macOS High Sierra (10.13) Unsupported Macs Thread

[VictoryHighway]

Did you truly follow the steps on Dosdude1 site? (Step 8, and 9) Did you apply the high sierra Patch of your machine after the installation of macOS? It’s important to follow the steps. Then you will be fine.

Yes, I had been running High Sierra successfully for a few days with my startup disk still HFS+. I later decided to convert it to APFS. So, I booted to the High Sierra installer and opened Disk Utility and ran the APFS conversion. Once it completed, I re-ran the patch tool making sure to select my Mac model and ensued that the APFS patch was checked. Once the patches are applied I rebooted and got that "Boot file not found, exiting..." message which left me with an EFI shell.

 

[waveman]

Yes, I had been running High Sierra successfully for a few days with my startup disk still HFS+. I later decided to convert it to APFS. So, I booted to the High Sierra installer and opened Disk Utility and ran the APFS conversion. Once it completed, I re-ran the patch tool making sure to select my Mac model and ensued that the APFS patch was checked. Once the patches are applied I rebooted and got that "Boot file not found, exiting..." message which left me with an EFI shell.

I had the exact same problem after conversion to APFS, so I had to install Mac OS again on top of the current one, like an update. the applied patches again, and it works. The only problem I have now after conversion, that the performance of the system is really poor, and I have to wait between 1.5-2 minutes for the system to boot up.

 

[VictoryHighway]

I had the exact same problem after conversion to APFS, so I had to install Mac OS again on top of the current one, like an update. the applied patches again, and it works. The only problem I have now after conversion, that the performance of the system is really poor, and I have to wait between 1.5-2 minutes for the system to boot up.

What Mac model are you running?

 

[birdieman128]

Any idea why my monitor will not wake up after energy saver, i tried a new install of HighSierra on an empty hard drive on MacPro 3,1 and it just need to hard reset. The other way i can do this is to set Computer NEVER go to sleep.

 

[taranee]

how do you all get the erly 08 macbooks to install 10,13 ? evey time i try it wont even boot the usb im met with this screen. also the first time i try it reboots and then the second time i try it boots from the usb but gives the following screen. what am i missing ?

NOTE: this is the early 08 black modle

 

[dosdude1]

how do you all get the erly 08 macbooks to install 10,13 ? evey time i try it wont even boot the usb im met with this screen. also the first time i try it reboots and then the second time i try it boots from the usb but gives the following screen. what am i missing ?

NOTE: this is the early 08 black modle

That's a MacBook 4,1, this patch isn't compatible with that machine. Only the Late-'08 aluminum model (5,1) and newer are.

 

[taranee]

That's a MacBook 4,1, this patch isn't compatible with that machine. Only the Late-'08 aluminum model (5,1) and newer are.

do you have one that is i could never get anything newer then 10,8 to boot.

 

[EugW]

Installed the supplemental update on my MacBook5,1 and MacBookPro5,5. Painless on both, although for the latter, the update took quite a bit longer, and it needed the supplemental USB update afterwards, which was done automatically.

I tested speed via Geekbench 4 before and after on the MacBookPro5,5 and there was no change in speed. Before multicore was 2646 and after it was 2652. This is a 2.26 GHz P8400.

do you have one that is i could never get anything newer then 10,8 to boot.

I just installed Chrome on my MacBook4,1. The Sierra and High Sierra patches don't support that model, and I didn't want to deal with the other methods to try to get Mavericks, etc. on it. I don't want to run anything less than 10.10 anyway.

 

[taranee]

I just installed Chrome on my MacBook4,1. The Sierra and High Sierra patches don't support that model, and I didn't want to deal with the other methods to try to get Mavericks, etc. on it. I don't want to run anything less than 10.10 anyway.

how did you get 10,10 to work on it ? how is it working every thing work like it should ? i want something newer then whats on it now.

 

[EugW]

how did you get 10,10 to work on it ? how is it working every thing work like it should ? i want something newer then whats on it now.

I didn't get 10.10 on it. I just said I wouldn't want to run any OS older than 10.10.

Like I said, I don't want to try any of the other methods to get later versions of OS X on MacBook4,1, because they are iffy at best, and require a lot of effort just to get those iffy results.

I'm running Chrome OS on MacBook4,1.

