macOS 11 Big Sur on Unsupported Macs Thread

[joevt]

Hi @jackluke - I am trying to work with EFI code, and I saw you've included a UEFIShell.efi in your very helpful OpenCore package. I copied that into a FAT32 partition on its own as bootx64.efi and it boots up and works fine, but whenever I try to run any other .efi file from it (even a mega-simple program to print "Hello, World!" and return EFI_SUCCESS) then whilst the other EFI works and runs fine to completion, the UEFI shell then hangs and doesn't return to its command prompt. Have you seen this behaviour? Do you have any tips?! (EDIT: It does exactly the same behaviour if I enable and run it from within OpenCore tools, I just checked.)

(Sorry if this is getting close to off-topic, I'd be very happy to accept any suggestions for somewhere better to discuss/ask about this!)

I tried a few versions of the EFI Shell on my MacPro3,1:

IFS=$'\n'
for thefile in $(find /Volumes/Updates/Misc_Software/rEFIt /Volumes/REFIND /Volumes/rEFInd* /Volumes/rEFIt /Volumes/Shell -iname 'Shell*.efi' -not -path '*/AArch64/*' -not -path '*/Arm/*' -not -iname '*Ia32*' -not -ipath '*/Ia32/*' -not -ipath '*/Ipf/*' -not -path '*/Mac EFI info/*' 2> /dev/null); do
    eval $(stat -s "$thefile")
    if (( st_size > 10000 )); then
        echo $(printf "%010d" "$st_size") $(md5 -q "$thefile") "$thefile"
    fi
done | sort

Spoiler: refind.conf

# 0001213280 45d7e15d83bada4d93792b7bbe629de5
# Doesn't work on MacPro3,1
menuentry "OpenCore OpenShell" {
    icon \EFI\refind\icons\tool_shell.png
    loader \EFI\OpenCore-0.6.1\EFI\OC\Tools\OpenShell.efi
    disabled
}

# 0000392352 a0d861c975ba93c76dd74731274ed3b1
# Uefi doesn't work on MacPro3,1
menuentry "MinUefiShell" {
    icon \EFI\refind\icons\tool_shell.png
    loader \EFI\ShellBinPkg\MinUefiShell\X64\Shell.efi
    disabled
}

# 0000939648 b1f99a44c80e0593ea009e5c5b4948f4
# Uefi doesn't work on MacPro3,1
menuentry "UefiShell" {
    icon \EFI\refind\icons\tool_shell.png
    loader \EFI\ShellBinPkg\UefiShell\X64\Shell.efi
    disabled
}

# 0000875456 666ef50ddea21d8bfde7231a47d32104 Clover r5122
# Uefi doesn't work on MacPro3,1
menuentry "Clover Shell64U" {
    icon \EFI\refind\icons\tool_shell.png
    loader \EFI\Clover_r5122\tools\Shell64U.efi
    disabled
}

# 0001135040 d327f564b264976ca4d7765d8638320e Clover r5122
menuentry "Clover Shell64" {
    icon \EFI\refind\icons\tool_shell.png
    loader \EFI\Clover_r5122\tools\Shell64.efi
}

# 0000362720 f5c3c2c7d3c12e6b03b72a13dc514c4f edk2-UDK2018/EdkShellBinPkg/MinimumShell/X64/Shell.efi
# disabled because it's minimum
menuentry "UDK2018 MinimumShell" {
    icon \EFI\refind\icons\tool_shell.png
    loader \EFI\edk2-UDK2018\EdkShellBinPkg\MinimumShell\X64\Shell.efi
    disabled
}

# 0000771136 082080109f0d31e7f53c1774a52feec2 edk2-UDK2018/EdkShellBinPkg/FullShell/X64/Shell_Full.efi
menuentry "UDK2018 FullShell" {
    icon \EFI\refind\icons\tool_shell.png
    loader \EFI\edk2-UDK2018\EdkShellBinPkg\FullShell\X64\Shell_Full.efi
}

# 0000417600 45c2110fc7a2088e43496b292e915a76 edk2-UDK2018/ShellBinPkg/MinUefiShell/X64/Shell.efi
# Uefi doesn't work on MacPro3,1
menuentry "UDK2018 MinUefiShell" {
    icon \EFI\refind\icons\tool_shell.png
    loader \EFI\edk2-UDK2018\ShellBinPkg\MinUefiShell\X64\Shell.efi
    disabled
}

