macOS 12 Monterey on Unsupported Macs Thread

[K two]

AHOY!?The dual browser demise with 12.1 Beta 3 seen on no-Metal unsupp legacy Macs in part is due to a significant WebKit depreciation by Apple. Below are the effects not the cause.

Attached are the user Library/WebKit ƒ in Big Sur(top) and in Monterey(lower), identically configured on the same Mini3,1. None of the apps folder names shown in the Big Sur WebKit ƒ function in 12.1 Beta 3 - everything else is gone. WebKit is MIA.

Same ƒ w/Monterey.

Nada

 

[K two]

This has been reported for supported Macs too.

Apple B/T KBhaving a USB mouse also connected can cause issues? There is a setting for that in the Accessibility CP>Pointer Control for a MBP.

 

[Eriamjh1138@DAN]

I hit a snag, just when it was going so well. I ran data migration assistant. It completed and rebooted. Boot stalled. Gave it a couple of hours, no movement. Forced a few more cold reboots, same thing.

Big Sur volume boots fine. Monterey hangs. Also tried holding the option key on reboot, selecting OpenCore EFI > Monterey beta volume, hung at the same point.

I can reformat the volume and reinstall. Before I do that, any ideas?

iMac 2013 14,2 model here. I have done many attempts to install Monterey and have it mostly figured out.
@rehkram this is likely the kernel panic I saw every time I tried to migrate a Catalina account or Big Sur account to Monterey after a proper installation. I think someone said don’t transfer system files.

I’ve used OCLP 3.1 and found that I can easily upgrade a Big Sur account to Monterey without issues. I’m going to try upgrading Catalina directly. Monterey on the iMac seems to run great on both the internal PCI SSD and the internally upgraded SATA SSD. I just need to find-tune my installation and delete some old legacy files to get it exactly the way I want Without using migration assistant.

for the record, I have been using Migration Assistant for my Mac upgrades and transfers since 2002. There’s some old PPC files in there, still.

 

[rehkram]

Eriamjh, here's the TL,DR summary:

Thanks for confirming some suspicions I had at the time. All is good here now, and I'm much more confident in managing my Mac since jumping on the unsupported Mac train.
-----------------

Yes, I think you're correct. I no longer use two volumes on the internal drive, have switched to installing betas on an external SSD. Since the first official Monterey 12.0.1 and the 3 betas for 12.1 I haven't had any real problems installing or migrating; BTW I have migrated with- and without system files selected, both have worked at this level.

I'm still usually doing clean installs to the external SSD; it's the old 512 GB Apple drive that I swapped-out of the Mac and into an OWC enclosure, very nice solution from OWC. My internal production drive is an OWC 1 TB, over-the-top installs are not an issue.

So anyway, figuring it just might have been the lesser drive space on the internal drive (when it was running as a dual boot volumes setup) that was causing install problems when doing upgrades, I got in the habit of clean installing the betas each time on the smaller external drive, unless I'm feeling lucky. Also, it's good practice for when I really need to clean install my production drive, and a great opportunity to test my TM backups and restores, which we all should be doing, right?

 

[hvds]

Eriamjh, here's the TL,DR summary:

Thanks for confirming some suspicions I had at the time. All is good here now, and I'm much more confident in managing my Mac since jumping on the unsupported Mac train.
-----------------

Yes, I think you're correct. I no longer use two volumes on the internal drive, have switched to installing betas on an external SSD. Since the first official Monterey 12.0.1 and the 3 betas for 12.1 I haven't had any real problems installing or migrating; BTW I have migrated with- and without system files selected, both have worked at this level.

I'm still usually doing clean installs to the external SSD; it's the old 512 GB Apple drive that I swapped-out of the Mac and into an OWC enclosure, very nice solution from OWC. My internal production drive is an OWC 1 TB, over-the-top installs are not an issue.

So anyway, figuring it just might have been the lesser drive space on the internal drive (when it was running as a dual boot volumes setup) that was causing install problems when doing upgrades, I got in the habit of clean installing the betas each time on the smaller external drive, unless I'm feeling lucky. Also, it's good practice for when I really need to clean install my production drive, and a great opportunity to test my TM backups and restores, which we all should be doing, right?

A wise policy.

