macOS 13 Ventura on Unsupported Macs Thread

[dcabq]

iMac 27 (non-Retina) late 2013
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 775M
iMac14,2
OCLP 1.3.0
Ventura 13.6.3

I was running the above configuration. I did a restart this afternoon. The restart was very slow. It turn out it was being upgraded to Sonoma 14.2.1 (23C71). Note I turned off all updates before this. Initially the iMac was non responsive. I was able to login after a hard shutdown and rebooting in safe mode. I applied the OCLP 1.3.0 "Post-Install root patches" and reinstalled the "Build and Install OpenCore" on my 1 TB SSD EFI partition. I rebooted and it seems to run OK now. I turned off all updates after this. Hopefully it will not update to Sonoma 14.3.

I have some other machines running OCLP 1.3.0 Ventura 13.6.3 and all update turned off. Hopefully, this will not happen to the other machines.

 

[adnbek]

iMac 27 (non-Retina) late 2013
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 775M
iMac14,2
OCLP 1.3.0
Ventura 13.6.3

I was running the above configuration. I did a restart this afternoon. The restart was very slow. It turn out it was being upgraded to Sonoma 14.2.1 (23C71). Note I turned off all updates before this. Initially the iMac was non responsive. I was able to login after a hard shutdown and rebooting in safe mode. I applied the OCLP 1.3.0 "Post-Install root patches" and reinstalled the "Build and Install OpenCore" on my 1 TB SSD EFI partition. I rebooted and it seems to run OK now. I turned off all updates after this. Hopefully it will not update to Sonoma 14.3.

I have some other machines running OCLP 1.3.0 Ventura 13.6.3 and all update turned off. Hopefully, this will not happen to the other machines.

This is concerning. How do we block these forced updates from happening? I’m on a 2015 iMac running Ventura and do not wish for it to be upgraded accidentally to Sonoma. I have all updates turned off but I’ve been reading reports that doesn’t necessarily prevent the upgrade to Sonoma from happening.

 

[paalb]

This is concerning. How do we block these forced updates from happening? I’m on a 2015 iMac running Ventura and do not wish for it to be upgraded accidentally to Sonoma. I have all updates turned off but I’ve been reading reports that doesn’t necessarily prevent the upgrade to Sonoma from happening.

https://talk.tidbits.com/t/apple-just-force-upgraded-me-to-sonoma/26342/45?u=paalb

 

[deeveedee]

This is concerning. How do we block these forced updates from happening? I’m on a 2015 iMac running Ventura and do not wish for it to be upgraded accidentally to Sonoma. I have all updates turned off but I’ve been reading reports that doesn’t necessarily prevent the upgrade to Sonoma from happening.

I'm not suggesting that this forced update isn't happening for others and am only reporting my own experience... On my MBP6,2 I have multiple APFS volumes with different macOS versions (Big Sur, Monterey, Ventura, Sonoma) all patched with varying versions of OCLP and all booting from the same Open Core EFI generated with OCLP 1.4.0n. None of them has ever forced Sonoma updates.

 

[dcabq]

https://talk.tidbits.com/t/apple-just-force-upgraded-me-to-sonoma/26342/45?u=paalb

Looking at your link, a number people had a force upgrade to Sonoma on their supported Mac. This is a concern.

 

[dcabq]

iMac 27 (non-Retina) late 2013
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 775M
iMac14,2
OCLP 1.3.0
Ventura 13.6.3

I was running the above configuration. I did a restart this afternoon. The restart was very slow. It turn out it was being upgraded to Sonoma 14.2.1 (23C71). Note I turned off all updates before this. Initially the iMac was non responsive. I was able to login after a hard shutdown and rebooting in safe mode. I applied the OCLP 1.3.0 "Post-Install root patches" and reinstalled the "Build and Install OpenCore" on my 1 TB SSD EFI partition. I rebooted and it seems to run OK now. I turned off all updates after this. Hopefully it will not update to Sonoma 14.3.

I have some other machines running OCLP 1.3.0 Ventura 13.6.3 and all update turned off. Hopefully, this will not happen to the other machines.

I left my iMac on overnight. In the morning, it was very sluggish. It took a long time to login. Many of the apps were sluggish in response. Video with Facetime and Zoom was not availalble. I was able to run the OCLP 1.3.0 "Post-Install root patches". It took a long time. I rebooted. It seems to now run OK. Hopefully, it will remain stable.