 

[whichweather]

Yes, I had been running High Sierra successfully for a few days with my startup disk still HFS+. I later decided to convert it to APFS. So, I booted to the High Sierra installer and opened Disk Utility and ran the APFS conversion. Once it completed, I re-ran the patch tool making sure to select my Mac model and ensued that the APFS patch was checked. Once the patches are applied I rebooted and got that "Boot file not found, exiting..." message which left me with an EFI shell.

This also happened to me. Turns out, as dosdude1 later explained (see below), the OS is booting in the background but there is no progress bar. So, while it takes about a minute or so on my SSD, it may take a lot longer on a slower hard drive.

When doing a clean install on iMac 9,1, choosing APFS encryption for the boot drive and after running the patcher, I am able to type my password used to decrypt the boot drive. However, after some messages, I received the following print out:

View attachment 729500

Am I doing something wrong or is APFS with encryption just not supported in the current patch @dosdude1 ?

Thanks mate!

Just wait at that screen for awhile. It is actually booting in the background.

[doublepost=1515927951][/doublepost]

Installed the supplemental update on my MacBook5,1 and MacBookPro5,5. Painless on both, although for the latter, the update took quite a bit longer, and it needed the supplemental USB update afterwards, which was done automatically.

I tested speed via Geekbench 4 before and after on the MacBookPro5,5 and there was no change in speed. Before multicore was 2646 and after it was 2652. This is a 2.26 GHz P8400.

I was wondering whether the supplemental update would break things so I am glad to hear this. Will be trying this on iMac 9,1. Here goes...

[UPDATE] Supplemental update works! Note that after the black/white update progress bar was filled, the screen went black and stayed like this for several minutes before the machine finally rebooted. Not sure if it's important to not interrupt this process but I'm glad it worked.

 

[zappaesque]

I didn't get 10.10 on it. I just said I wouldn't want to run any OS older than 10.10.

Like I said, I don't want to try any of the other methods to get later versions of OS X on MacBook4,1, because they are iffy at best, and require a lot of effort just to get those iffy results.

I'm running Chrome OS on MacBook4,1.

I also found that it was a lot of work for less-than-desirable results on the 2,1 to 4,1 Macbooks. It reminded me of running OS X 10.4 on a Wallstreet Powerbook- it works, but is handicapped by the limitations of the video hardware and a bit too slow to really be of any use as a result. The lack of sleep and brightness controls on the Macbooks is a huge issue. I left El Capitan on my 3,1, which temporarily runs as my media server with the video cable disconnected from the screen until I can find a cheap C2D Mac Mini (which replaces my G4 Mac Mini).

 

[dtrimble]

I have a 2008 Mac Pro (3,1). I'll include the specs at the bottom of this post. Running a 2 TB internal SSD via a PCIe controller (OWC). I was running El Capitan and opted to put in @dosdude1 High Sierra patch in order to be able to run some newer software I couldn’t run on El Capitan.

Following his website's instructions, I installed from a 32GB USB thumb drive. I was surprised that, start to finish, it took literally 34 hours to install. I chalked it up to USB 2.0 on a 10-year-old machine being awfully slow by any modern standard, but I’m not so sure that’s the problem anymore.

I then ran the patch's post-install and selected the default options for a 3,1 Mac Pro, and then rebooted into the SSD. It came up quickly with the password prompt (I run FileVault, so the SSD is encrypted). And then the progress bar started moving to load the rest of the OS. This is where the problems come up. There are two in particular:

1. It hangs perpetually around 95%.
2. The display goes into energy saving mode and will not come back up.

I've let it run for four hours - occasionally poking the keyboard to keep energy saving off. I also on another attempt let it run overnight and then some -- I'd estimate about 11 hours. If it ever got any further than that 95%, I wouldn't know since the energy saver came on and turned off the display and wouldn't restore. That said, subsequent attempts repeat these problems, so I assume it never gets past 95%. It’s an SSD, so I can’t listen for any hard drive mechanical movements nor observe any other activity in the background.

Following the instructions again, I rebooted into the boot USB, ran the post installer again, and this time opted for the Force Rebuild option for the caches. Rebooted back into the SSD. Same problems. I turned off the machine and let it sit for a few days and went back to my MacBook Pro while I researched and thought through what’s going on.