# 0000951744 63e2e5fbfb5e1a888a8485adaf97c288 edk2-UDK2018/ShellBinPkg/UefiShell/X64/Shell.efi
# Uefi doesn't work on MacPro3,1
menuentry "UDK2018 UefiShell" {
    icon \EFI\refind\icons\tool_shell.png
    loader \EFI\edk2-UDK2018\ShellBinPkg\UefiShell\X64\Shell.efi
    disabled
}

# 0000362592 1e1387f12a18097db7a145b9972c0b94 edk2-UDK2010.SR1/EdkShellBinPkg/MinimumShell/X64/Shell.efi
# disabled because it's old
menuentry "UDK2010.SR1 MinimumShell" {
    icon \EFI\refind\icons\tool_shell.png
    loader \EFI\edk2-UDK2010.SR1\EdkShellBinPkg\MinimumShell\X64\Shell.efi
    disabled
}

# 0000771072 c100999ee5aab596e3a3d60432ab55b8 edk2-UDK2010.SR1/EdkShellBinPkg/FullShell/X64/Shell_Full.efi
# disabled because it's old
menuentry "UDK2010.SR1 FullShell" {
    icon \EFI\refind\icons\tool_shell.png
    loader \EFI\edk2-UDK2010.SR1\EdkShellBinPkg\FullShell\X64\Shell_Full.efi
    disabled
}

# 0000359840 670efb800fd9c332f1460a5e6d576e12 edk2-UDK2010.SR1/ShellBinPkg/MinUefiShell/X64/Shell.efi
# Uefi doesn't work on MacPro3,1
menuentry "UDK2010.SR1 MinUefiShell" {
    icon \EFI\refind\icons\tool_shell.png
    loader \EFI\edk2-UDK2010.SR1\ShellBinPkg\MinUefiShell\X64\Shell.efi
    disabled
}

# 0000881184 47817de4dcd4aff5764daa4fd3e3c10e edk2-UDK2010.SR1/ShellBinPkg/UefiShell/X64/Shell.efi
# Uefi doesn't work on MacPro3,1
menuentry "UDK2010.SR1 UefiShell" {
    icon \EFI\refind\icons\tool_shell.png
    loader \EFI\edk2-UDK2010.SR1\ShellBinPkg\UefiShell\X64\Shell.efi
    disabled
}

# 0000354400 ab8911ed7d9f7d06c51c564a0e02eaf5 edk2-UDK2010/EdkShellBinPkg/MinimumShell/X64/Shell.efi
# disabled because it's old
menuentry "UDK2010 MinimumShell" {
    icon \EFI\refind\icons\tool_shell.png
    loader \EFI\edk2-UDK2010\EdkShellBinPkg\MinimumShell\X64\Shell.efi
    disabled
}

# 0000755648 2bf7747032b06b2c1f98376ac0f2c743 edk2-UDK2010/EdkShellBinPkg/FullShell/X64/Shell_Full.efi
# disabled because it's old
menuentry "UDK2010 FullShell" {
    icon \EFI\refind\icons\tool_shell.png
    loader \EFI\edk2-UDK2010\EdkShellBinPkg\FullShell\X64\Shell_Full.efi
    disabled
}

# 0000344512 91d90c7dcdafc40e27fc881c359b4888 UDK2010/MyWorkSpace/ShellBinPkg/MinUefiShell/X64/Shell.efi
# Uefi doesn't work on MacPro3,1
menuentry "myUDK2010 MinUefiShell" {
    icon \EFI\refind\icons\tool_shell.png
    loader \EFI\myUDK2010\ShellBinPkg\MinUefiShell\X64\Shell.efi
    disabled
}

# 0000847232 bee8531ac28e31e89b630bd75582b9a9 UDK2010/MyWorkSpace/ShellBinPkg/UefiShell/X64/Shell.efi
# Uefi doesn't work on MacPro3,1
menuentry "myUDK2010 UefiShell" {
    icon \EFI\refind\icons\tool_shell.png
    loader \EFI\myUDK2010\ShellBinPkg\UefiShell\X64\Shell.efi
    disabled
}

# 0001961712 46d712c389d9f0e5d55fa45c942f7f5f refit-src-0.14post shell.efi (fat)

Of course, only the older, non-UEFI Shells will work on my MacPro3,1.
I use edk2-UDK2018\EdkShellBinPkg\FullShell\X64\Shell_Full.efi
(UDK2018 is a branch of edk2 on GitHub).