 

[dcabq]

I'm not suggesting that this forced update isn't happening for others and am only reporting my own experience... On my MBP6,2 I have multiple APFS volumes with different macOS versions (Big Sur, Monterey, Ventura, Sonoma) all patched with varying versions of OCLP and all booting from the same Open Core EFI generated with OCLP 1.4.0n. None of them has ever forced Sonoma updates.

More info on force update at this link:

Avoiding unintended upgrades to macOS

If you can’t upgrade it to Sonoma, how can you ensure your production Mac doesn’t get upgraded unintentionally?

eclecticlight.co

 

[adnbek]

I'm not suggesting that this forced update isn't happening for others and am only reporting my own experience... On my MBP6,2 I have multiple APFS volumes with different macOS versions (Big Sur, Monterey, Ventura, Sonoma) all patched with varying versions of OCLP and all booting from the same Open Core EFI generated with OCLP 1.4.0n. None of them has ever forced Sonoma updates.

Apparently it gets triggered through a push notification with a banner advertising an upgrade to Sonoma. This is not being pushed all at once to all Macs but in a staggered fashion.

Should you see that banner appear, hitting x to dismiss it will start the upgrade unintentionally. Definitely (or hopefully?) a bug and not intentional on Apple‘s part, but still concerning and therefore important to be vigilant about it.

Hovering over the banner and choosing “Details” seems to avoid the upgrade.

 

[joeblough]

Apparently it gets triggered through a push notification with a banner advertising an upgrade to Sonoma. This is not being pushed all at once to all Macs but in a staggered fashion.

Should you see that banner appear, hitting x to dismiss it will start the upgrade unintentionally. Definitely (or hopefully?) a bug and not intentional on Apple‘s part, but still concerning and therefore important to be vigilant about it.

Hovering over the banner and choosing “Details” seems to avoid the upgrade.

yep - i've seen this banner multiple times and inadvertently started the upgrade process. however i'm not sure if it would really just run on autopilot after that point... doesn't it have to download the installer and then when the installer runs there's a huge splash screen that you have to click through, right? in other words you have a chance to cancel it.

in my case i was able to cancel the download as it did appear in system settings.

 

[adnbek]

yep - i've seen this banner multiple times and inadvertently started the upgrade process. however i'm not sure if it would really just run on autopilot after that point... doesn't it have to download the installer and then when the installer runs there's a huge splash screen that you have to click through, right? in other words you have a chance to cancel it.

in my case i was able to cancel the download as it did appear in system settings.

Apparently the download it triggers is similar to a system update where it downloads the payload into a folder within System/Library instead of the Install macOS Sonoma.app being added to Applications.

And yeah you would see it being downloaded in System Preferences if you knew to look there.

What is unclear is whether the download only starts following the appearance of the banner, or whether the download may have already happened and the banner simply triggers the installation.

I think it may be a combination of both. In some cases the download may have already happened in the background and the banner is simply a prompt to begin installing it.

EDIT: I should add that that there is no splash screen before installation since its behaviour is like a normal software update instead of the App Store installer. At reboot, installation begins immediately.

 

[dandeco]

Looking at your link, a number people had a force upgrade to Sonoma on their supported Mac. This is a concern.

That's practically what has been happening to me with my MacBookPro11,4, and it's NOT supported when it comes to Ventura!

 

[adnbek]

I followed the steps here using iMazing Profile Editor to eliminate the risk of a forced upgrade to Sonoma.

 

[deeveedee]

I was pleasantly surprised when I downloaded Zoom 5.17.5 on my MBP6,2 running Ventura 13.6.4 (patched with OCLP 0.6.8). Zoom works! I was expecting non-metal issues and possibly problems with sharing my video and audio, but no such problems. Amazing.

 

[SPJones]

Is there a reason not to go to Sonoma? I have a MBP 2015 and an iMac 13,2 (2012) on 14.2.1 and 1.3.0 and both work great---occasionally I have to reboot my MBP every 3 weeks. iMac, no problems at all.

Not really. I did a Sonoma/OCLP install for my kids on the same machine early doors with Sonoma and it got really glitchy, which put me off. I assume a fair amount of work has been done since then (it's the same machine, Late 2013, 21.5").

Ventura works beautifully otherwise, and I haven't had a FF crash since reinstalling OCLP, so hopefully that's solved it.

Thanks to all who offered ideas and advice!

