -R root:wheel' them)
cd ~
sudo bless --folder /tmp/mntpoint/System/Library/CoreServices --bootefi --create-snapshot
(reboot)

Note: diskXsY is the active root snapshot that 'mount' shows such as disk7s5s1.

This will make the mounted snapshot which had the file changes into the default root after the reboot.

The big problem right now is that very few people seem able to reproduce the art of rebuilding prelinked kernels on unsupported machines such that legacy usb still works. That needs to be sorted so that it is routinely working for everyone on their own machines.

For fixing the "sudo mount -uw /" you should use the ASentientBot method of apfs_systemsnapshot and diskutil apfs deleteSnapshot from an USB BigSur Installer (in my case worked also from BigSur normal booting), and now with a patched prelinkedkernel BaseSystem.dmg you can do that also from a non-APFS legacy USB Mac using for example the micropatcher .

Or could even use the weird method of power off the BigSur installation during the stage3 installer (use CMD+S or CMD+V) when you notice the run of this command apfs_sealvolume (because after this also the snapshot booting is made), this also worked .

ill have to try that again from a Big Sur installer usb. Iv tried it a couple different times from terminal while being booted into Big Sur itself. Maybe that was my problem.
Thanks for the info

 

[MacHacJac]

After using Big Sur for almost a day now, I notice that functionality is awesome, I think even better than Catalina, but there are some places where it's insanely slow. For instance, when I minimize/reopen an app, it takes 20 seconds or more, but the actual app works fine, it that makes sense. The animation of opening/closing apps is very glitchy and slow. Is there a fix for this? (I already tried to turn off the app icon animations). I am using a MBP 8,1 with Intel HD 3000 Graphics that are working

 

[GSXB]

Yes beta 3 I’m installing now and will post the results ASAP

update the results are the same a fresh usb with createinstallmedia then sudo and patched
gave the same results endless boot loops, also no option to send error report
I've checked the com.apple.boot.plist in system configuration and it has been changed
could something else be stopping my progress

 

[rumormiller]

Really noob question, but I’ve not seen an answer anywhere.

Once installed (on late iMac 2013) will future updates work as normal going forward or will each update need a patch and be installed in a different way?

As Barry answered above it seems you have to download and run the Big Sur installer from Catalina for each update. I'm running Big Sur beta 2 on my late iMac 2013 and it's working so well I haven't been too bothered about upgrading to beta 3. Might just wait for beta 4 or beyond. Apparently the installer will upgrade Big Sur not overwrite it so at least that's good.

Sadly Big Sur on an unsupported Mac doesn't see beta 3 update.

Just hit a snag when trying to update from beta 2 to beta 3. Catalina doesn't see my Big Sur volume says it has unsupported disk features. So when running the Big Sur Beta installer it doesn't see my Big Sur volume. It's on an external drive if that matters any? So I'm gonna have to make a usb thumb drive installer and see if that works? https://github.com/barrykn/big-sur-micropatcher Otherwise it seems wiping the Big Sur volume and clean install is the remaining option ?

 

[GSXB]

(I assume you mean beta 3.)

Are you using FileVault by any chance?

Assuming you're not (although this might work even if you are): Once your Mac gets into this boot loop, intervene with Option, then immediately boot into an earlier version of macOS (not an installer USB, a full installation -- it can be on a USB SSD or hard drive if needed). Once you boot and log into that macOS installation, it should offer to send a report to Apple. Choose to do so. The next window will ask for comments on what you were doing when the crash happened, but there should be a little arrow you can click on, which will expand to show the whole error report. Then you can copy and paste it, and maybe attach it to these forums (or post it directly but put it in spoiler tags or something).

From that, I might be able to figure out what's going on.

(Another thing to try: Add --seal to the command line for set-vars.sh. I don't expect it to fix anything... but who knows? It's worth trying! Edit: If this problem also happened with ParrotGeek's patcher then --seal's not going to fix anything.)

I’ve recreated the usb again followed your instruction to the letter
At the install screen opened terminal added the .sh command to set boot arguments and added the -V for verbose boot.
I’ve added the photos, from what I can tell there’s a kernel panic which is invokes the SIGKILL command and that’s based on
My limited knowledge

 

[GSXB]

I’ve recreated the usb again followed your instruction to the letter
At the install screen opened terminal added the .sh command to set boot arguments and added the -V for verbose boot.
I’ve added the photos, from what I can tell there’s a kernel panic which is invokes the SIGKILL command and that’s based on
My limited knowledge View attachment 940047

Here are the remaining photos