MP 6,1 MacPro6,1, Ventura/Sonoma and OCLP (DRM + Chrome + Electron issues)

[pischu12]

Hello I know that much time has passed... and we are well beyond MacOS 13 ; Were the issues with DRM and power management solved by any chance ? I will also go and look on the OCLP website ( I absolutely am amazed with them, love their work and support them fully !!!!!) I am still with MacOS 12 and still loving it as it more the older layout .... but in the coming 5 years / I am sure things will be phased out slowly and have to make the migration upwards . I absolutely love this computer design/speed ( for what I do ) / and everything in the middle. Thank you for all. your help and insight about upgrading MacOS - specifically as It related to Mac Pro 6.1 .

 

[tsialex]

Hello I know what time has passed... and we are well beyond MacOS 13 ; Were he issues with DRM and power management solved by any chance ?

Nope for DRM, but people seems to workaround it and accept the limitations - like using third party browsers and accepting that mostly 1080p or/and non-HDR content will be displayed with streaming services.

I am still with MacOS 12 and still loving it as it more the older layout .... but in the coming 5 years / I am sure things will be phased out slowly and have to make the migration upwards .

Monterey Software Update support ends this year, the moment Apple releases macOS 15. Apple only supports current and two older macOS releases, so MacPro6,1 software supports ends in some months.

 

[pischu12]

Nope for DRM, but people seems to workaround it and accept the limitations - like using third party browsers and accepting that mostly 1080p or/and non-HDR content will be displayed with streaming services.



Monterey Software Update support ends this year, the moment Apple releases macOS 15. Apple only supports current and two older macOS releases, so MacPro6,1 software supports ends in some months.

Thank you !!! Very aware of the Monterey support ( "usually" though the services don't go dead - just updates ) Thank god for OCLP !!!!

You were much earlier speaking of the processor speed control aspect of the OS - was OCLP able to provide this ? Thank you

 

[tsialex]

Thank you !!! Very aware of the Monterey support ( "usually" though the services don't go dead - just updates ) Thank god for OCLP !!!!

You were much earlier speaking of the processor speed control aspect of the OS - was OCLP able to provide this ? Thank you

OCLP found some workarounds for sleep/SpeedStep issues, but is not as good (and will probably never be) as native Monterey in this matter.

 

[pischu12]

OCLP found some workarounds for sleep/SpeedStep issues, but is not as good (and will probably never be) as native Monterey in this matter.

So very appreciate your insight !!!! Love the MacPro . No wonder I could't afford anything near it when it came out lol . Thanks again !!!

 

[Killerbob]

I am running OCLP/Sonoma on 3 Macs; '13 Mac Pro, '14 MacBook Pro, and '17 MacBook.

All run with no issues, and if there are any shortcomings, it is certainly no noticeable in everyday usage.

 

[pischu12]

Uber

I am running OCLP/Sonoma on 3 Macs; '13 Mac Pro, '14 MacBook Pro, and '17 MacBook.

All run with no issues, and if there are any shortcomings, it is certainly no noticeable in everyday usage.

Thank you !!!!!! Uber excited - when/if forced ( service termination vs updates which to me are not important ) will update and once again super grateful and supportive of OCLP ! What an incredible team.

 

[steve123]

I have one issue running Sonoma on MP 6,1 I hope will be resolved. Facetime running on the MP 6,1 transmits the video stream from the MP to an endpoint and it is displayed on the endpoint. However, the video stream from the endpoint is not displayed on the MP.

 

[pischu12]

View attachment 2102970

Tonight, OCLP team (thx @khronokernel) started supporting MacPro6,1 and Ventura for the first time:

View attachment 2102971
View attachment 2102974

OCLP 0.5.1 Nightly brought Ventura support for the late-2013 Mac Pro. Somethings don't yet work, like DRM and CPU power management (Ventura is running with the VMM flag enabled), but besides that, it's fast/stable and the installation is fully automatic:

View attachment 2102975
View attachment 2102973

DRM is one of the two major bummers right now and nothing (really nothing) that demands DRM with Safari works, Netflix asks for Silverlight for example:

View attachment 2102972

The other major bummer is the missing macOS CPU power management - no Intel SpeedStep, so the CPU is always clocked from the nominal to the Turbo frequency with no SpeedStep down clock when the CPU is idle - this generation of Xeon processors can down clock to 1,1GHz when idle.

