macOS 12 Monterey on Unsupported Macs Thread

[5tracks]

Not any more - https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201295 ?

Thanks for the link. I tried the steps at the bottom of the page for desktop computers (unplug for 15 seconds, etc.)
It seemed to have no effect. I'll keep looking, but I'm out of my league with this.


EDIT: I just found this on GitHub:

Long boot time due card reader? · Issue #780 · dortania/OpenCore-Legacy-Patcher

Machine Model MacBookAir6,2 Application Version Latest Release Application Variant TUI (Text User Interface) Have you verified whether this issue has been opened before? If no, your issue will be c...

github.com

I'll need to check verbose mode again to see if I have the same message line, but since my mini6,1 has a card reader, it's possible.

 

[Tockman]

Okay. That's beyond my knowledge-level... is there anything I can do to resolve this?

Try to mount your EFI volume (sudo diskutil mount disk0s1 [here must be the name of your EFI volume, not mandatory "disk0s1"]) and remove content of "EFI/APPLE" folder.

 

[Ausdauersportler]

Okay. That's beyond my knowledge-level... is there anything I can do to resolve this?

Enable verbose mode and check the logs on screen.

 

[5tracks]

Enable verbose mode and check the logs on screen.

Here are two pictures from when the long pauses occur during boot. I don't see anything crucial, but hopefully someone with more experience can chime in.

Try to mount your EFI volume (sudo diskutil mount disk0s1 [here must be the name of your EFI volume, not mandatory "disk0s1"]) and remove content of "EFI/APPLE" folder.

I'll give that a shot... first I need to find out what my EFI volume is ?
Will I need to reinstall macOS or repatch after doing this?

 

[5tracks]

Here are the contents of EFI/Apple. Since I don't know what any of this is used for, I will simply ask, is it safe to delete EFI/APPLE as suggested?

 

[Ausdauersportler]

Here are the contents of EFI/Apple. Since I don't know what any of this is used for, I will simply ask, is it safe to delete EFI/APPLE as suggested?
View attachment 1925647

It is full of firmware update files. Those updates will only run when booting into an supported macOS versions. Assuming that you Mac is still supported with Catalina you should (once in a while) boot Catalina and update Catalina from an internal disk to apply those firmware updates.

This rule of thumb is valid for all still supported system 2012 an later.

 

[5tracks]

It is full of firmware update files. Those updates will only run when booting into an supported macOS versions. Assuming that you Mac is still supported with Catalina you should (once in a while) boot Catalina and update Catalina from an internal disk to apply those firmware updates.

This rule of thumb is valid for all still supported system 2012 an later.

Hmm. I don't have Catalina on this machine anymore; only Monterey. That being the case, and looking at what has been suggested, can I safely delete these? I have zero plans to revert back to Catalina... ever. I'm more interested in solving my 4 minute boot issue.

 

[Ausdauersportler]

Hmm. I don't have Catalina on this machine anymore; only Monterey. That being the case, and looking at what has been suggested, can I safely delete these? I have zero plans to revert back to Catalina... ever. I'm more interested in solving my 4 minute boot issue.

This is not a smart plan. You should have a small 50GB APFS container just for Catalina and just to keep your system up to date.
You can delete all the contents of the Apple folder. Do not know if this solves you problem. Long boot times may also be a sign for failing hardware. The system tries hard during boot to get it working unless it gives up.

 

[5tracks]

This is not a smart plan. You should have a small 50GB APFS container just for Catalina and just to keep your system up to date.
You can delete all the contents of the Apple folder. Do not know if this solves you problem. Long boot times may also be a sign for failing hardware. The system tries hard during boot to get it working unless it gives up.

Well, I simply followed the OCLP instructions, and received guidance from the patient people here. Nowhere in the instructions or the advice did anyone say "You need to keep a Catalina partition to do firmware updates." -- everything suggested that I could just do OTA updates over my previous version (which I did).

Lesson learned I suppose, but I do wish there was a big red header somewhere in the instructions along the lines of "WARNING: You need to keep Catalina around to do firmware updates!"

A newbie such as myself would not normally think of that, and it could save first-timers from this pitfall down the road.
I guess I'm stuck neck deep in the mud now. ?

 

[Tockman]

"WARNING: You need to keep Catalina around to do firmware updates!"

You just ought to realize that since your Mac runs unsupported OS, in fact it pretends some another Mac. So you get an ability to install modern OS but lose the actual support for your hardware. e.g. updated firmware important for you specific model.

 

[5tracks]

You just ought to realize that since your Mac runs unsupported OS, in fact it pretends some another Mac. So you get an ability to install modern OS but lose the actual support for your hardware. e.g. updated firmware important for you specific model.

Yeah, I'm realizing that now ? but as the self-appointed chief of new users, I can promise that no first-time user will see that coming.

Regardless, I copied the EFI/APPLE folder to a USB stick and then removed the files from the internal drive. Nothing exploded, but it also didn't solve the long boot issue.

 

[foxfoobar]

Here are the contents of EFI/Apple. Since I don't know what any of this is used for, I will simply ask, is it safe to delete EFI/APPLE as suggested?

Before doing anything time consuming like reinstalling Catalina to update firmware etc. you should just make a backup of the EFI partition and then delete the firmware files from the EFI partition to test if its even the problem for not booting fast enough.

To backup in terminal for instance, asuming disk0s1 is your EFI partition:
dd bs=4m if=/dev/disk0s1 of=/Users/<YourName>/Desktop/EFI.img

 

[foxfoobar]

Yeah, I'm realizing that now ? but as the self-appointed chief of new users, I can promise that no first-time user will see that coming.

Regardless, I copied the EFI/APPLE folder to a USB stick and then removed the files from the internal drive. Nothing exploded, but it also didn't solve the long boot issue.

