macOS 11 Big Sur on Unsupported Macs Thread

[OnawaAfrica]

Kind of binary this reasoning... Option 0 OR Option 1? Math as you say, maybe...?!? I am earnestly sorry to know you really don't understand that I can run my iMac flawlessly just tinkering OCLP my own way, with NO KEXTs whatsoever. And I am not the first one... People in the same GitHub you proposed did that with some luck and an unreset NVRAM. Luck in that case could be translated to "-no_compat_check".

I'd suggest you to go to Wikipedia or download MacTracker and compare the Specifications among the unsupported Late 2013 and supported Mid 2014 iMacs. It might surprise you how similar they are. This is the first time I recall Apple removing macOS compatibility from machines more powerful than supported ones, sharing EVERY and EACH peripheral. This is easily illustrated by the FACT that it's the first time a less powerful iMacXY,b remains supported while a more powerful iMacXY,a is not. Even in the case of New World vs Old World ROM Macs and XPostFacto the unsupported Macs were less powerful overall.

Thats why this time around, regardless of OPINION, running the new macOS on "unsupported" machines, at least the most recent ones such as the 14,x iMacs, might be simply a matter of patching the compatibility list. But this is a discussion for another thread already.

You write a lot about EGO, interesting... When getting tired it might be a good idea to rest a little. Cheers man!

They Quite similar but the 2014 model was sold for quite long time. The Notsupporting has todo with the time they sold the models. But honelstly wat are u complaining? the 2013 model got software support for about 8 years that quite good. now look at windows mashines? usaly drivers range for 2 windows versions. Example windows 7 era laptops get Drivers for Windows 7 & 8 but NOT driect drivers for windows 10. Sure you can install win 8.1 Drivers on windows 10.
and apple knows there enaugh pipo who find ways to install newer macOS versions on unsupported macs. thats why they gave us the boot arg "-no_compat_check"

 

[AnErD]

I have tried all possible solutions to install 11.2.3 but nothing works on either my iMac 13,2 or my Mac Pro 5,1. After installing the OS the Macs go into repeated loops of restarts so that I start to wonder if this doesn’t hurt the hardware after all. I wish dosdude would be back, his tools were flawless and I never had issues with them.
With OpenCore-Patcher and MicropatcherAutomator my MP restarted half a day and it still won't install the OS, nor can I apply post install stuff. Same on my iMac.

Why does everyone claim that the patchers work when they clearly don’t???
You guys must run modified Macs so that the patchers work. I run plain simple Macs, as they are.

 

[K two]

I have tried all possible solutions to install 11.2.3 but nothing works on either my iMac 13,2 or my Mac Pro 5,1. After installing the OS the Macs go into repeated loops of restarts so that I start to wonder if this doesn’t hurt the hardware after all. I wish dosdude would be back, his tools were flawless and I never had issues with them.
With OpenCore-Patcher and MicropatcherAutomator my MP restarted half a day and it still won't install the OS, nor can I apply post install stuff. Same on my iMac.

Why does everyone claim that the patchers work when they clearly don’t???
You guys must run modified Macs so that the patchers work. I run plain simple Macs, as they are.

Can't get any more "plain and simple" than a Mac Mini3,1 - used OCLP 0.1.2 to install, since updated to v.0.1.4. Stunning performance as nimble as the @dosdude1 Catalina. If I can do this, well . . . . the instructions are very clear https://dortania.github.io/OpenCore-Legacy-Patcher/INSTALLER.html#downloading FWIW

 

[AnErD]

I followed the instructions and it does not work! PERIOD! You run a totally different Mac but thanks for your input.

 

[AnErD]

PS: "as nimble as..." that is real funny. The OpenCore-Patcher method takes 3 times as long.

 

[dhinakg]

I have tried all possible solutions to install 11.2.3 but nothing works on either my iMac 13,2 or my Mac Pro 5,1. After installing the OS the Macs go into repeated loops of restarts so that I start to wonder if this doesn’t hurt the hardware after all. I wish dosdude would be back, his tools were flawless and I never had issues with them.
With OpenCore-Patcher and MicropatcherAutomator my MP restarted half a day and it still won't install the OS, nor can I apply post install stuff. Same on my iMac.

Why does everyone claim that the patchers work when they clearly don’t???
You guys must run modified Macs so that the patchers work. I run plain simple Macs, as they are.

So your first message is a rant stating that the patchers are broken for everyone when it doesn't work for you. Not instructions on how to use the patchers or asking for help, but complaining that the patchers are broken when they work for tons of other people.

Have you even bothered opening an issue or joining the Discord server for help with the patcher? To me, it doesn't look like it, and there's only so much we can do when people rant about things being broken without making any effort to help us fix it...

