macOS 11 Big Sur on Unsupported Macs Thread

[Ausdauersportler]

Happy new year to all!

Still more than 9 hours to spend in 2020...

 

[johnrak]

In case I wasn't clear. I read the notes on GitHub and I found this about Mid 11 iMac.

It says that sleep may not work but it doesn't say anything about fixing it on Mid 11 iMac. Only about fixing sound and wifi. Should I proceed with the installation?

 

[Ausdauersportler]

In case I wasn't clear. I read the notes on GitHub and I found this about Mid 11 iMac.

View attachment 1704207
It says that sleep may not work but it doesn't say anything about fixing it on Mid 11 iMac. Only about fixing sound and wifi. Should I proceed with the installation?

Really tired of explaining that I just added features to the original micro patcher and I did not delete all the references @Barry K. Nathan added to his own documentation (made during six month of development). This may change over time.

If you doubt that the patcher will run on your system forget it. I cannot and I will not talk you into an installation of Big Sur if your doubt is bigger than the facts I experienced using it.

Sorry about the confusing documentation...

Even worse: You pick a single sentence out of a two page introduction beginning with these lines:

"This fork is a copy of the current 0.5.1 version @Barry K. Nathan developed and published enhanced with all necessary patches to install Big Sur on iMac models as: iMac 27" Late 2009 (core i series CPU), iMac Mid 2010 (all systems), iMac Mid 2011 (all systems) if these iMacs have been upgraded with an metal GPU in advance."

Note:

Since your particular system crashes with Apple supported OS versions like High Sierra you have definitely another problem to solve before you move on to unsupported macOS versions like Big Sur.

 

[BadBiscuit]

You have got the wrong version....

Go back to the first post, pick the last listed options of the patchers, do not apply any command line args to the patch-kext.sh unless you fully understand the code or have a serious issue. Only exception may be --ns to enable Night Shift. This throws some nasty errors on the terminal output when running kmutil, but it works.

I learned the hard way that with an iMac and @Ausdauersportler ’s micropatcher fork, you must let it auto detect. As stated, the --ns parm is the only exception to that rule. Don’t be tempted. In my case I had added the “2011” parm and ended up,with a system that would not wake from sleep. If you’ve done this, unpatch, and run again (correctly) to fix the issue. So happy with the results.

Still more than 9 hours to spend in 2020...

Still 10 hours to go here.

Thanks for your help, and have a happy and healthy New Year.

 

[AlexSakha67]

Happy New Year🎄❄
С Новым годом🎄❄
Сана Дьылынан🎄❄
😊👋🤝👍❄Saha Republic

 

[Pinarek]

All people here, also from Germany, have a happy and healthy, as well as successful year 2021.
We hope that Hackintosh's and unsupported Mac's will be able to help here for a long time to come.
Greetings Pinarek

 

[MacHacJac]

Happy New Year from the US!!!

 

[chris1111]

I wish you Happy New Year

 

[alphascorp]

to all of you, I wish you a happy new year 2021

 

[johnrak]

Happy new year from Greece!

I tried to install Big Sur with micropatcher (no OpenCore) and it seems to work fine. The progress bar while installing from the USB to the disk didn't reach the end, the iMac restarted, and I wasn't sure if it's doing anything because the screen was black. 15' later it restarted again, I kept holding option key, selected my disk and it opened Setup Assistant. I restarted again from the USB and applied the patches. Restarted again and was able to boot in Big Sur. I was doing the same thing with Catalina but Catalina had a lot of random kernel panics.
Big Sur works fine for the last 8 hours without kernel panics but I still have black screen during boot unless I hold option key. It's not a major issue since I only want to be able to enter Recovery which was not possible before flashing GPU.

The only issue so far is that the scripts didn't enable Handoff. I have installed a BCM94331CD card which is not 802.11ac. The patch-kexts.sh installed mojave-hybrid and I also tried --wifi=hv12v-new and --wifi=hv12v-old with no luck. Handoff is always shown as unsupported.

I tried to follow this but I get an error with "sudo mount -uw / "

mount_apfs: volume could not be mounted: Permission denied
mount: / failed with 66

Is there any workaround?

 

[Ausdauersportler]

Happy new year from Greece!

I tried to install Big Sur with micropatcher (no OpenCore) and it seems to work fine. The progress bar while installing from the USB to the disk didn't reach the end, the iMac restarted, and I wasn't sure if it's doing anything because the screen was black. 15' later it restarted again, I kept holding option key, selected my disk and it opened Setup Assistant. I restarted again from the USB and applied the patches. Restarted again and was able to boot in Big Sur. I was doing the same thing with Catalina but Catalina had a lot of random kernel panics.
Big Sur works fine for the last 8 hours without kernel panics but I still have black screen during boot unless I hold option key. It's not a major issue since I only want to be able to enter Recovery which was not possible before flashing GPU.

