macOS 15 Sequoia on Unsupported Macs Thread

[amaze1499]

Is it possible to treat macOS like Linux, or another Unix system in terms of fstab, and stop all my Volumes from auto mounting? E.g. when booting into Monterey, can I stop the "Macintosh HD" volume with Sequoia from automatically mounting, and vise versa ?

Apple’s Disk Arbitration daemon overrides manual mounts. Since macOS Catalina the “split system volume” structure was introduced: System Volume (read-only) Data Volume (writable)

These are “sealed” system volumes that automatically mount on boot and are required for the OS to function.
So while you can block mounting of external or non-system volumes via /etc/fstab or diskutil,
you cannot prevent the active macOS’s own system volume from mounting, it’s part of the boot process.

When you boot into Monterey, you can stop the “Macintosh HD” (Sequoia) volume from auto-mounting by editing /etc/fstab. However you will need to add the UUID in order for that to work. But you need to know what you are doing, if not you could break something essential.

If you are bothered by the icons on the desktop only, you might consider to turn them off in Finder settings.

 

[Bigwaff]

Is it possible to treat macOS like Linux, or another Unix system in terms of fstab, and stop all my Volumes from auto mounting? E.g. when booting into Monterey, can I stop the "Macintosh HD" volume with Sequoia from automatically mounting, and vise versa ?

You're probably better served by creating an Automator script to unmount the offending volume. Add to your Login Items.

 

[MacinMan]

Apple’s Disk Arbitration daemon overrides manual mounts. Since macOS Catalina the “split system volume” structure was introduced: System Volume (read-only) Data Volume (writable)

These are “sealed” system volumes that automatically mount on boot and are required for the OS to function.
So while you can block mounting of external or non-system volumes via /etc/fstab or diskutil,
you cannot prevent the active macOS’s own system volume from mounting, it’s part of the boot process.

When you boot into Monterey, you can stop the “Macintosh HD” (Sequoia) volume from auto-mounting by editing /etc/fstab. However you will need to add the UUID in order for that to work. But you need to know what you are doing, if not you could break something essential.

If you are bothered by the icons on the desktop only, you might consider to turn them off in Finder settings.

Oh, It's not an issue with icons. I have one or two apps that complain if multiple versions are detected e.g. one on the active system drive and the other on the inactive system drive. I do know how to manage fstab in Linux, but Apple likes to break, or change the standard way of doing things, so that's why I was curious. So my plan was, when booting from the "Monterey HD", "Macintosh HD" wouldn't auto mount since it's not needed, and vise versa, when booting "Macintosh HD", "Monterey HD" wouldn't mount, as it wouldn't 't be needed, and it would prevent duplicates of being found of things that don't like that.

 

[amaze1499]

Oh, It's not an issue with icons. I have one or two apps that complain if multiple versions are detected e.g. one on the active system drive and the other on the inactive system drive. I do know how to manage fstab in Linux, but Apple likes to break, or change the standard way of doing things, so that's why I was curious. So my plan was, when booting from the "Monterey HD", "Macintosh HD" wouldn't auto mount since it's not needed, and vise versa, when booting "Macintosh HD", "Monterey HD" wouldn't mount, as it wouldn't 't be needed, and it would prevent duplicates of being found of things that don't like that.

I'd stick with @Bigwaff 's suggestion so.

 

[MacinMan]

I'd stick with @Bigwaff 's suggestion so.

OK, I'll look into that, I've used cron before but not automator.

 

[macpro_mid2014]

OK, I'll look into that, I've used cron before but not automator.

I use two different Volumes in my MBP11,2, each one of them with a version of macOS and I always enable FileVault on them.
So, every time I boot say Sequoia, macOS asks for the password to mount the Big Sur volume. If I close the pop-up window and don't enter the password, the volume is not mounted. But there is this annoyance of having to manually close the pop-up window asking to enter the password every time you boot the computer.

 

[Tratkazir_the_1st]

@MacinMan
Probably you need to dig about "no_automount" (or similar?) filesystem attribute, if APFS supports it. (It works with Linux filesystems.)

 

[imacker2011]

Updated to Sequoia 15.7.1 on the following two machines (both already on OCLP 2.4.1 and Sequoia 15.7):

iMac 2011 27“, i7 2600, 24GB, 1 TB, K2100m
iMac 2011 27“, i7 2600, 16GB, 1 TB, K2100m

Downloaded the installer with OCLP and created an installer stick. In addition, copied the installer to the desktop and started it from there on this machine. On the other iMac, started the installer from the stick from Mac OS. Installation went without errors on both machines.