 

[Alain13]

Anyone knows if is possible to make the iMac 13,2 (late 2012) supports the Apple Watch unlock?

 

[Alex-Microsmeta]

I just tried Big Sur beta 10 with patcher v0.4.2 on my MacBook6,1, and for the first time since beta 3, USB 1.1 is working. (The change I made in patcher v0.4.2, by the way, is that patch-kexts.sh uses beta 3's kmutil if LegacyUSBInjector is being installed.)

All I can suggest for now is to try running zap-snapshots.sh and see if that fixes USB. I doubt it will, but I can't think of anything else to try.

Actually, I just thought of one more thing to try: Try booting with Command-S for Single User mode, then run "exit" to continue booting. (If this trick is going to work, then the USB keyboard will work once it's in Single User mode.) I don't expect this to work either, but please let me know if it does.

Reinstalled BS B10 from scratch (from Catalina to avoid resetting PRAM) and not over beta 9. Stage 3 completed from OpenCore , then applied 0.4.2 (NO ERRORS). Still no USB mouse and keyboard.

UPDATE! @Barry K. Nathan @jackluke Tried Command + S exit and USB mouse and keyboard WORK INSTANTLY!!! (better than the SLOOOW magic mouse 😂 ) I hope that you can use this to fix mouse and keyboard on next releases.

 

[MacHacJac]

I've seen apparent cable errors that actually turned out to be the drive. I guess I would suggest replacing the cable first, then replacing the drive if the cable doesn't fix it -- but if it's cheaper or easier to replace the drive, then you could try replacing the drive first if you want.

Tomorrow I'm gonna be testing the drive on another MacBook (2010) and will also check out the SATA cable. I doubt that my SSD is failing, as it is a very respectable Samsung SSD, but who knows. I hope it's not the drive as it cost me $120 USD back in 2017.

 

[haralds]

There are changes in Big Sur's kernel that prevent the Catalina IO80211Family.kext (or any of its Plugins) from working on Big Sur. It might be theoretically possible to create some kind of shim, but I personally doubt it would be worth the effort. (It might end up being easier to just directly binary patch the Big Sur IO80211Family.kext or its Plugins.)

That doesn't answer the Bluetooth question (is there a need to downgrade the Bluetooth driver?), but hopefully that answers the WiFi question.

I have not fully qualified Continuity beyond Watch Unlock. It's always been a bit hokey due on the cMP to poor antenna locations. Catalina and Mojave work ok.

 

[justperry]

I've been having a lot of issues in the past few days that have been really bugging me. I keep getting kernel panics on my Mac and sometimes my SSD wonks up. I have received quite a few DMs, both on Discord and here about my patcher updates and I assure you that a lot of work is being done, I just don't have the time to post updates every few minutes, especially given the major issues my Mac is facing. I am considering completely wiping and resetting my SSD to start from a clean slate, and keep all of the important files on a backup, including the patcher. However, there is a big problem affecting my Mac right now. I ran a hardware test to see if the kernel panics were due to hardware, but it isn't hardware, fortunately. However, it seems my SATA cable is a goner (See attached image).
Unless one of you tells me that it's not the SATA cable that's the problem, I will have to replace it, meaning a day or two without the patcher. My Mac has been really problematic lately and I am considering trying to reconcile my freshly acquired broken 2013 iMac for daily use, as my 2011 MBP has too many issues to be productively usable. I really want to keep this Mac alive though because I need it to test graphics acceleration on Big Sur. Consequently, the work on my patcher has been moving forward, but very slowly. I am reaching out to @ASentientBot about graphics acceleration as well. I really want to keep this Mac alive though because I need it to test graphics acceleration on Big Sur. Any help is appreciated in these hard computer times. I just want to let you all know that I'm still here and on Discord to help and support everyone and I want to let you know that I'll never let you down. If anyone has any suggestions for me about my 2011, the patcher, or a solution to the SATA problem, please let me know. I really hate having to dodge kernel panics on every single boot.
Thank you and peace out. I will never let you down.
-MacHacJac

I found this:
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203648

 

[MacHacJac]

Alright guys, I tested the drive in another Mac, and everything is fine with the drive, thankfully. The SATA cable is also not working. I can pretty much confirm this too upon reading @justperry 's comment above. I'm really glad I don't need to replace any parts and that my Mac is working fine. I sure hope that I can safely fix my kernel panic issue.
I truly appreciate all the support!