The only issue so far is that the scripts didn't enable Handoff. I have installed a BCM94331CD card which is not 802.11ac. The patch-kexts.sh installed mojave-hybrid and I also tried --wifi=hv12v-new and --wifi=hv12v-old with no luck. Handoff is always shown as unsupported.
View attachment 1704927
I tried to follow this but I get an error with "sudo mount -uw / "

Is there any workaround?

First post, first or last option of patchers, online docs, last section.

Before getting bloody fingers with endless patch sessions you might give the search button on top of the page a try, search for your particular card and limit the results to this thread. You are surely not the first with this card.

Yes, there is a workaround:
Get a BCM94360CD or BCM943602CDP card. The latter one offers in some versions BT 4.2.

EDIT:
If this hack works I can put it in the patcher in an upcoming revision. The first plistbuddy call has already been included, no need to try it again.
I would like to know how to recognise the card....

 

[swatkins01]

End result is I got Big Sur installed and booted, and after running patch-kexts.sh (ran without any switches and it correctly detected to install with --2012), everything including wifi seems to be working.

However, when I was creating the installer, I could not get install-setvars.sh to work. It gave me an error (I unfortunately forgot to copy the exact error message). I read #7 in the instructions, but I don't really understand what might be the implications of installing Big Sur from an installer that had not been patched with install-setvars.sh first. Can anyone tell me what I may be missing? Thanks.

 

[jowaju]

Just an update on Radeon 6x support. Final drivers are being released tomorrow......
Like I told you all weeks ago before it was annnounced apple would no longer provide update packages as standalone! Just annnounced today....I have some ways around this.....stay tuned for announcement Tuesday

Apple no longer offers delta and combo macOS updates - 9to5Mac

No delta or combo updates have been released on the Apple Support website for the latest versions of macOS Big Sur so far.

www.google.com

Just wondering if this is still happening? You posted on December 17th that they were being released in two days and now its been over 2 weeks. Any progress? Beginning to lose hope that this is real at this point...

 

[mdgm]

I think sadly replacing the graphics card with a newer one will remain the only way to run something newer than High Sierra on the 2011 iMacs.

 

[pyedog]

I think sadly replacing the graphics card with a newer one will remain the only way to run something newer than High Sierra on the 2011 iMacs.

Depending on your machine, dosdude's Catalina patcher works reasonably well, but big sur will be disappointing.

 

[Bustycat]

Update from OpenCore Legacy Patcher readme:

DO NOT USE, RISKS OF BRICKING YOUR MAC​

Currently this patcher implementation can apply a firmware update that breaks your machine. To avoid this, we highly recommend users do not use this patcher until we've resolved this.

 

[olad]

Late coming to the table. Happy new year to everyone from Accra, Ghana

 

[Pri-est]

Update from OpenCore Legacy Patcher readme:

DO NOT USE, RISKS OF BRICKING YOUR MAC​

Currently this patcher implementation can apply a firmware update that breaks your machine. To avoid this, we highly recommend users do not use this patcher until we've resolved this.

I got the 11.2 Beta on OpenCored Mac Pro 3.1, all work fine, but no sound, voodoo kext unworkable. BigMac sсript also don't work with 11.2 beta.

 

[furdi]

Happy 2021 to everyone!
I guess there is no full installer for Big Sur 11.2 to be used with @Barry K. Nathan patcher? I'm not willing to try the opencore on my MBP mid 2012 13"... Hope it will arrive soon...

 

[S-Tronic]

Hi there,

my Name is Chris, and I'm from Germany. At first, HAPPY NEW YEAR to all.

I´ve updated my 2012 MBPr 15" with a BCM943602CS-AC-WiFi-Card. On Catalina every works fine, incl. unlock my Macbook by Apple Watch.

After updating to Big Sur, my Mac has a strange behavior, if I close the Display. It go to sleep, but it awake again after 10sec with closed Display (fans are spinning). Maybe 10-15secs later, it go to sleep again. But if I open the Display, I have to tip my Password. It will not Unlock by Apple Watch.

If I put my Macbook to sleep over APPLE=>Sleep, or Press Option+Command+Powerbutton, everything works fine. Awaking the Macbook with any Button, the Macbook unlocks by Apple Watch! Thats Strange.