After installation both machines showed a black screen with the mouse cursor in one corner. Hitting enter and waiting a while very slowly opened the login screen. Entered password character-by-character. This was much slower than usual after installations. Root patching window appeared, but appearance was different (longer text on one, the other mentioning concrete patches to be installed). The second iMac installed the patches without error as usual. The first machine threw an error (mounting root volume failed). After a reboot, however, root patching was successful.

Both iMacs seem to be running fine now.

 

[MacinMan]

Updated to Sequoia 15.7.1 on the following two machines (both already on OCLP 2.4.1 and Sequoia 15.7):

iMac 2011 27“, i7 2600, 24GB, 1 TB, K2100m
iMac 2011 27“, i7 2600, 16GB, 1 TB, K2100m

Downloaded the installer with OCLP and created an installer stick. In addition, copied the installer to the desktop and started it from there on this machine. On the other iMac, started the installer from the stick from Mac OS. Installation went without errors on both machines.

After installation both machines showed a black screen with the mouse cursor in one corner. Hitting enter and waiting a while very slowly opened the login screen. Entered password character-by-character. This was much slower than usual after installations. Root patching window appeared, but appearance was different (longer text on one, the other mentioning concrete patches to be installed). The second iMac installed the patches without error as usual. The first machine threw an error (mounting root volume failed). After a reboot, however, root patching was successful.

Both iMacs seem to be running fine now.

Just a tip, if you update using an open core built USB installer, root patches will automatically be applied, avoiding this issue. That's why I've switched to this method vs doing OTA updates.

 

[imacker2011]

I did not use OTA updates but downloaded the installer with OCLP. Then I copied the downloaded installer from the applications folder to the desktop (to prevent it being automatically deleted after installation). In addition, I created a USB installer stick for the second machine.

Hence, OCLP patches were automatically applied after installation. There was just an error on one machine, as stated.

 

[MacinMan]

I did not use OTA updates but downloaded the installer with OCLP. Then I copied the downloaded installer from the applications folder to the desktop (to prevent it being automatically deleted after installation). In addition, I created a USB installer stick for the second machine.

Hence, OCLP patches were automatically applied after installation. There was just an error on one machine, as stated.

OK, I wasn't aware that you used the USB method. It sounded like you did an OTA update. Sorry if I misread your initial post.

 

[brotherjoe]

Hey, I need help. I have macbook air 11 Early 2014, Is there a step by step guide anywhere i can refer to to install Sequoia?
Thank you.

See MrMacintosh on YouTube

Mr. Macintosh

Apple Macintosh & macOS how-to videos covering new and old Macs!

www.youtube.com

Bad Luck

Getting this error when doing the step 12 Installing macos sequoia
"An error occurred while preparing the installation. Try running this application again"

Doing internet recovery now to reinstall big sur. Will try sonoma.

Btw does sequoia has a minimum ram requirement ? My macbook air only has 4gb ram.

 

[deeveedee]

Easy OTA upgrade from Sequoia 15.7 -> 15.7.1 on my MBP6,2. Applying post-install patches with OCLP 2.4.1. Posting this with Safari 26.0.1.

 

[Roberto Trevisan]

Bad Luck

Getting this error when doing the step 12 Installing macos sequoia
"An error occurred while preparing the installation. Try running this application again"

Doing internet recovery now to reinstall big sur. Will try sonoma.

Btw does sequoia has a minimum ram requirement ? My macbook air only has 4gb ram.

I'm trying to install Sequoia via USB using the latest version 15.7.1 and I get an error with 15 minutes remaining in the installation. Anyone else having problems? Using a MacBookPro8.3. Using Sonoma, it works 100%.

 

[MacMorrison]

I upgraded macOS 15.7 to 15.7.1 on my external SSD (2015 MacBookPro11,5) without any problems.

Thanks, OCLP developers and MacRumors community!

 

[MacinMan]

I have my Monterey setup complete. So both setups are identical other than the few apps that need a newer version of macOS. It's very easy to switch as well. Finally a stable setup. Right now running Sequoia 15.7.1

 

[Kevo]

Is anyone else seeing crashing in Safari when loading some websites. I've noticed several of these that I didn't have when running on an older version of the Tech Preview. Overall the new Safari works quite well. The only real problem I have besides the crashing is weather radar sites that use WebGL I'm guessing still don't work. The Cloudflare captcha works fine though and the weather app works fine, so overall I'd say it's an improvement.