I next decided to try building a new boot drive w/ High Sierra and the patch, on the off chance either the original USB installer was corrupted somehow or perhaps USB 2.0 performance is slow enough to be causing some issues. This time I used a LaCie 1TB, FireWire 800 external HDD.

Re-ran both the macOS installer and the post install from that drive and also did the forced cache rebuild again. Same exact problem.

When I did the force rebuild, it told me there’s a command I should run from Terminal after booting into HighSierra. I haven’t even been able to get that far to run it.

Is there any point in running that command from Terminal from the installer boot drive?

I also attempted to install a patched HS onto an empty, internal 1TB HDD. Didn't work.

SIP is disabled as far as I know. I did so successfully at the outset of all of this and I have not reset my PRAM or anything. Since the system hasn't run anything but these installers since then, I have no reason to believe the system itself has reset the SIP.

The SSD is not APFS, unless the installer converted it automatically

Might any of you, or perhaps even @dosdude1 himself, have any idea (A) what's causing this; and (B) how I might be able to solve it?

The machine is not strictly OEM spec anymore. These are the relevant details:

• Dual 2.8 GHz Quad Core (Xeon Harpertown E5462 x2; factory-provided configuration)
  
• Internal HDD in bay 2, 1 TB (unused except for efforts above)
  
• 64 GB of 800MHz DDR2 EEC FB-DIMM RAM (OWC sourced)
  
• Primary drive -- internal, Extreme 6G SSD, 2 TB, running on a PCIe controller (OWC sourced)
• Nvida Quadro 4000, 256 CUDA cores and 2GB (sourced direct)
• All other parts and configurations are OEM specs and supplied

 

[whichweather]

I have a 2008 Mac Pro (3,1). I'll include the specs at the bottom of this post. Running a 2 TB internal SSD via a PCIe controller (OWC). I was running El Capitan and opted to put in @dosdude1 High Sierra patch in order to be able to run some newer software I couldn’t run on El Capitan.

Following his website's instructions, I installed from a 32GB USB thumb drive. I was surprised that, start to finish, it took literally 34 hours to install. I chalked it up to USB 2.0 on a 10-year-old machine being awfully slow by any modern standard, but I’m not so sure that’s the problem anymore.

I then ran the patch's post-install and selected the default options for a 3,1 Mac Pro, and then rebooted into the SSD. It came up quickly with the password prompt (I run FileVault, so the SSD is encrypted). And then the progress bar started moving to load the rest of the OS. This is where the problems come up. There are two in particular:

1. It hangs perpetually around 95%.
2. The display goes into energy saving mode and will not come back up.

I've let it run for four hours - occasionally poking the keyboard to keep energy saving off. I also on another attempt let it run overnight and then some -- I'd estimate about 11 hours. If it ever got any further than that 95%, I wouldn't know since the energy saver came on and turned off the display and wouldn't restore. That said, subsequent attempts repeat these problems, so I assume it never gets past 95%. It’s an SSD, so I can’t listen for any hard drive mechanical movements nor observe any other activity in the background.

Following the instructions again, I rebooted into the boot USB, ran the post installer again, and this time opted for the Force Rebuild option for the caches. Rebooted back into the SSD. Same problems. I turned off the machine and let it sit for a few days and went back to my MacBook Pro while I researched and thought through what’s going on.

I next decided to try building a new boot drive w/ High Sierra and the patch, on the off chance either the original USB installer was corrupted somehow or perhaps USB 2.0 performance is slow enough to be causing some issues. This time I used a LaCie 1TB, FireWire 800 external HDD.

Re-ran both the macOS installer and the post install from that drive and also did the forced cache rebuild again. Same exact problem.

When I did the force rebuild, it told me there’s a command I should run from Terminal after booting into HighSierra. I haven’t even been able to get that far to run it.

Is there any point in running that command from Terminal from the installer boot drive?

I also attempted to install a patched HS onto an empty, internal 1TB HDD. Didn't work.

SIP is disabled as far as I know. I did so successfully at the outset of all of this and I have not reset my PRAM or anything. Since the system hasn't run anything but these installers since then, I have no reason to believe the system itself has reset the SIP.

The SSD is not APFS, unless the installer converted it automatically

Might any of you, or perhaps even @dosdude1 himself, have any idea (A) what's causing this; and (B) how I might be able to solve it?