Sleep works, fan works - the SMC works and is independent of the CPU power management by macOS, so the fan works as expected. While you are not in CPU load, no greater heat is generated, even without SpeedStep working at this moment.

Apple removed AppleIntelCPUPowerManagement.kext from Ventura, and OCLP devs are waiting for Apple to publish the XNU sources to start re-implementing it (edit 20221103: Apple already released the XNU sources xnu-8792.41.9 for Ventura GM) - the workaround to begin supporting the late-2013 was setting the VMM flag and running Ventura as a VM.

As of OCLP 0.6.6, Power Management seems to be working, but still present minor DRM issues with late-2013 Mac Pro, like when mirroring to an AppleTV.

Ps: I dabbled yesterday as I have previously with OCLP ( Ventura ) for MacPro 6.1 : It worked very well ( funny noticed better results on Geekbench as well ) but there was a little issue that ( I am being picky and annoying as an end user ) when coming out of sleep the bluetooth mouse and keyboard would go silent and non functional for > 1 minute before they came back online - a hard wire usb or keyboard would be absolutely fine ... so then I gently moved right back to MacOS 12.7.4 ;

Do you know or are you aware of this ... have you had this slight problem ? Thanks

 

[steve123]

Do you know or are you aware of this ... have you had this slight problem ?

I cannot recall if I saw this problem with Ventura. I had a lot of other issues that stopped me from using Ventura. I have not encountered this problem with Sonoma. However, I have noticed a problem with Facetime.

 

[pischu12]

I cannot recall if I saw this problem with Ventura. I had a lot of other issues that stopped me from using Ventura. I have not encountered this problem with Sonoma. However, I have noticed a problem with Facetime.

Then "maybe" in the next two years "if" I have to upgrade the MacOS ( not because of lack of security updates) - by that time most bugs will be resolved and I'll migrate directly to Sonoma

I feel like when leaving MacOS Monterey I am leaving the original Mac OSX GU interface / makes me sad - yet another change !

 

[Riot Nrrrd]

I just realized I never updated this thread on my attempts to use OCLP with my 2013 MacPro6,1 trash can. (32 GB/1 TB SSD/dual D700s)

Since my last post, I made the following changes:

• Updated OCLP from 1.4.2 to 1.4.3
• Purchased a SanDisk USB 2.0 USB stick
• Disconnected all other USB devices except the keyboard before re-attempting install
• Ran OCLP and downloaded Ventura instead of Sonoma to the new USB 2.0 stick

My first try after these changes netted the same exact results as my previous tries. Apple logo appeared, progress bar briefly appeared and then the screen went black and never came back.

Then I had a hunch: what if my problems were due to my having an LG 34” 5K2K display connected via an Apple Thunderbolt 3-to-2 adapter and an Apple Thunderbolt 2 cable?

So I disconnected it and connected an HDMI cable instead, and power-cycled. Voila!

Only 1080p resolution to start, but this time it worked and it booted up into the Ventura installer. I was able to complete the install and boot into Ventura 13.6.6. So far so good …

Since then, however, I have noticed some somewhat serious issues:

• Sometimes the onboard USB ports seem to stop working. I came out to my desk once and my wired Apple Keyboard wasn’t working anymore. Disconnect/reconnect did not work. I had to plug it into a USB port on the LG monitor. It worked after I did that.
• Similarly, my USB webcam stops working at some point and I have to reboot to get it back. FaceTime and Microsoft Teams does not recognize the camera when this happens.
• If I go to About This Mac and choose More Info, it takes me to System Settings -> General, but clicking on About just hangs. Have to reboot to get it to work again.
• Speaking of reboots, if I do either a Restart or a Shutdown, the screen clears, the Dock starts to sink down, but then the system freezes. Every time. I have to pull the power plug out to reset it.
• The screen was using a wonky oddball resolution after installing Ventura 13.6.6. 4K did not show up as an allowed resolution. Needed to install SwitchResX 4.13.4 to get it to do normal (3840x2160) 4K resolution.

There may be other issues but that’s the ones that came into my head so far.