Hmm, ok. On which line does it stand still the longest? Btw, i also have that line with "SDXC card slot powering off...", but like i said mine only takes about 45 sec. to boot.

 

[5tracks]

Before doing anything time consuming like reinstalling Catalina to update firmware etc. you should just make a backup of the EFI partition and then delete the firmware files from the EFI partition to test if its even the problem for not booting fast enough.

To backup in terminal for instance, asuming disk0s1 is your EFI partition:
dd bs=4m if=/dev/disk0s1 of=/Users/<YourName>/Desktop/EFI.img

Yes, thank you. I deleted the files (after backing them up) and it didn't solve the issue. I'm now downloading Catalina. My concern now is if I can setup a dual boot and run the firmware updates without breaking OCLP Monterey. Again, I'm way outside my comfort zone and knowledge here.

 

[5tracks]

Hmm, ok. On which line does it stand still the longest? Btw, i also have that line with "SDXC card slot powering off...", but like i said mine only takes about 45 sec. to boot.

Okay. The bottom line (boot root) is where it stalled for a majority of the 4+ minute boot time

 

[Ausdauersportler]

I'm currently creating a Catalina install USB. As soon as that's done, I'll reboot in verbose mode and check which line stalls the longest and edit this post

[placeholder for answer] ?

Just run disk utility from the installer and create an additional volume (not partitions). This volume shares the places on your disk within the APFS filesystem. Sometimes it is called container instead of volume.
Install Catalina to this volume and boot into Catalina without using OpenCore, i.e. use your EFI Boot picker, select the Catalina boot icon directly and probably do a PRAM reset before booting the newly installed Catalina. Press CRTL when selecting Catalina to make it the default boot choice.

Setup the user and apply all updates ....during multiple reboots your Mac will happily reboot into Catalina, again. Keep track of your firmware before starting updates and after finishing these.

 

[roysterdoyster]

MacBookPro4,1 17-inch (Early 2008) running smoothly on Big Sur 11.6.2.
Can anyone on this forum tell, if this machine is likely to run on Monterey via OCLP?

 

[K two]

MacBookPro4,1 17-inch (Early 2008) running smoothly on Big Sur 11.6.2.
Can anyone on this forum tell, if this machine is likely to run on Monterey via OCLP?

As always, see p.1 of the thread. Congrats, btw.

 

[5tracks]

Just run disk utility from the installer and create an additional volume (not partitions). This volume shares the places on your disk within the APFS filesystem. Sometimes it is called container instead of volume.
Install Catalina to this volume and boot into Catalina without using OpenCore, i.e. use your EFI Boot picker, select the Catalina boot icon directly and probably do a PRAM reset before booting the newly installed Catalina. Press CRTL when selecting Catalina to make it the default boot choice.

Setup the user and apply all updates ....during multiple reboots your Mac will happily reboot into Catalina, again. Keep track of your firmware before starting updates and after finishing these.

I understood everything except your last sentence. What do you mean by "Keep track of your firmware before starting updates and after finishing these" ?

 

[5tracks]

It's a bit premature, but I think I might have solved the long boot problem. After searching more about "boot root" and long delays during Monterey startup, I came across another forum talking about a TRIM bug with third party SSDs.

Since I remembered that I bought my Mac with an upgraded SSD which shows as a "Lexar," I figured that might be my issue, so I did sudo trimforce disable, and now two consecutive reboots clocks at 26.09 seconds! In fact the entire system seems a bit more snappy.

 

[0134168]

I understood everything except your last sentence. What do you mean by "Keep track of your firmware before starting updates and after finishing these" ?

He means that simply see which firmware you have now, and check that has been updated after the proccess.

 

[0134168]

It's a bit premature, but I think I might have solved the long boot problem. After searching more about "boot root" and long delays during Monterey startup, I came across another forum talking about a TRIM bug with third party SSDs.

Since I remembered that I bought my Mac with an upgraded SSD which shows as a "Lexar," I figured that might be my issue, so I did sudo trimforce disable, and now two consecutive reboots clocks at 26.09 seconds! In fact the entire system seems a bit more snappy.

Nice! 👍

 

[jdmc]

I still can’t get this to work on my Macmini5,1 (2011). All goes as expected until the Monterey installer is launched from the OCLP boot-picker. Progress bar under the Apple logo stalls indefinitely after filling to the 30–50% range. Repeated reboots, Option-select at boot, resetting NVRAM, rebuilding the install volume all haven’t solved the problem. I even tried it with OCLP and the Big Sur and Catalina installers; same result. Aarrrgghhh!! Help?

In case it matters, my install volume is on a 32GB full-size SD card, inserted into the Mini's built-in SD card slot (i.e. not using one of the Mini's four built-in USB 2.0 ports).

Problem solved! ~ As it turns out, the problem was related to using the 2011 Mini's built-in SD card slot; somehow it was apparently getting deactivated during the boot process, thus taking offline the very installer that was in the process of booting. Attaching the SD card via an external USB card reader solved the problem. (As the 2011 Mini has only USB 2.0 ports—not 3.0—the install was slow… but it worked.)

I'll file a bug report at GitHub for this issue, if it hasn't already been reported.

Incidentally, I suppose I can serve as the first officially reported case of OCLP working on a Macmini5,x model, as shown on this page. Groovy.

 

[Allistah]

I just wanted to report a successful install on the iMac in my signature. Upgraded OCLP to the latest and then installed 12.0.1 OTA. Once it was booted, I reinstalled the OCLP again just to be sure and rebooted another time and things all seem to be working well at this point.

Thanks again to everyone that has made this possible. This iMac that is a decade old is running great with the current OS - and of course with a couple hardware upgrades like the video card, BT/Wi-Fi module, and the SSD. Thanks again!

 

[Breault720]

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