 

[SPJones]

I really like Edge on Mac (and iOS) - with uBlock Origin and 1Password - works great on both but if you have an aversion to Microsoft, Firefox it is. I also ran Firefox on mac and iOS then one day tried Edge, liked it and haven't gone back. Still have Firefox installed on Mac though but it's not my default browser (and use it on Parallels Ubuntu 22.04)

I tried Edge on my Windows laptop over the autumn. It's too 'busy', and the AI stuff irritates me. I'm just a bit of a dinosaur, really!

 

[deeveedee]

Just witnessed the dreaded Sonoma upgrade pop-up on my MBP6,2 (Ventura 13.6.4, OCLP 0.6.8). I took a chance and dismissed the pop-up by clicking the "X". The pop-up quietly disappeared without upgrading me to Sonoma.

 

[dandeco]

I followed the steps here using iMazing Profile Editor to eliminate the risk of a forced upgrade to Sonoma.

Maybe I will try that. But what if there's a future Ventura update like 13.6.5? Can I still be able to download and install that, then re-apply the iMazing profile?
(I got the "no root patch" scenario again where it apparently tried to force a Sonoma upgrade, but was able to fix it with my patched Ventura USB installer again.)

 

[adnbek]

Maybe I will try that. But what if there's a future Ventura update like 13.6.5? Can I still be able to download and install that, then re-apply the iMazing profile?
(I got the "no root patch" scenario again where it apparently tried to force a Sonoma upgrade, but was able to fix it with my patched Ventura USB installer again.)

With the steps detailed in the post, you are simply blocking major OS upgrades such as Sonoma. Regular updates are not deferred so you can continue to update Ventura as normal.

 

[shafez]

This what I did to prevent force update to macOS Sonoma on my MBP Late 2013 11,1.

- Fresh install Ventura 13.6.4
- Installed OCLP 0.6.8 and in SMBIOS settings Spoof Level: Minimal and Spoof model: MacBook Pro 14,1 which is the first MBP supported by Ventura and not supported by Sonoma.
- Post Install Root Patches

Done.

 

[LookingOut]

Maybe I will try that. But what if there's a future Ventura update like 13.6.5? Can I still be able to download and install that, then re-apply the iMazing profile?
(I got the "no root patch" scenario again where it apparently tried to force a Sonoma upgrade, but was able to fix it with my patched Ventura USB installer again.)

Yes, your system will still download and install point and security updates. You set the profile to block only system upgrades.
I had no issues with installing 13.6.4 from 13.6.3.

 

[adnbek]

This what I did to prevent force update to macOS Sonoma on my MBP Late 2013 11,1.

- Fresh install Ventura 13.6.4
- Installed OCLP 0.6.8 and in SMBIOS settings Spoof Level: Minimal and Spoof model: MacBook Pro 14,1 which is the first MBP supported by Ventura and not supported by Sonoma.
- Post Install Root Patches

Done.

Not sure if this’ll work since anecdotal evidence points to any Mac (supported or not) running Ventura being pushed these upgrades.

After all, if it really was dependent on Mac model, you wouldn’t even be able to see the choice to upgrade to Sonoma within System Update but it’s there if you go check.

Your best preventive tool is deferring the upgrade until this bug gets resolved, if ever.

 

[shafez]

Not sure if this’ll work since anecdotal evidence points to any Mac (supported or not) running Ventura being pushed these upgrades.

After all, if it really was dependent on Mac model, you wouldn’t even be able to see the choice to upgrade to Sonoma within System Update but it’s there if you go check.

Your best preventive tool is deferring the upgrade until this bug gets resolved, if ever.

Please check attached image, There is no Sonoma update available after spoofing and you can always try, you will not lose anything, if worried keep another OCLP boot USB stick so you can boot back to normal system and change the settings.

I tried this with Monterey and Ventura and it worked well. Regards

 

[hanksliu]

My mid-2014 MacBook Pro with OCLP 1.3 installed has an issue where the keyboard backlight is disabled. Can you help solve this problem? My macos version is 14.3

 

[Houpla]

Connected 4K monitor to my MBP Mid 2012 (running Ventura + OCLP 1.3.0) and was pleasantly surprised that 4K resolution is supported. I always thought this Macbook only supports max 2560x1600.

 

[Houpla]

Looking at your link, a number people had a force upgrade to Sonoma on their supported Mac. This is a concern.

I just got "Software update is ready to be installed" notification, although I have every checkbox disabled in Software Update system prefs.