Here's a site that reliably crashes safari for me. I'm just not sure if it's a Safari thing or a Safari on OCLP thing.

jeffgeerling.com

 

[MacNB2]

Is anyone else seeing crashing in Safari when loading some websites. I've noticed several of these that I didn't have when running on an older version of the Tech Preview. Overall the new Safari works quite well. The only real problem I have besides the crashing is weather radar sites that use WebGL I'm guessing still don't work. The Cloudflare captcha works fine though and the weather app works fine, so overall I'd say it's an improvement.

Here's a site that reliably crashes safari for me. I'm just not sure if it's a Safari thing or a Safari on OCLP thing.

jeffgeerling.com

confirm that site crashes my Safari Version 18.6 (20621.3.11.11.3) on my rMBP10,1 too...some floating point exception.

 

[MacinMan]

confirm that site crashes my Safari Version 18.6 (20621.3.11.11.3) on my rMBP10,1 too...some floating point exception.

Loaded fine for me, Sequoia 15.7.1, safari 26.0.1 OpenCore 2.4.1 iMac 17,1
I'm assuming you have an instant crash when loading the site, which didn't happen for me.

 

[Kevo]

Loaded fine for me, Sequoia 15.7.1, safari 26.0.1 OpenCore 2.4.1 iMac 17,1
I'm assuming you have an instant crash when loading the site, which didn't happen for me.

Yes, insta-crash. Probably related to the CPU instruction set some how. I have a 2012 MBP which doesn't have AVX2 and possibly other instructions that the newer CPUs have. It doesn't happen on most sites, but there have been a few I've run across. If it just crashed the one tab and not the whole app that would be a lot better.

If I could figure out what feature of the site causes it, maybe I could disable that function in the feature flags and solve it that way. I'll have to think about how to track it down.

 

[Kevo]

After fiddling around for a little bit I think it's a javascript issue. When I mirrored the page locally and worked around the issues getting the files to load, some of the javascript doesn't run properly locally. That allows the page to load and it looks normal. So I think the problem is in the javascript used by the site somewhere, but I'm not sure if there are any good options to deal with that. I'd like to be able to disable javascript just for that one site to test, but I don't think that's an option in Safari.

 

[Kevo]

I think I was barking up the wrong tree. Seems like the crash is happening in this function...

- (void)_createIconDataFromImageData:(NSData *)imageData withLengths:(NSArray<NSNumber *> *)lengths completionHandler:(void (^)(NSData *, NSError *))completionHandler
{
    Vector<unsigned> targetLengths;
    targetLengths.reserveInitialCapacity(lengths.count);
    for (NSNumber *length in lengths) {
        if (unsigned lengthValue = length.unsignedIntValue)
            targetLengths.append(lengthValue);
    }

    auto buffer = WebCore::SharedBuffer::create(imageData);
    _page->createIconDataFromImageData(WTFMove(buffer), targetLengths, [completionHandler = makeBlockPtr(completionHandler)](auto result) mutable {
        if (!result) {
            RetainPtr error = adoptNS([[NSError alloc] initWithDomain:WKErrorDomain code:WKErrorUnknown userInfo:@{ NSLocalizedDescriptionKey: @"Failed to decode data" }]);
            return completionHandler(nil, error.get());
        }

        completionHandler(result->createNSData().autorelease(), nil);
    });
}

I'm guessing it's the Vector part that is generating some issues with my older CPU. Not sure if there is anything that can easily be done about that. Would probably require some kind of patch which is beyond my capabilities. I guess I will just hope that there aren't too many of these sites I need to deal with for the next year or so until I'm ready to pony up for a new machine.

 

[MacinMan]

@Kevo It looks like your Macbook Pro can go up to Catalina (natively.) The last time I checked, both Chrome, and Firefox still support it with the latest version(s). Maybe see if the site crashes under a supported install as well. If it's a CPU related issue, it should happen on a supported install as well, depending on how it's handled with the other browsers. You could do the same tests with your existing install too, but I think it might be more accurate to eliminate all possible variables not present with a standard install of macOS, if you plan on reporting the site issues.

 

[Kevo]

The CPU problem is that it's old and doesn't support the same instructions as newer CPUs. It's not that there is anything wrong with the CPU.

I can use an older Safari Tech Preview and it works. Other browsers also work.

This is just another sign that the end is getting nearer for my well used 2012 machine.

 

[basslik]

The CPU problem is that it's old and doesn't support the same instructions as newer CPUs. It's not that there is anything wrong with the CPU.

I can use an older Safari Tech Preview and it works. Other browsers also work.

This is just another sign that the end is getting nearer for my well used 2012 machine.

Yeah, it's going to be heartbreaking turning the page.

One thing is for sure. We are getting our money's worth!