We don't have all the hardware and although I can't speak for MicropatcherAutomator, this is a hobby project for OCLP developers. If issues aren't reported then we don't know about them, and if we don't know about them what can we do to fix them?

Anyways, come back and properly describe the issues you're having, with a mindset towards working with us to fix it, and we'll see what we can do. The information you have given us in this post is so vague it's useless.

 

[moosethegoose2213]

So your first message is a rant stating that the patchers are broken for everyone when it doesn't work for you. Not instructions on how to use the patchers or asking for help, but complaining that the patchers are broken when they work for tons of other people.

Have you even bothered opening an issue or joining the Discord server for help with the patcher? To me, it doesn't look like it, and there's only so much we can do when people rant about things being broken without making any effort to help us fix it...

We don't have all the hardware and although I can't speak for MicropatcherAutomator, this is a hobby project for OCLP developers. If issues aren't reported then we don't know about them, and if we don't know about them what can we do to fix them?

Anyways, come back and properly describe the issues you're having, with a mindset towards working with us to fix it, and we'll see what we can do. The information you have given us in this post is so vague it's useless.

One of the MicropatcherAutomator devs (ASentientHedgehog/moosethegoose2213). Correct, it’s just a hobby project that I don’t have lots of time to test with to buy fix anymore. Can confirm though that it works on my MacPro3,1. Both OCLP and MA do. It’s by far different from the 4,1/5,1, it is still a Mac Pro. Closer than the Mac mini complained about. I have also seen many reports of MacPro5,1s working.

 

[moosethegoose2213]

PS: "as nimble as..." that is real funny. The OpenCore-Patcher method takes 3 times as long.

In what way does it take 3 times as long? The only slowdown I've noticed anywhere is at "Less than a minute remaining" during install due to OCLP supporting sealing.

 

[AnErD]

So your first message is a rant stating that the patchers are broken for everyone when it doesn't work for you. Not instructions on how to use the patchers or asking for help, but complaining that the patchers are broken when they work for tons of other people.

Rephrase this. Your message makes little to no sense. But I yeah, I do complain. I run Macs since 30+ years, how about you?

Have you even bothered opening an issue or joining the Discord server for help with the patcher?

No, as I thought that the patchers work flawlessly after reading the comments in here. I am not on Discord, you wanna blame me for this, really?

To me, it doesn't look like it, and there's only so much we can do when people rant about things being broken without making any effort to help us fix it...

I understand this. However my Macs are nothing special.
And it is questionable as to why my attempts to install 11.2.3 do not work.

We don't have all the hardware and although I can't speak for MicropatcherAutomator, this is a hobby project for OCLP developers. If issues aren't reported then we don't know about them, and if we don't know about them what can we do to fix them?

I understand this.

Anyways, come back and properly describe the issues you're having, with a mindset towards working with us to fix it, and we'll see what we can do. The information you have given us in this post is so vague it's useless.

Just like the lack of info about what info you need.

Listen, I am no idiot. I am used to this stuff. I am not here to rant and I am sorry if I came across like this!

It is no disrespect towards any of the developers making it happen either. But if it doesn't work, it doesn't work. If you do not tell me what info you need then we cannot go any further.

I followed all steps as described at https://dortania.github.io/OpenCore-Legacy-Patcher/ and after the OS install the Macs go into repeated loops of restarts. And it goes on forever. I started one install process this morning at 7 AM, it would still go on if I wouldnt have stopped it by forcing a shutdown at 2 PM.

 

[AnErD]

One of the MicropatcherAutomator devs (ASentientHedgehog/moosethegoose2213). Correct, it’s just a hobby project that I don’t have lots of time to test with to buy fix anymore. Can confirm though that it works on my MacPro3,1. Both OCLP and MA do. It’s by far different from the 4,1/5,1, it is still a Mac Pro. Closer than the Mac mini complained about. I have also seen many reports of MacPro5,1s working.

Just for the records, I did not complain about your patcher not working on a Mac mini, it was about an iMac and a Mac Pro. However, if you want to know details about issues, ask questions, please. I am happy to help making your patcher work on all kinds of Macs.

 

[K two]

PS: "as nimble as..." that is real funny. The OpenCore-Patcher method takes 3 times as long.

Once installed, OCLP patched Big Sur IS as nimble as the @dosdude1 Catalina. FACT! Asking for assistance is not that hard. Try it?? Sans the TUDE! 🙃

 

[Allan Fox]

I have tried all possible solutions to install 11.2.3 but nothing works on either my iMac 13,2 or my Mac Pro 5,1. After installing the OS the Macs go into repeated loops of restarts so that I start to wonder if this doesn’t hurt the hardware after all. I wish dosdude would be back, his tools were flawless and I never had issues with them.
With OpenCore-Patcher and MicropatcherAutomator my MP restarted half a day and it still won't install the OS, nor can I apply post install stuff. Same on my iMac.