 

[K two]

Eriamjh, here's the TL,DR summary:

Thanks for confirming some suspicions I had at the time. All is good here now, and I'm much more confident in managing my Mac since jumping on the unsupported Mac train.
-----------------

Yes, I think you're correct. I no longer use two volumes on the internal drive, have switched to installing betas on an external SSD. Since the first official Monterey 12.0.1 and the 3 betas for 12.1 I haven't had any real problems installing or migrating; BTW I have migrated with- and without system files selected, both have worked at this level.

I'm still usually doing clean installs to the external SSD; it's the old 512 GB Apple drive that I swapped-out of the Mac and into an OWC enclosure, very nice solution from OWC. My internal production drive is an OWC 1 TB, over-the-top installs are not an issue.

So anyway, figuring it just might have been the lesser drive space on the internal drive (when it was running as a dual boot volumes setup) that was causing install problems when doing upgrades, I got in the habit of clean installing the betas each time on the smaller external drive, unless I'm feeling lucky. Also, it's good practice for when I really need to clean install my production drive, and a great opportunity to test my TM backups and restores, which we all should be doing, right?

Migration Assistant works much more reliably and smoother if it is given Full Disk Access and Accessibility privileges in the Privacy tab in the Security&Privacy CP. FWIW

 

[Eriamjh1138@DAN]

Noted. I forget about the security lockdown on everything post-Catalina And how it’s getting tighter and tighter for ordinary tasks.

 

[K two]

AHOY!?The dual browser demise with 12.1 Beta 3 seen on no-Metal unsupp legacy Macs in part is due to a significant WebKit depreciation by Apple. Here is the root cause. This may not be easy to fix due to creeping iSification, the changing of dependencies.

 

[Jack Neill]

iMac 2013 14,2 model here. I have done many attempts to install Monterey and have it mostly figured out.
@rehkram this is likely the kernel panic I saw every time I tried to migrate a Catalina account or Big Sur account to Monterey after a proper installation. I think someone said don’t transfer system files.

I’ve used OCLP 3.1 and found that I can easily upgrade a Big Sur account to Monterey without issues. I’m going to try upgrading Catalina directly. Monterey on the iMac seems to run great on both the internal PCI SSD and the internally upgraded SATA SSD. I just need to find-tune my installation and delete some old legacy files to get it exactly the way I want Without using migration assistant.

for the record, I have been using Migration Assistant for my Mac upgrades and transfers since 2002. There’s some old PPC files in there, still.

I did a clean install on a late 2013 and used a 2020 Air and Migration Assistant and it worked perfectly.

 

[hvds]

AHOY!?The dual browser demise with 12.1 Beta 3 seen on no-Metal unsupp legacy Macs in part is due to a significant WebKit depreciation by Apple. Here is the root cause. This may not be easy to fix due to creeping iSification, the changing of dependencies.

View attachment 1915413

I made a new installation of 12.1b3 over the existing one on an external SSD on my MBP5,2, for tests. Using OCLP 0.3.1 release for installation from full installer (no OTA) and for post-install patching.
- before patching, all browsers (Safari, Firefox, Google Chrome) work fine.
- looked at the WebKit.framework and the WebKit in user's Library. Both don't change by patching with 0.3.1 release.
- after patching, can use Chrome well, with the known problems in Safari (stops scrolling etc) and Firefox.

BTW using a 0.3.2 nightly, instead of the 0.3.1 release, with Monterey is not very useful on my MBP5,2, as I can reduce transparency to avoid blurs.
On Big Sur on the other hand, 0.3.2 latest nightlies make sense for me, because one can't reduce transparency and ASB's BlurBeta gives good graphics with transparency unreduced. And the browsers problem isn't there anyway.

 

[Larsvonhier]

I made a new installation of 12.1b3 over the existing one on an external SSD on my MBP5,2, for tests. Using OCLP 0.3.1 release for installation from full installer (no OTA) and for post-install patching.
- before patching, all browsers (Safari, Firefox, Google Chrome) work fine.
- looked at the WebKit.framework and the WebKit in user's Library. Both don't change by patching with 0.3.1 release.
- after patching, can use Chrome well, with the known problems in Safari (stops scrolling etc) and Firefox.

BTW using a 0.3.2 nightly, instead of the 0.3.1 release, with Monterey is not very useful on my MBP5,2, as I can reduce transparency to avoid blurs.
On Big Sur on the other hand, 0.3.2 latest nightlies make sense for me, because one can't reduce transparency and ASB's BlurBeta gives good graphics with transparency unreduced. And the browsers problem isn't there anyway.

