macOS 14 Sonoma on Unsupported Macs Thread

[josehill]

Using an IMac 21.5" (late 2009) with Sonoma 14.3 and OCLP 1.3.0 with all working well.
Two questions:
1) This Imac only has a 500GB internal hard drive which is original equipment. Is it worth my time, money and patience to attempt an installation of a new internal SSD, or should I just use a new external SSD as my primary drive? My cureent internal is working satisfactorily, but slow. This computer has four USB ports (I think 1.0) and 1 Firewire port.

Unless you do the drive replacement yourself or find someone else to do it for free, you're probably better off spending your money on a brand new Mac or a relatively recent used Mac that already has an SSD:

1. Replacing the drive on your particular Mac is moderately difficult, and your Mac is only USB 2, so an external drive wouldn't be a good solution. You should review the hard drive replacement guide for your computer at iFixit to decide if you want to do the upgrade yourself.
2. You could have a computer repair shop do the upgrade, but between the labor costs and the price of the SSD, you'll be in the neighborhood of a new Mac mini or a recent used iMac.
3. As an example, BackMarket has a used 2019 21.5" iMac with a 256 GB SSD available for $540 as I write this comment. (That's not an endorsement of BackMarket in particular. It's merely an indicator of today's market price.)

 

[K two]

Unless you do the drive replacement yourself or find someone else to do it for free, you're probably better off spending your money on a brand new Mac or a relatively recent used Mac that already has an SSD:

1. Replacing the drive on your particular Mac is moderately difficult, and your Mac is only USB 2, so an external drive wouldn't be a good solution. You should review the hard drive replacement guide for your computer at iFixit to decide if you want to do the upgrade yourself.
2. You could have a computer repair shop do the upgrade, but between the labor costs and the price of the SSD, you'll be in the neighborhood of a new Mac mini or a recent used iMac.
3. As an example, BackMarket has a used 2019 21.5" iMac with a 256 GB SSD available for $540 as I write this comment. (That's not an endorsement of BackMarket in particular. It's merely an indicator of today's market price.)

There are numerous Firewire to SATA adapters available, a lot more cost effective than a newer Mac or updating the spinning rust to a SSD. 🧐

 

[deeveedee]

There are numerous Firewire to SATA adapters available, a lot more cost effective than a newer Mac or updating the spinning rust to a SSD. 🧐

Depends on whether you feel comfortable with DIY SSD replacement and what speed gains you're hoping to achieve. Read this.

 

[K two]

Depends on whether you feel comfortable with DIY SSD replacement and what speed gains you're hoping to achieve. Read this.

Have a year newer iMac with a FW to SATA enclosure containing a 1TB SSD attached to the back of the iMac with Velcro and it is nimble and reliable, perfectly useful on a early iMac. FWIW 🤔

 

[rehkram]

Well, and the other thing is, and I can't speak for everyone else here. However, I consider myself an old breed of computer user who actually knows how to use a computer on a technical level and likes control over hardware, and software (if the need arises ) I, as others *some* others here are old enough to have been around when Apple first got started and lived through their different stages as a company. through the Apple xx series, 68K Macs, and all the way through today for the M Series Macs. My favorite trait of an intel Mac has been you can typically treat them as a PC and run any OS you want natively on them, with the added bonus of macOS. Because of this, I've developed interests and things I like to do with the computer where switching to an M Series machine would take away from because of the platform change. I would still have the Apple experience, and since I use that most of the time, I wouldn't have issues on a day to day basis. It's more the backward compatibility aspects and third party compatibility that would suffer by changing, and getting a new mac. I have an iMac 17,1 currently which gives me native support from El Capitan through Monterey, and then at least Vetura, and Sonoma through Open core. So, keeping with an Apple solution for running old software, would be to keep a copy of Mojave around, if that's not good enough, then I'd have Windows and Linux as options as third party on the same physical hardware. So just keep in mind, these are all the different areas I look at and consider when moving forward with what computer to get next, or what choices to make with this one I already have.

I'm reminded of Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 1

 

[rbart]

I'm not really sure if we will be able to upgrade our unsupported Macs when macOS 15 comes out, especially if Apple stops intel code.

If Apple stops intel support, OCLP won't be able to restore it. It's far too complex.

 

[amaze1499]

I've tried near everything. Got my Mac Mini 2012 up to Sonoma with no issues. my Mac Pro 2012, no dice.

I have wifi in Sierra, but no wifi in Sonoma. Please see attached.

When I tried to just install Monterey, the computer would just keep rebooting.

Open to ideas.

Would internet work with an iPhone hotspot via usb perhaps? Assuming you got a decent data plan.

 

[rbart]

I have tried to decrease the "feature unlock" setting to see if it's better for som of my issues but the new setting doesn't seem to be applied or saved. I change the setting, build the opencore fi, reboot and this setting is back to default.
Is it normal ?
Am I missing something ?

 

[wolf1734]

Hello everyone
my Imac from 2010 starts but the screen remains black, this happened like this. yesterday it was working and this morning nothing. what to do?

 

[macpro_mid2014]

I have tried to decrease the "feature unlock" setting to see if it's better for som of my issues but the new setting doesn't seem to be applied or saved. I change the setting, build the opencore fi, reboot and this setting is back to default.
Is it normal ?
Am I missing something ?

Did you reset NVRAM?
You can verify if the modification is active by mounting the EFI partition and check the boot_args line on config.plist:
<string>keepsyms=1 debug=0x100 ipc_control_port_options=0 -nokcmismatchpanic -disable_sidecar_mac</string>
the red parameter does the trick...