I would try updating to Sonoma 14.4.1 but I would think the further away one gets from the last supported OS (12.7.4 atm) the more likely you are to run into even more problems. I can’t really go back to Monterey (VPN compliance issues) so I’m kinda stuck …

Any ideas? According to the OCLP installer, it looks like the kernel patches were installed.

 

[steve123]

I had all sorts of problems with Ventura and found compatibility with Sonoma was better than Ventura. The problem most notable at the moment is Facetime seems to have a problem with the incoming video stream.

 

[Riot Nrrrd]

I guess I may have to give Sonoma a try, given that. I don't care about FaceTime working but I really need my webcam to work for Teams.

After my last hang during shutdown, I got this upon reboot:

panic(cpu 2 caller 0xffffff800f57e213): watchdog timeout: no checkins from watchdogd in 181 seconds (8926 totalcheckins since monitoring last enabled), shutdown in progress, vfs shutdown not yet started
Panicked task 0xffffff99db16d8b8: 279 threads: pid 0: kernel_task
Backtrace (CPU 2), panicked thread: 0xffffff8b769520c8, Frame : Return Address
0xfffffffc001cfb80 : 0xffffff800c26fc7d mach_kernel : _handle_debugger_trap + 0x4ad
0xfffffffc001cfbd0 : 0xffffff800c3c4294 mach_kernel : _kdp_i386_trap + 0x114
0xfffffffc001cfc10 : 0xffffff800c3b3da7 mach_kernel : _kernel_trap + 0x3b7
0xfffffffc001cfc60 : 0xffffff800c210971 mach_kernel : _return_from_trap + 0xc1
0xfffffffc001cfc80 : 0xffffff800c26ff5d mach_kernel : _DebuggerTrapWithState + 0x5d
0xfffffffc001cfd70 : 0xffffff800c26f607 mach_kernel : _panic_trap_to_debugger + 0x1a7
0xfffffffc001cfdd0 : 0xffffff800c9dae43 mach_kernel : _panic_with_options + 0x89
0xfffffffc001cfec0 : 0xffffff800f57e213 com.apple.driver.watchdog : __ZN10IOWatchdog21shutdownCheckWatchdogEy + 0x167
0xfffffffc001cff20 : 0xffffff800f57e042 com.apple.driver.watchdog : __ZN10IOWatchdog13checkWatchdogEv + 0x78
0xfffffffc001cff50 : 0xffffff800d8f460b com.apple.driver.AppleSMC : __ZN16SMCWatchDogTimer14watchdogThreadEv + 0xbb
0xfffffffc001cffa0 : 0xffffff800c21019e mach_kernel : _call_continuation + 0x2e
      Kernel Extensions in backtrace:
         com.apple.driver.watchdog(1.0)[BD08CE2D-77F5-358C-8F0D-A570540A0BE7]@0xffffff800f57c000->0xffffff800f57efff
         com.apple.driver.AppleSMC(3.1.9)[DD55DA6A-679A-3797-947C-0B50B7B5B659]@0xffffff800d8e2000->0xffffff800d8fefff
            dependency: com.apple.driver.watchdog(1)[BD08CE2D-77F5-358C-8F0D-A570540A0BE7]@0xffffff800f57c000->0xffffff800f57efff
            dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOACPIFamily(1.4)[D342E754-A422-3F44-BFFB-DEE93F6723BC]@0xffffff800e830000->0xffffff800e831fff
            dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOPCIFamily(2.9)[A4741D9F-2EAF-36E6-9023-084BA29EE1FE]@0xffffff800eca0000->0xffffff800ecd1fff

Process name corresponding to current thread (0xffffff8b769520c8): kernel_task
Boot args: keepsyms=1 debug=0x100 ipc_control_port_options=0 -nokcmismatchpanic

Mac OS version:
22G630

Kernel version:
Darwin Kernel Version 22.6.0: Mon Feb 19 19:48:53 PST 2024; root:xnu-8796.141.3.704.6~1/RELEASE_X86_64

 

[tahitibub]

Hello,
Just a quick update from my previous post where I had given up on the idea of using OCLP because of problems I had on macOS Sonoma with certain apps and with AppStore connection.
Having bought a spare SSD blade, I tested OCLP again (version 1.5.0 beta) but this time with Ventura (13.6.6).
My conclusion has changed: the Mac is usable for me (no more problems with Microsoft ToDo, for example). It's worth noting, however, that I haven't tested any features requiring DRM.
Furthermore, I've seen it's possible to emulate the AVX2 functionality (absent from this Mac) via software.
Has anyone tested this yet?