 

[alexcorpse]

I've been trying to install big sur on my laptop with 3337U cpu and HD4000 for more than 20 days and always obc startimage failed aborted

 

[Ausdauersportler]

I've been trying to install big sur on my laptop with 3337U cpu and HD4000 for more than 20 days and always obc startimage failed aborted

Is this an Apple system?

 

[Th3odor3]

Kepler cards should work natively In Big Sur.

I have Intel Graphics and Nvidia GTX 780m on my iMac late 2013, how do I configure them to both work in Big Sur.

 

[Ausdauersportler]

I have Intel Graphics and Nvidia GTX 780m on my iMac late 2013, how do I configure them to both work in Big Sur.

Download the latest Big Sur Beta 10, get the micro patcher from this site, follow the instructions step by step, possibly your system does not need any patching.

At least explain what do you mean by using both the Intel graphics (iGPU) and the 780M?

Currently there is no way to enable H.264 iGPU (HD3000) support with the 2011 iMacs, I guess the same could apply to your machine - welcome in the world of unsupported systems.

 

[justperry]

Alright guys, I tested the drive in another Mac, and everything is fine with the drive, thankfully. The SATA cable is also not working. I can pretty much confirm this too upon reading @justperry 's comment above. I'm really glad I don't need to replace any parts and that my Mac is working fine. I sure hope that I can safely fix my kernel panic issue.
I truly appreciate all the support!

You could also try with a stable OS, like Mojave, if there are no kernel panics you are good to go, or try another disk, you might have an old harddisk lying around.

 

[Mark Meretz]

Yes with me iMac 2011 with the K2000m and Intel 3000 runs, even after swapping the AppleGVA.framework no success with H264 but it's still beta

 

[MacHacJac]

You could also try with a stable OS, like Mojave, if there are no kernel panics you are good to go, or try another disk, you might have an old harddisk lying around.

The problem is that I can't transfer my data from Catalina to Mojave. How can I do that?

 

[yukari]

From my limited use of Big Sur beta, I notice that Wondershare's AllMyTube application can't download videos. It just stalls. Have anyone else notice this? Thank you.

Yup. It does not work.

But you can use Downloader from Wondershare UniConverter.

 

[Barry K. Nathan]

UPDATE! @Barry K. Nathan @jackluke Tried Command + S exit and USB mouse and keyboard WORK INSTANTLY!!! (better than the SLOOOW magic mouse 😂 ) I hope that you can use this to fix mouse and keyboard on next releases.

Just to make sure I understand, this is happening when booting directly into the patched Big Sur installation, without using OpenCore?

Edit: Either way (OpenCore or no OpenCore), I think this may be patchable, but I just want to be sure I understand what's going on first.

 

[Barry K. Nathan]

Currently there is no way to enable H.264 iGPU (HD3000) support with the 2011 iMacs, I guess the same could apply to your machine - welcome in the world of unsupported systems.

H.264 GPU support certainly works with HD4000 on my Late 2012 13" MBP. I would expect it to work on all the 2012/2013 Macs.

 

[MacHacJac]

Ok, thanks to @mario_bros_tech 's advice, I'm gonna do this to completely reset my Mac without losing data.
1) Get an Ubuntu USB. Open Terminal and completely ATA secure erase my SSD so that NOTHING stays. I want all of my stuff gone.
2) Install macOS Mojave with the dosdude1 patcher (I have a 2011 13").
3) Set up completely, making my full user account with iCloud and everything, but NOT restoring from backup, as my Mojave backups are corrupted by all the drive modifications I made in the past.
4) Manually move all the files I want from "Latest" in the backup (fortunately it will be easy to not copy system files as I previously had Catalina) into my account.
I hope this will give me a clean slate with my Mac and I won't have to worry about these dumb issues anymore. I think I've Tampered with partitioning a little too much, so I think starting over might be a good idea.

 

[MacHacJac]

Also, shoutout to @Barry K. Nathan for the Linux USB suggestion!

 

[Alex-Microsmeta]

Just to make sure I understand, this is happening when booting directly into the patched Big Sur installation, without using OpenCore?

Edit: Either way (OpenCore or no OpenCore), I think this may be patchable, but I just want to be sure I understand what's going on first.

Yes, without OpenCore. Just tested again, and they are fast and full responsives (keyboard with working leds) too. Chinese 20$ wired devices

 

[DaFunkySapiens]

Bonjour mes amis.