The machine is not strictly OEM spec anymore. These are the relevant details:

• Dual 2.8 GHz Quad Core (Xeon Harpertown E5462 x2; factory-provided configuration)
  
• Internal HDD in bay 2, 1 TB (unused except for efforts above)
  
• 64 GB of 800MHz DDR2 EEC FB-DIMM RAM (OWC sourced)
  
• Primary drive -- internal, Extreme 6G SSD, 2 TB, running on a PCIe controller (OWC sourced)
• Nvida Quadro 4000, 256 CUDA cores and 2GB (sourced direct)
• All other parts and configurations are OEM specs and supplied

For me, the install took somewhere around 1h with USB 2.0 so that seems a bit strange. When you say that you installed the fresh copy of HS on an empty HDD, was this without using encryption? If you selected the encrypted version, try again without it and make sure to reformat the HDD in Recovery before, just to make sure.

 

[dtrimble]

For me, the install took somewhere around 1h with USB 2.0 so that seems a bit strange. When you say that you installed the fresh copy of HS on an empty HDD, was this without using encryption? If you selected the encrypted version, try again without it and make sure to reformat the HDD in Recovery before, just to make sure.

Sorry, I should clarify. The install to the SSD took about 34 hours. The install to the HDD took about 30 minutes.

Yes, the HDD is not encrypted, was totally clean, AND reformatted before install.

For performance reasons, I need the OS and my primary drive to be on the SSD though, so I have to figure out how to make that work OR decide to go back to El Capitan. The HDD was just a test to try and isolate where the problems might be.

 

[whichweather]

Sorry, I should clarify. The install to the SSD took about 34 hours. The install to the HDD took about 30 minutes.

Yes, the HDD is not encrypted, was totally clean, AND reformatted before install.

For performance reasons, I need the OS and my primary drive to be on the SSD though, so I have to figure out how to make that work OR decide to go back to El Capitan. The HDD was just a test to try and isolate where the problems might be.

Needing to use the SSD makes sense. I was just suggesting an initial step to take.

I mean, short of some other answer and if you have the time, I'd probably try removing the GPU just for the hell of it and see if the boot sequence goes through. If not (probably it still won't), then start by resetting PRAM, re-dissabling SIP, re-download and install the HS image with the patcher to the USB stick, and use the same HDD config to check if it finally works after having run the patcher. And if that works, then try the setup again with your initial SSD.

 

[dtrimble]

Needing to use the SSD makes sense. I was just suggesting an initial step to take.

I mean, short of some other answer and if you have the time, I'd probably try removing the GPU just for the hell of it and see if the boot sequence goes through. If not (probably it still won't), then start by resetting PRAM, re-dissabling SIP, re-download and install the HS image with the patcher to the USB stick, and use the same HDD config to check if it finally works after having run the patcher. And if that works, then try the setup again with your initial SSD.

I thought about that a bit last night. I'm not likely to try removing the GPU since there's not really a realistic scenario in which I'd trade out the GPU upgrade for being able to run High Sierra. I figure I've got another 1.5 - 2 years of life out of this machine before I have to plunk down another $5-6K for a new one. I'd greatly prefer to be running on HS for a variety of performance reasons, but it's not mission-critical to the work I do with this machine. If there were some compelling evidence or experiential reports from others that the GPU were incompatible, I'd probably give it a try. But it seems far more plausible, based on other reports in this thread, that the PCIe controller for the SSD could be an issue. No one seems to have cited this controller specifically, but the fact that other PCIe SSDs have had issues suggests at least a possibility this one could too.

I did reset the PRAM about 45 minutes ago, re-disabled SIP, and am attempting to reinstall as I write this. Not optimistic, but worth a shot.

 

[whichweather]

I thought about that a bit last night. I'm not likely to try removing the GPU since there's not really a realistic scenario in which I'd trade out the GPU upgrade for being able to run High Sierra. I figure I've got another 1.5 - 2 years of life out of this machine before I have to plunk down another $5-6K for a new one. I'd greatly prefer to be running on HS for a variety of performance reasons, but it's not mission-critical to the work I do with this machine. If there were some compelling evidence or experiential reports from others that the GPU were incompatible, I'd probably give it a try. But it seems far more plausible, based on other reports in this thread, that the PCIe controller for the SSD could be an issue. No one seems to have cited this controller specifically, but the fact that other PCIe SSDs have had issues suggests at least a possibility this one could too.