 

[plunger]

Hello,
Just a quick update from my previous post where I had given up on the idea of using OCLP because of problems I had on macOS Sonoma with certain apps and with AppStore connection.
Having bought a spare SSD blade, I tested OCLP again (version 1.5.0 beta) but this time with Ventura (13.6.6).
My conclusion has changed: the Mac is usable for me (no more problems with Microsoft ToDo, for example). It's worth noting, however, that I haven't tested any features requiring DRM.
Furthermore, I've seen it's possible to emulate the AVX2 functionality (absent from this Mac) via software.
Has anyone tested this yet?

I've given up on OCLP with my Mac Pro and MacBook Pro. The Intel utility is very interesting; maybe hope yet!

 

[startergo]

Has anyone tested this yet?

I get a:
“Cannot execute binary file”

 

[tonton_max]

Hello,
Just a quick update from my previous post where I had given up on the idea of using OCLP because of problems I had on macOS Sonoma with certain apps and with AppStore connection.
Having bought a spare SSD blade, I tested OCLP again (version 1.5.0 beta) but this time with Ventura (13.6.6).
My conclusion has changed: the Mac is usable for me (no more problems with Microsoft ToDo, for example). It's worth noting, however, that I haven't tested any features requiring DRM.
Furthermore, I've seen it's possible to emulate the AVX2 functionality (absent from this Mac) via software.
Has anyone tested this yet?

Intel has abandonned the development of this tool on macOS. The last compatible version is for Mojave.

 

[Dayo]

“Cannot execute binary file”

You need to try a version before v9.14 (Current is v9.33) as Intel dropped Mac OS support back in 2022.

Remember the aim is to get basic AVX/SSE/XSave/etc and not neccesarily the latest and greatest in subsequent versions.

 

[startergo]

You need to try a version before v9.14 (Current is v9.33) as Intel dropped Mac OS support back in 2022.

Remember the aim is to get basic AVX/SSE/XSave/etc and not neccesarily the latest and greatest in subsequent versions.

Thanks, unfortunately the lowest version they offer is 9.24.

 

[steve123]

panic(cpu 2 caller 0xffffff800f57e213): watchdog timeout: no checkins from watchdogd in 181 seconds (8926 totalcheckins since monitoring last enabled), shutdown in progress, vfs shutdown not yet started

I recall this panic was one of the reasons that prevented me from using Ventura. I have not encountered any panic with Sonoma yet.

 

[Dayo]

Thanks, unfortunately the lowest version they offer is 9.24.

Wayback Machine perhaps?

 

[startergo]

Wayback Machine perhaps?

tried this one:

GitHub - marehr/intel-sde-downloader: Download Intel SDE by automatically accepting the license.

Download Intel SDE by automatically accepting the license. - marehr/intel-sde-downloader

github.com

python ./intel-sde-downloader.py
('Not found:', '[EMPTY: NO ARGUMENT GIVEN]')
Found versions:

• Intel SDE for macOS* (sde-external-9.0.0-2021-11-07-mac.tar.xz)
• Intel SDE for macOS* signature (sde-external-9.0.0-2021-11-07-mac.tar.xz.sig)

• Intel SDE for macOS* (sde-external-8.69.1-2021-07-18-mac.tar.bz2)
• Intel SDE for macOS* signature (sde-external-8.69.1-2021-07-18-mac.tar.bz2.zip) (contains the sig file)

Intel Software Development Emulator Download

Download page for the latest Intel Software Development Emulator

www.intel.com

 

[startergo]

community.intel.com/t5/Intel-ISA-Extensions/SDE-on-Mac-won-t-start/m-p/1397742#M6959

We decided to drop macOS support because we see no business needs for providing emulation for future Intel CPUs.

The cost and the complexity of adding support for Monterey in pin was too high and was never added.

 

[steve123]

Intel has abandonned the development of this tool on macOS. The last compatible version is for Mojave.

Does anyone know if the source code for the last macOS version is available somewhere?