Pls. allow a few questions here:
* I thought that also in Big Sur transparencies can be reduced to avoid blurred mouse-over areas? (That was at least the case a few releases back before the switch to Monterey).
* Where can ASB´s BlurBeta be found (or is it included in some other package as i.e. in a newer OCLP
* @K two : As long as there is support for intel CPUs at all from Apple, there should be a way to patch/bring back WebKit on non-metal GPUs, right? The "WebKit deprecated" issue would clearly also hit the supported machines otherwise..?

Thanks for your thoughts.

 

[hvds]

Pls. allow a few questions here:
* I thought that also in Big Sur transparencies can be reduced to avoid blurred mouse-over areas? (That was at least the case a few releases back before the switch to Monterey).
* Where can ASB´s BlurBeta be found (or is it included in some other package as i.e. in a newer OCLP
* @K two : As long as there is support for intel CPUs at all from Apple, there should be a way to patch/bring back WebKit on non-metal GPUs, right? The "WebKit deprecated" issue would clearly also hit the supported machines otherwise..?

Thanks for your thoughts.

Yes, reduced transparency can be selected also in Big Sur; but then the menu bar (the left, task specific part) doesn‘t update when changing the task, so can‘t be used.

The BlurBeta is included in OCLP nightlies from 12Nov on I think (see also ASB‘s Github https://github.com/ASentientBot/monterey/releases)

I‘m very happy with 11.6.2 when including BlurBeta. Quite happy with 12.1b3 - apart from Safari and Firefox not working with OCLP 0.3.1 or later patches.
Also, the nanoTech dual USB3 doesn‘t work now for storage media, only for mouse etc., with or without OCLP patches. Hopefully will be fixed in 12.1 release.

 

[K two]

I made a new installation of 12.1b3 over the existing one on an external SSD on my MBP5,2, for tests. Using OCLP 0.3.1 release for installation from full installer (no OTA) and for post-install patching.
- before patching, all browsers (Safari, Firefox, Google Chrome) work fine.
- looked at the WebKit.framework and the WebKit in user's Library. Both don't change by patching with 0.3.1 release.
- after patching, can use Chrome well, with the known problems in Safari (stops scrolling etc) and Firefox.

BTW using a 0.3.2 nightly, instead of the 0.3.1 release, with Monterey is not very useful on my MBP5,2, as I can reduce transparency to avoid blurs.
On Big Sur on the other hand, 0.3.2 latest nightlies make sense for me, because one can't reduce transparency and ASB's BlurBeta gives good graphics with transparency unreduced. And the browsers problem isn't there anyway.

Are you writing that applying Step #3 in OCLP is killing the two browsers?

 

[hvds]

Are you writing that applying Step #3 in OCLP is killing the two browsers?

Yes; just now repeating the exercise by installing 12.1b3 to a partition of the internal disk.
Will report the outcome before/after step 3 of oclp 0.3.1 here.
Do you have different experience regarding the pre-patch behaviour?

Using the internal disk now because I think that 12.1b3, with Chrome, deserves regular use. Big Sur is there as a fallback, with user data kept in sync.

 

[K two]

Yes; just now repeating the exercise by installing 12.1b3 to a partition of the internal disk.
Will report the outcome before/after step 3 of oclp 0.3.1 here.
Do you have different experience regarding the pre-patch behaviour?

Using the internal disk now because I think that 12.1b3, with Chrome, deserves regular use. Big Sur is there as a fallback, with user data kept in sync.

Agree with the Chrome assessment for b3. Your internal drive results are of great interest. I use two internal SSD drives and lots of partitions on all of the Minis. ?

 

[hvds]

Agree with the Chrome assessment for b3. Your internal drive results are of great interest. I use two internal SSD drives and lots of partitions on all of the Minis. ?

Installation finished, post-install patches not done yet.
Writing from Safari without problems, Firefox works as well.
I'll let it run for a few hours and apply the patches (from 0.3.1 release) later.

 

[K two]

Is the user Library/Webkit ƒ populated before Step #3??

 

[K two]

Pls. allow a few questions here:
* I thought that also in Big Sur transparencies can be reduced to avoid blurred mouse-over areas? (That was at least the case a few releases back before the switch to Monterey).
* Where can ASB´s BlurBeta be found (or is it included in some other package as i.e. in a newer OCLP
* @K two : As long as there is support for intel CPUs at all from Apple, there should be a way to patch/bring back WebKit on non-metal GPUs, right? The "WebKit deprecated" issue would clearly also hit the supported machines otherwise..?