Why does everyone claim that the patchers work when they clearly don’t???
You guys must run modified Macs so that the patchers work. I run plain simple Macs, as they are.

My 9,1 iMac works just fine with OCLP, maybe if you weren't complaining and claiming that the patchers don't work and y'know actually let us help you with your problem, your machines would boot big sur without much issue.

 

[AnErD]

My 9,1 iMac works just fine with OCLP, maybe if you weren't complaining and claiming that the patchers don't work and y'know actually let us help you with your problem, your machines would boot big sur without much issue.

Say what? What does your fancy old iMac 9,1 has to do with my machines? N O T H I N I N G !!!

While I find it good for you guys that you have BS running with whatever Mac, no one in here has helped with experience regarding the Mac models I mentioned. Please, do not reply unless you can help with the Macs I run.

 

[moosethegoose2213]

With OpenCore-Patcher and MicropatcherAutomator my MP restarted half a day and it still won't install the OS

As you can see, I just didn't include The "With OpenCore Patcher" part because I don't speak for them. I am fairly confident that you would have received support, had you asked and not just stated that they were all broken.

 

[AnErD]

As you can see, I just didn't include The "With OpenCore Patcher" part because I don't speak for them. I am fairly confident that you would have received support, had you asked and not just stated that they were all broken.

But they are! And you don't like it. We had a bank holiday on Thursday and I tried both patchers back and forth and they both failed. At first a bad installer was the issue, actually no bad one but not a fresh one, anyway that was my bad. So I downloaded a new one, v11.2.3.
Then I started it all again, from scratch, 4 times in a row. Both patchers fail when it comes to restarting from the "so called" fresh installed Big Sur system. The Mac won't launch from it, so back to the patcher to apply post install , but it didn't help at all.

 

[amishallin]

I noticed in the changelog for OCLP .1.3 it says support has been added for custom CPU names in About this Mac. Is this done through the OpenCore Configurator app or by editing the .plist file?

Also... my Big Sur installation still shows up as "Catalina" in the boot picker when it shows up as "Big Sur" everywhere else (even startup disk in system preferences). Is there a way to change this?

 

[moosethegoose2213]

In case you are under the misconception still that we support everything, here's a link to the supported models for OCLP: https://dortania.github.io/OpenCore-Legacy-Patcher/MODELS.html

 

[Neo_Hunt]

They Quite similar but the 2014 model was sold for quite long time. The Notsupporting has todo with the time they sold the models. But honelstly wat are u complaining?

All iMac's 14,x (and also 15,1) were sold until October 2015. You could have been in an apple Store September that year and choosen between the lower-end 2-Core iMac14,4 and a higher-end 4-core 14,1 sold side-by-side, if sticking to the cheaper and smaller 21.5" models that is. Who would guess back then that the more expensive one would loose official support earlier? Age is not a reason, sorry. That would be the "complain", as you say it. And that being said, I am glad they did not remove the iMac14,4 from the compatibility list. Its not because I "lost" something that I want others to as well.

All that just to say this time around there still is an officially supported Mac with the SAME HARDWARE as an unsupported one (iMac14,4 vs iMac 14,1), as to probably have a "lighter" or different approach to "patch" this particular model. Apple simply removed the iMac14,1 from Big Sur's compatibility list for whatever reason (not age per se as stated above), but it still is mainly the same machine as the referred supported one.

Regarding Windows machines... One can run the latest version of Windows 10 on the first Intel iMac from 2006 (besides other Intel Macs) if wanting to. Ironic somehow.

 

[K two]

But they are! And you don't like it. We had a bank holiday on Thursday and I tried both patchers back and forth and they both failed. At first a bad installer was the issue, actually no bad one but not a fresh one, anyway that was my bad. So I downloaded a new one, v11.2.3.
Then I started it all again, from scratch, 4 times in a row. Both patchers fail when it comes to restarting from the "so called" fresh installed Big Sur system. The Mac won't launch from it, so back to the patcher to apply post install , but it didn't help at all.

Q1 - Did Big Sur successfully install into it's own partition?
Q2 - are you attempting to boot OCLP from USB or the internal drive?
Q3 - Did the OCLP app detect the machine accurately? Before building in Step 1. Did anything in Step 5 get changed?

 

[K two]

I noticed in the changelog for OCLP .1.3 it says support has been added for custom CPU names in About this Mac. Is this done through the OpenCore Configurator app or by editing the .plist file?

Also... my Big Sur installation still shows up as "Catalina" in the boot picker when it shows up as "Big Sur" everywhere else (even startup disk in system preferences). Is there a way to change this?