 

[deeveedee]

Did you reset NVRAM?
You can verify if the modification is active by mounting the EFI partition and check the boot_args line on config.plist:
<string>keepsyms=1 debug=0x100 ipc_control_port_options=0 -nokcmismatchpanic -disable_sidecar_mac</string>
the red parameter makes the trick...

... or issue command 'nvram -p' in terminal and look at the boot-args

I have tried to decrease the "feature unlock" setting to see if it's better for som of my issues but the new setting doesn't seem to be applied or saved. I change the setting, build the opencore fi, reboot and this setting is back to default.
Is it normal ?
Am I missing something ?

If you mean that the setting is "reset" in the OCLP GUI, that is independent of the Open Core EFI that you built. You need to change Feature Unlock to partial each time you build a new OC EFI.

 

[rbart]

...
If you mean that the setting is "reset" in the OCLP GUI, that is independent of the Open Core EFI that you built. You need to change Feature Unlock to partial each time you build a new OC EFI.

I haven't directly checked NVRAM settings.
I was assuming that settings in OCLP GUI were reflecting the actual settings in EFI.
They say nowhere to reset NVRAM settings after changing something ...

 

[Daniel Pascoal]

When you add your APFS volume, look at Size Options:
View attachment 2342678

Default behavior is for APFS volumes to auto resize within the constraints of their container.

Any way to change these options after the volume is created and in use?

 

[deeveedee]

I haven't directly checked NVRAM settings.
I was assuming that settings in OCLP GUI were reflecting the actual settings in EFI.
They say nowhere to reset NVRAM settings after changing something ...

It has been my experience that OCLP GUI does not reflect the actual OC EFI, so changes from the default need to be re-applied with each "Build and Install Open Core." Use 'nvram -p' to see the actual boot-args being applied (and as macpro_mid2014 said, look for -disable_sidecar_mac in boot-args to confirm that FeatureUnlock=partial was applied by OCLP).

 

[deeveedee]

Any way to change these options after the volume is created and in use?

You should be able to find links like this with a quick search.

 

[rbart]

On my iMac, sidecar is natively supported. The only benefit of the "unlock feature" setting is airplay to Mac.
I don't need that and don't need a specific hack for that. Ia want to be as stock as possible.

 

[Sevenfeet]

I'm not really sure if we will be able to upgrade our unsupported Macs when macOS 15 comes out, especially if Apple stops intel code.

OLCP will come to an end at some point; we just don't know which macOS Intel release will be the last. I don't think that macOS 15 will be Apple Silicon only. We're still four years out from the most recent Mac products (and my daughter has an Intel MacBook Air 2020). My guess is that at a WWDC (maybe this year), Apple will tell developers (and the general public) when the last macOS Intel release is going to be, and give everyone a year to process that. Apple typically supports macOS releases on a specific piece of hardware for 5-6 years from original release and 7-8 years for a Mac Pro. In theory, we could get Intel releases for another 3 years but I'm betting one more release, two tops. And of course, there will be bug/security fixes for another 2 years on the last release.

And I'd be curious if OLCP could end up being something to extend the life of Apple Silicon machines....M1s have to age out at some point. Not sure how technically challenging that would be.

 

[K two]

Hello everyone
my Imac from 2010 starts but the screen remains black, this happened like this. yesterday it was working and this morning nothing. what to do?

Hold the on-off switch down for 10 seconds.

 

[cmedina90]

Hello everyone,
Today I updated my iMac 27'' late 2013 from Sonoma 14.2 to Sonoma 14.3 without problem with OCLP 1.3.0 but when applying the post-install patches the system froze.

Any idea to solve it?

 

[comptalk]

Would internet work with an iPhone hotspot via usb perhaps? Assuming you got a decent data plan.

It doesn't detect any network.

I was finally able to get Monterey on the 5,1, which I will be okay with. Do you, anyone else, know how I can restore my Apple Mail accounts? I have them backed up, just need to know how to import them into Apple Mail.

 

[WurzelGnOOm]

Hello everyone,
Today I updated my iMac 27'' late 2013 from Sonoma 14.2 to Sonoma 14.3 without problem with OCLP 1.3.0 but when applying the post-install patches the system froze.

Any idea to solve it?

I have exactly the same model. I install the post patches in safe mode and have not noticed any problems so far.

The only thing that doesn't work is the privacy and security settings, I don't get a request from the respective app.

 

[PeterHolbrook]

Try starting Adobe Acrobat first in safe mode: then, it should work also while booted normally.

I wanted to do that on my Mac Pro 5,1. Unfortunately, safe mode doesn't work for me under OCLP. If I press Shift + Enter when I select my Sonoma SSD in the OpenCore boot picker, the boot process gets stuck. I've even tried it after an NVRAM reset; it will still freeze up. Do you have any suggestions as to how to proceed? I haven't tried an SMC reset. Would that do the trick?

 

[amaze1499]

It doesn't detect any network.

I was finally able to get Monterey on the 5,1, which I will be okay with. Do you, anyone else, know how I can restore my Apple Mail accounts? I have them backed up, just need to know how to import them into Apple Mail.

I don’t have Monterey in front of me but I would bet not much has changed:

 

[amaze1499]

It doesn't detect any network.

I was finally able to get Monterey on the 5,1, which I will be okay with.

Have you checked out this one yet? He said something like he had to remove the graphics card or upgrade to BigSur first, you may want to check it out.

 

[MacinMan]

I don’t have Monterey in front of me but I would bet not much has changed:

Overall, Monterey to Sonoma isn't a huge jump. I could have stayed with Monterey and been fine. However, I wanted to update my apple apps to the latest so that needed Ventura, or Sonoma, and decided to do Sonoma so I wouldn't get asked to upgrade to it later from Ventura. FYI, Monterey is a native install for this iMac 17,1, it's the last officially supported version.