Is there a Workaround, to make unlocking the Macbook out of Sleep with my Apple Watch, correct?
On GitHub there's no possibility to report direct to BenSova.

Thx 4 respond and greetz from Germany
Chris

 

[johnrak]

I was able to enable Continuity with a BCM94331CD card !
I noticed that on my High Sierra installation (patched with Continuity Activation Tool) there was no AirPortBrcm4331.kext. There was only AirPortBrcm4360.kext.
I removed AirPortBrcm4331.kext and applied patches to AirPortBrcm4360 and AirPortBrcmNIC
I followed the instructions "Modifying the System volume yourself" in micropatcher page and used these commands:

sudo /usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Set:Mac-942B5BF58194151B:ContinuitySupport true" "/System/Volumes/Update/mnt1/System/Library/Frameworks/IOBluetooth.framework/Versions/A/Resources/SystemParameters.plist"
sudo rm -r /System/Volumes/Update/mnt1/System/Library/Extensions/IO80211Family.kext/Contents/PlugIns/AirPortBrcm4331.kext
sudo -E perl -pi -e "s/\Mac-00BE6ED71E35EB86/\Mac-942B5BF58194151B/" /System/Volumes/Update/mnt1/System/Library/Extensions/IO80211Family.kext/Contents/PlugIns/AirPortBrcm4360.kext/Contents/MacOS/AirPortBrcm4360
sudo -E perl -pi -e "s/\Mac-00BE6ED71E35EB86/\Mac-942B5BF58194151B/" /System/Volumes/Update/mnt1/System/Library/Extensions/IO80211Family.kext/Contents/PlugIns/AirPortBrcmNIC.kext/Contents/MacOS/AirPortBrcmNIC

notes:
The above commands work on iMac 21.5 model 942B5BF58194151B with Big Sur 11.1 and BCM94331CD installed.
The SystemParameters.plist patch is also in micropatcher but for some reason Continuity Support was set to false for my Mac model. That's why I included it above.
The patch could also be applied with --wifi=hv12v-old. I'm not sure about --wifi=hv12v-new because it installs only AirPortBrcm4331.kext, not AirPortBrcm4360.kext

I have one more issue. After installing Big Sur (no OpenCore) I'm not able to boot in High Sierra which is installed on another internal SSD. The bar loads slowly and about at 50% I get a no-entry sign. I have a few custom kexts. I tried to reset PRAM, disable SIP, and enable kext-dev-mode without luck.
What else could be the issue? What am I missing?

 

[buckrock]

Hi there,

my Name is Chris, and I'm from Germany. At first, HAPPY NEW YEAR to all.

I´ve updated my 2012 MBPr 15" with a BCM943602CS-AC-WiFi-Card. On Catalina every works fine, incl. unlock my Macbook by Apple Watch.

After updating to Big Sur, my Mac has a strange behavior, if I close the Display. It go to sleep, but it awake again after 10sec with closed Display (fans are spinning). Maybe 10-15secs later, it go to sleep again. But if I open the Display, I have to tip my Password. It will not Unlock by Apple Watch.

If I put my Macbook to sleep over APPLE=>Sleep, or Press Option+Command+Powerbutton, everything works fine. Awaking the Macbook with any Button, the Macbook unlocks by Apple Watch! Thats Strange.

Is there a Workaround, to make unlocking the Macbook out of Sleep with my Apple Watch, correct?
On GitHub there's no possibility to report direct to BenSova.

Thx 4 respond and greetz from Germany
Chris

I can report similar behavior with my 15in rMBP mid-2012, i7, (10,1), with 801.22ac upgrade on Big Sur 11.1 (20C69). I installed BS with Barry's v 0.5.1 micropatcher using the install-setvars.sh -e option in Step 7.

Specifically, when a YouTube video (on Safari) is running and I close the lid, the video momentarily stops and the white Apple light on the cover goes dark. After 3 seconds the light remains off but the video's audio can be heard. As Chris says above, the Apple Menu Sleep works normally.