Thanks for your thoughts.

Agreed as do others. However, the root patch observations by @hvds takes the issue in another direction?

 

[hvds]

Is the user Library/Webkit ƒ populated before Step #3??

Yes it is - see attached screen shot.
The same as in the installation to the external disk made earlier today, and there it didn't change by patching.
(System on internal SSD I'm using right now is still unpatched.)

I should maybe mention again how I do installations since about a year without problems:
- use CCC data-only copying to a freshly erased disk
- only after that install macOS (without migration) to the disk
- install updates, OTA or via InstallAssistant.pkg, over the existing system
Sometimes I re-apply the CCC data-only copy, which works well from BS to BS or from MR to MR, but from BS to MR leaves a non-bootable system, which doesn't matter if I anyway want to install a new version via InstallAssistant (like I did for what I'm using right now).
Otherwise I have a set of rsyncs to keep the target system up to date regarding user data. These keep the system bootable - don't know enough about CCC to keep it from making a system non-bootable.

Safari still working properly after hours...

 

[K two]

Yes it is - see attached screen shot.
The same as in the installation to the external disk made earlier today, and there it didn't change by patching.
(System on internal SSD I'm using right now is still unpatched.)

I should maybe mention again how I do installations since about a year without problems:
- use CCC data-only copying to a freshly erased disk
- only after that install macOS (without migration) to the disk
- install updates, OTA or via InstallAssistant.pkg, over the existing system
Sometimes I re-apply the CCC data-only copy, which works well from BS to BS or from MR to MR, but from BS to MR leaves a non-bootable system, which doesn't matter if I anyway want to install a new version via InstallAssistant (like I did for what I'm using right now).
Otherwise I have a set of rsyncs to keep the target system up to date regarding user data. These keep the system bootable - don't know enough about CCC to keep it from making a system non-bootable.

Safari still working properly after hours...

Still populated after Step #3 and a proper re-boot? w/ no CCC or rsync

Great work! btw

 

[hvds]

Still populated after Step #3 and a proper re-boot? w/ no CCC or rsync

Great work! btw

Tomorrow... getting used to working non-accelerated, after a glass of red wine.
Regarding Safari and Firefox: have a look at Discord / OpenCore Patcher Paradise / public development, entries from 17 Nov. GreenBall (aka ASentientBot) and friends are thinking and working real fast, yet no solution so far...

 

[K two]

Tomorrow... getting used to working non-accelerated, after a glass of red wine.
Regarding Safari and Firefox: have a look at Discord / OpenCore Patcher Paradise / public development, entries from 17 Nov. GreenBall (aka ASentientBot) and friends are thinking and working real fast, yet no solution so far...

I read the mail on there, too. The GitHub thread is very useful. Enjoy that Vino.???

 

[davemp88]

My apologies if this question has already been asked, but I have sort of a two-part question: Has anyone has problems with Virtual Machine Software like VMware Fusion Pro 12 crashing immediately on macOS Monterey? and if so, what, if any, Virtual Machine Clients has anyone found that are compatible with Monterey? Google says that Parallels 17.1 is, but good luck finding a "legit ;]" version of that online that isn't bogus. I can still use VMware Fusion Pro 12 with Big Sur, but when I try and Open it on Monterey it actually doesn't crash, I should correct myself; if I try to boot any VM it says something to the effect of "Transport Error: Pipe Broken, Could Not Maintain Connection. I think it might have to do with it being a Virtual Machine; because I recently looked up why Kali Linux doesn't recognize my wireless network and it says because it's on a Virtual Machine. Whether there's a link between the two remains to be seen between there certainly are similarities that would indicate Virtual Machine don't detect wireless card. but it still wont Run PERIOD. on Big Sur it at least runs, that's what I'm trying to figure out

 

[Tockman]

Google says that Parallels 17.1 is, but good luck finding a "legit ;]" version of that online that isn't bogus

In fact, it ain't that expensive.

 

[Fernando Nakashoji]

Parallels 16 also works on Monterey on my unsopported rMBP mid 2012. VMWare nor Virtualbox works. Maybe post-install patch breaks thirdy-party kernel extensions on unsupported Monterey?