I did reset the PRAM about 45 minutes ago, re-disabled SIP, and am attempting to reinstall as I write this. Not optimistic, but worth a shot.

First off, good luck with giving it another shot. Two things come to mind:

1 - Removing the GPU was only supposed to be a diagnostic issue. The Nvida Quadro 4000 card is covered for 10.13 so in theory it should work.
2 - I've also had a PCIe SSD problem before so I know what that feels like. But most likely, if it worked before, it should continue working. Are you doing the reinstall on the SSD or just the HDD to test it again?

 

[dtrimble]

First off, good luck with giving it another shot. Two things come to mind:

1 - Removing the GPU was only supposed to be a diagnostic issue. The Nvida Quadro 4000 card is covered for 10.13 so in theory it should work.
2 - I've also had a PCIe SSD problem before so I know what that feels like. But most likely, if it worked before, it should continue working. Are you doing the reinstall on the SSD or just the HDD to test it again?

The SSD.

 

[whichweather]

The SSD.

Hope the install doesn't take 2 days like last time

 

[dtrimble]

Hope the install doesn't take 2 days like last time

This attempt failed, too. Same problems. At least this time it only took a couple hours to get the install done. But ultimately the same problems.

Time to revert to El Capitan, unfortunately. If anyone has any ideas, I don't mind doing a clone of my drive and experimenting off it.

 

[thommills]

Installed 10.13.1 on a Mac mini (macmini3,1). Install went great but doesn't seem to be able to install any OS updates. A few non OS specific updates went through fine (ie. iTunes) but the App Store App doesn't see any OS updates (ie. 10.13.2). I downloaded separately and tried to install and receive error message, "This software is not supported on your system." I checked the csrutil to ensure that is disabled as per the instructions. The CSR was enabled for certain things so I do boot into recovery in order to disable and is now disabled. This did not correct the issue.

Any suggestions to fix to allow 10.13.2 update to install? Thanks!

 

[medioevo]

Hi,
I installed high sierra on a Mac9.1 and Post Install Patch. Everything was fine until I reboot. I stuck on the Apple Logo for hours. I patched again and so I could boot regularly. When I boot again I stuck on the logo. I need to patch every time before to boot. Any ideas?

Thanx in advance to everybody.

Enrico

 

[L Caputo]

Installed 10.13.1 on a Mac mini (macmini3,1). Install went great but doesn't seem to be able to install any OS updates. A few non OS specific updates went through fine (ie. iTunes) but the App Store App doesn't see any OS updates (ie. 10.13.2). I downloaded separately and tried to install and receive error message, "This software is not supported on your system." I checked the csrutil to ensure that is disabled as per the instructions. The CSR was enabled for certain things so I do boot into recovery in order to disable and is now disabled. This did not correct the issue.

Any suggestions to fix to allow 10.13.2 update to install? Thanks!

Ok first go to the Software Update patcher in your Utilities folder, click View Updates, now control-click on software update patch and click Re-install. Now restart and relaunch App Store, do you see the update now.
If you download the standalone updates from the Apple Support Downloads site they cannot be installed without modifying the distribution file. If you look back in this forum you will find instructions on how to do this, probably by me.
It is very important to read all of this forum and not go in half cocked.

 

[ach]

This attempt failed, too. Same problems. At least this time it only took a couple hours to get the install done. But ultimately the same problems.

Time to revert to El Capitan, unfortunately. If anyone has any ideas, I don't mind doing a clone of my drive and experimenting off it.

On my MP 3,1, I also have a OWC PCIe cardwith SSD installed. I could not install it directly to my SSD, I installed the SSD into one of the SATA bay to install HS, then after everything is working, I moved it to the PCIe card. It worked fine afterwards, except for the known failure to wake up with the HD5770 graphics card .

Note, when I updated the OS installed in the PCIe also, the SSD failed to work, I have reinstalled HS again on the SSD after I move it to the bay again. I’m searching this forum to see if there is any hope that the latest HS fixes the sleep problem. I have no confidence with HS, I’m still using Sierraon the working boot drive.