From the OCLP Patcher app, item 5, item 8, then item 8 on the list. Rebuild, re-install OCLP should fix the icon issue, too.

 

[Jack Neill]

View attachment 1774605My 9,1 iMac works just fine with OCLP, maybe if you weren't complaining and claiming that the patchers don't work and y'know actually let us help you with your problem, your machines would boot big sur without much issue.

How is BS on a 9,1? Im running Mojave on mine and was thinking of trying it out.

 

[kakumakaku]

Hello! Apologies in advance for my english)
I studied the forum for a long time and looked for my problem through a search in the branch, but unfortunately I did not find anything, so I ask for help. I want to thank in advance all active users of this forum, for the already completed upgrade of my iMac 12.2 27"(2011) from HD6970 to GTX 880m(already a year in use and everything works well), now I'm waiting for a WX7100 card and details for updating WIFI + BT, I hope that the card with the number "C" will be working)
Now I'm trying to update my iMac to Big Sur via Opencore, but I ran into a problem in the form of an endless restart into recovery mode during installation and I have been trying to deal with it for two days

I will describe the order of my actions:

1. Made a bootable USB with Big Sur (tried different versions 11.2.1 / 11.3 / 11.3.1), formatted the drive in a GUID, as indicated in the instructions, to create an additional EFI partition.

2. Launched the Opencore app(0.1.4), created an assembly for my model and wrote it to the EFI partition of the pre-created Big Sur boot disk.

3. Restarting in the drive selection mode and choosing to boot "EFI boot opencore" (no further black screen with text followed, as shown in many videos, but the background turned black, not white), chose the Big Sur installation.

4. Installation proceeds normally until the remainder of 12 minutes before completion, then a reboot occurs and goes into OS Sierra recovery mode.
I tried resetting PRAM every time I boot, go into disk selection mode and then go to Opencore and turn on the Big Sur installation, but either a black screen with a lock sign came out, or the Sierra recovery process loaded.

I read that this is possible due to a broken disk signature, but I don't quite understand how to fix it.

Thanks in advance!

I've gone a little bit further with installing Big Sur on my iMac 12.2, but only with BenSova Patched-Sur. The installation was supported only on a disk formatted in Mac OS Extended, the installation of version 11.3.1 went automatically with several reboots, but there is no support for full display brightness - it is not possible to apply AppleBacklightKext using Hackintool and via Terminal.
Otherwise, the patch works fine, although I didn't have a lot of time to check, since after successfully installing the patch, I decided to try installing Big Sur again via OCLP(only works in Mac OS Extended). Unfortunately, this did not lead to success, the installation took a very long time, imac rebooted many times and I had to go into OCLP EFI and go into the installation again (with the Big Sur picture), in which case the installation seemed to continue, but every time it showed the same time to complete, at the end the iMac rebooted, I went to EFI OCLP and the installer again, but now the installer says "reinstall Big Sur again", implying that it is installed. If you select "Mac OS Installer" from the EFI OCLP section, OS Sierra Internet recovery is started.

I'm stumped.

 

[jgleigh]

But they are! And you don't like it. We had a bank holiday on Thursday and I tried both patchers back and forth and they both failed.

Many of us have successful BigSur installs (11.2.3) using OCLP on the MacPro5,1. The developers are very active on Discord and github and can help answer questions and provide debug tips.

 

[Jann89]

I sucessfully installed Big Sur 11.13.1 on MBP Pro 5,1 with OCLP patcher Many thnaks to khronokernel, dosdude1, ASentientBot and other devs for this great work which is making such old machines like mine to work with newest systems
My MBP is preety usable for internet browsing and other light tasks works similary like od Catalina from dosdude1 patcher.
During installation installer stuck on half of progress bar, I had to reboot computer two times, but finnally installation was finished.
On version 11.2.3 the installation proceeded automatically.

I noticed one thing odd thing. When running Catalina, computer was idling with temperature about 43*C on CPU.
On Big Sur things are different. I noticed that idle temperatures rising after screen goes sleep and are about 50*C.

When I disable screen powering off in power preferences computer idling with temperature about 45*C which is fine

On Catalina I not observing such behavior.
Maybe someone has an idea what could be the reason?

Regards!

 

[macsba]

I sucessfully installed Big Sur 11.13.1 on MBP Pro 5,1 with OCLP patcher Many thnaks to khronokernel, dosdude1, ASentientBot for this great work which is making such old machines like mine to work with newest systems
My MBP is preety usable for internet browsing and other light tasks works similary like od Catalina from dosdude1 patcher.

Regards!

Did DosDude1 released a GUI app that uses the OCLP patcher? If so, where is it?