Download the latest Big Sur Beta 10, get the micro patcher from this site, follow the instructions step by step, possibly your system does not need any patching.

At least explain what do you mean by using both the Intel graphics (iGPU) and the 780M?

Currently there is no way to enable H.264 iGPU (HD3000) support with the 2011 iMacs, I guess the same could apply to your machine - welcome in the world of unsupported systems.

So I've tried everything posted in this forum but nothing works for me installing Big Sur on my MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid 2012). Downloaded the latest Big Sur Beta 10 and micro patcher installed and followed the instructions. As always I end up on the grey screen after I should See the installer. I always get stuck on step 10 of instruction and only see see dark grey screen with my mouse and nothing else.

I read that changing the language to English would do the trick but that won't help either.

Any help here?

 

[Bmju]

I tried a few versions of the EFI Shell on my MacPro3,1:

IFS=$'\n'
for thefile in $(find /Volumes/Updates/Misc_Software/rEFIt /Volumes/REFIND /Volumes/rEFInd* /Volumes/rEFIt /Volumes/Shell -iname 'Shell*.efi' -not -path '*/AArch64/*' -not -path '*/Arm/*' -not -iname '*Ia32*' -not -ipath '*/Ia32/*' -not -ipath '*/Ipf/*' -not -path '*/Mac EFI info/*' 2> /dev/null); do
    eval $(stat -s "$thefile")
    if (( st_size > 10000 )); then
        echo $(printf "%010d" "$st_size") $(md5 -q "$thefile") "$thefile"
    fi
done | sort

Thanks for the answer!

The UEFI Shell I had found already does run.

The only problem I had was that if I run another .efi program from within it, then after that other one has run and finished, everything hangs.

I use edk2-UDK2018\EdkShellBinPkg\FullShell\X64\Shell_Full.efi
(UDK2018 is a branch of edk2 on GitHub).

I've just tried that shell - it also runs fine - but does the same thing. :-(

 

[Barry K. Nathan]

I have just released Big Sur Micropatcher v0.4.3. Release notes:

• Fix 2011 iMac Metal GPU patches (the combination of beta 10 and micropatcher v0.4.2 caused kernel panics). Also fix unpatch-kexts.sh so it fully removes the 2011 iMac Metal GPU patches. Thanks to Ausdauersportler for these fixes.
• Various README updates.
• patch-kexts.sh finally has automatic Mac model detection. (This feature is not yet documented in the README. The old command line options like --2010 and --2011 override the automatic model detection, so they still work -- in fact, they are still needed if a Big Sur installation is being patched on one Mac before it is run on another Mac.) Note that the --iMac option must still be specified manually for 2011 iMacs with Metal GPUs.

GitHub - barrykn/big-sur-micropatcher: A primitive USB patcher for installing macOS Big Sur on unsupported Macs

A primitive USB patcher for installing macOS Big Sur on unsupported Macs - barrykn/big-sur-micropatcher

github.com

 

[Barry K. Nathan]

Bonjour mes amis.



So I've tried everything posted in this forum but nothing works for me installing Big Sur on my MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid 2012). Downloaded the latest Big Sur Beta 10 and micro patcher installed and followed the instructions. As always I end up on the grey screen after I should See the installer. I always get stuck on step 10 of instruction and only see see dark grey screen with my mouse and nothing else.

View attachment 970375

I read that changing the language to English would do the trick but that won't help either.

Any help here?

Try resetting NVRAM, then repeat step 9, then try step 10 again.

 

[justperry]

The problem is that I can't transfer my data from Catalina to Mojave. How can I do that?

Ok, thanks to @mario_bros_tech 's advice, I'm gonna do this to completely reset my Mac without losing data.
1) Get an Ubuntu USB. Open Terminal and completely ATA secure erase my SSD so that NOTHING stays. I want all of my stuff gone.
2) Install macOS Mojave with the dosdude1 patcher (I have a 2011 13").
3) Set up completely, making my full user account with iCloud and everything, but NOT restoring from backup, as my Mojave backups are corrupted by all the drive modifications I made in the past.
4) Manually move all the files I want from "Latest" in the backup (fortunately it will be easy to not copy system files as I previously had Catalina) into my account.
I hope this will give me a clean slate with my Mac and I won't have to worry about these dumb issues anymore. I think I've Tampered with partitioning a little too much, so I think starting over might be a good idea.

I see you already got some help, my eyes where shut at that time.
Hope the KP's are over.