 

[Ausdauersportler]

I was able to enable Continuity with a BCM94331CD card !
I noticed that on my High Sierra installation (patched with Continuity Activation Tool) there was no AirPortBrcm4331.kext. There was only AirPortBrcm4360.kext.
I removed AirPortBrcm4331.kext and applied patches to AirPortBrcm4360 and AirPortBrcmNIC
I followed the instructions "Modifying the System volume yourself" in micropatcher page and used these commands:

sudo /usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Set:Mac-942B5BF58194151B:ContinuitySupport true" "/System/Volumes/Update/mnt1/System/Library/Frameworks/IOBluetooth.framework/Versions/A/Resources/SystemParameters.plist"
sudo rm -r /System/Volumes/Update/mnt1/System/Library/Extensions/IO80211Family.kext/Contents/PlugIns/AirPortBrcm4331.kext
sudo -E perl -pi -e "s/\Mac-00BE6ED71E35EB86/\Mac-942B5BF58194151B/" /System/Volumes/Update/mnt1/System/Library/Extensions/IO80211Family.kext/Contents/PlugIns/AirPortBrcm4360.kext/Contents/MacOS/AirPortBrcm4360
sudo -E perl -pi -e "s/\Mac-00BE6ED71E35EB86/\Mac-942B5BF58194151B/" /System/Volumes/Update/mnt1/System/Library/Extensions/IO80211Family.kext/Contents/PlugIns/AirPortBrcmNIC.kext/Contents/MacOS/AirPortBrcmNIC

notes:
The above commands work on iMac 21.5 model 942B5BF58194151B with Big Sur 11.1 and BCM94331CD installed.
The SystemParameters.plist patch is also in micropatcher but for some reason Continuity Support was set to false for my Mac model. That's why I included it above.
The patch could also be applied with --wifi=hv12v-old. I'm not sure about --wifi=hv12v-new because it installs only AirPortBrcm4331.kext, not AirPortBrcm4360.kext

I have one more issue. After installing Big Sur (no OpenCore) I'm not able to boot in High Sierra which is installed on another internal SSD. The bar loads slowly and about at 50% I get a no-entry sign. I have a few custom kexts. I tried to reset PRAM, disable SIP, and enable kext-dev-mode without luck.
What else could be the issue? What am I missing?

The "false" setting is the Apple default - it is not for some reasons.

The interesting part would be to detect your BT card by a call of system_profiler SPAirPortDataType. If I can somehow distinguish your card from the BCM94360CD I would add the few lines to the autodetect mode.

Would you please send over the output of this call, you can delete the training part with the current network configuration. I do not own a 94331 card.

 

[johnrak]

This is what it returns

Software Versions:
          CoreWLAN: 16.0 (1657)
          CoreWLANKit: 16.0 (1657)
          Menu Extra: 17.0 (1728)
          System Information: 15.0 (1502)
          IO80211 Family: 12.0 (1200.12.2)
          Diagnostics: 11.0 (1163)
          AirPort Utility: 6.3.9 (639.15)
      Interfaces:
        en4:
          Card Type: AirPort Extreme  (0x14E4, 0xF4)
          Firmware Version: Broadcom BCM43xx 1.0 (7.21.190.34 AirPortDriverBrcm4360-1325.3)
          MAC Address: -- (I deleted it, ask me if you need it)
          Locale: FCC
          Country Code: GR
          Supported PHY Modes: 802.11 a/b/g/n
          Supported Channels: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 36, 40, 44, 48, 52, 56, 60, 64, 100, 104, 108, 112, 116, 120, 124, 128, 132, 136, 140
          Wake On Wireless: Supported
          AirDrop: Supported
          AirDrop Channel: 44
          Status: Connected
          Current Network Information:

Do you have any ideas about my High Sierra issue? Shouldn't I be able to boot High Sierra from another disk? I want to have a clean install of 10.13.6 in case of emergency. I might try to reinstall it without any modifications.

 

[il-rollino]

I can report similar behavior with my 15in rMBP mid-2012, i7, (10,1), with 801.22ac upgrade on Big Sur 11.1 (20C69). I installed BS with Barry's v 0.5.1 micropatcher using the install-setvars.sh -e option in Step 7.

Specifically, when a YouTube video (on Safari) is running and I close the lid, the video momentarily stops and the white Apple light on the cover goes dark. After 3 seconds the light remains off but the video's audio can be heard. As Chris says above, the Apple Menu Sleep works normally.

A couple of years ago I updated my mac with the BCM94360CSAX wifi card to get the watch unlock feature. After reading your and @S-Tronic posts, I've done some quick tests on my MacBookPro 10,1 and looks like if i try to wake it up before it has completed all the actions it has to perform to turn to sleep mode, the watch unlock doesn't work. If I close the display, and wait for about one minute before opening again the display, the watch unlock works. For fans to stop spinning it takes about 27 secs closing the lid, while using the menu it takes 22 secs. Waiting more seconds before waking the system up again seems to prevent for the watch unlock to fail. I didn't experience the youtube playback continued with the lid closed: the audio stopped. Also, the watch unlock seems to work ok even if I try to wake up the mac after just a few seconds while using it in clamshell mode.