MP 1,1-5,1 Manually Configured OpenCore on the Mac Pro

[Dewdman42]

@AmazingPudding i am using 0.7.5 ok with Catalina. I don’t remember the details from the discussion a month ago but at the time I was trying to configure OC so that I can also dual boot with Monterey, which I am also able to do.

I'm just running out the door at the moment but later tonight I will try to piece together some info if I can recall, I actually wanted to upgrade to 0.7.6 one of these days so maybe I will do that tonight and I'll let you know.

 

[6DecadesLater]

Yesterday I finished to setup OC 0.7.6 and successfully using it. So I downloaded Monterey 12.0.1 like recommended on page 1 with the Python script. My Mac is on Mojave so I'm using the settings for installing Monterey:

SecureBootModel disabled
VMM Flag eneabled
Hybridization enabled

Starting the the installer is working, when installer restarts the Mac the Bootloader has macOs Installer choosen. But booting from this installer volume results in: support.apple.com/mac/startup and that's it.

After powering off and on and choosing my Mojave volume the Mac boots.

Any idea? My actual config.plist is attached.

I had some issues upgrading to OC 0.7.6. I walk through the manual set up in #1 each time. After upgrading, I got the same support.apple.com/mac/startup full stop. Booted into old Mojave and copied back the working OC 0.7.5 and reblessed. This got me back into Monterey but checking on OC version it indicate UNK. Redid 0.7.6 and this time I could get into Monterey but still indicated version as UNK. I do check all edits to be sure config is OK and all passed. Booted to Mojave again and redid 0.7.6 once more. Couple of things different. I usually use chrome but had accidentally used Safari for downloading packages - name of package folder was truncated. Using Chrome got full name. May be nothing but made me nervous so went with chrome download. Also I usually use smultron for editing. Used textedit as directed. And, I didn't do any optional edits to config.plist. This time after reblessing and booting into Monterey had correct version indicated.

Felt comfortable enough to try 12.1. Didn't go well. Got into an endless boot loop. Had VMM on. Turned that off and switched to SecureBootModel=Default. Watching this thread before trying again. One thing I notice is that I never see macOS Installer as an option, just a new disk "Macintosh HD". That has persisted through all OTA updates/upgrades but has always worked by selecting that new drive.

Not sure if this saga sheds any light. Perhaps just sharing the pain.

Thanks again for all the tremendous work on this.

 

[cdf]

Booted into old Mojave and copied back the working OC 0.7.5 and reblessed. This got me back into Monterey but checking on OC version it indicate UNK.

OC updates can bring changes that require resetting the NVRAM. An issue with the OC-version variable points to that.

 

[6DecadesLater]

OC updates can bring changes that require resetting the NVRAM. An issue with the OC-version variable points to that.

In order to boot back into Mojave I did do an NVRAM reset - but only through one cycle. Should I do the triple reset in future/ Thanks

Edit: Couldn't help myself - I'm an update/upgrade junkie. Did an OTA 12.1 upgrade. It went smoothly without any need for intervention.

One difference is I do not have bluetooth until after login. I keep an old USB keyboard and mouse attached for such situations but before OC 0.7.6 I had bluetooth at login.

 

[cdf]

In order to boot back into Mojave I did do an NVRAM reset - but only through one cycle. Should I do the triple reset in future/ Thanks

Depending on the state of your NVRAM, waiting for four consecutive chimes might be a good idea. Remember that the MacPro5,1 NVRAM was not designed for modern macOS. Just make sure to have a strategy in place for properly reblessing OC.

One difference is I do not have bluetooth until after login. I keep an old USB keyboard and mouse attached for such situations but before OC 0.7.6 I had bluetooth at login.

It should general work, although Bluetooth in the pre-boot environment can be flaky even with the native firmware...

 

[PeterHolbrook]

A SurPlus Mystery?

Much to my surprise, this morning I discovered that, ten days ago, I somehow neglected to update the value of the two instances of the MaxKernel parameter to 21.2.0 when I updated my Mac Pro 5,1 to OpenCore 0.7.6 and Monterey 12.1. My amazement this morning was that the SurPlus MaxKernel was set to 21.1.0, which, if I'm not mistaken, should be fine only for Monterey 12.0.1, but nothing beyond that.

So, if my interpretation is correct, what is going on here? Has Apple changed the 21.2.0 kernel (Monterey 12.1), such that SurPlus is no longer necessary? Or, is SurPlus included in the internals of OC 0.7.6 itself by default, so that the SurPlus entries are now redundant?

 

[cdf]

My amazement this morning was that the SurPlus MaxKernel was set to 21.1.0, which, if I'm not mistaken, should be fine only for Monterey 12.0.1, but nothing beyond that.

Interesting. Perhaps you could try explicitly disabling SurPlus in OC (<key>Enabled</key><false/> for each part of the two-part patch).

 

[PeterHolbrook]

^I've just done so. On the very first (and only) attempt, my Mac Pro 5,1 booted into Monterey 12.1 via OpenCore 0.7.6 WITHOUT SurPlus (i.e., both instances were set to NOT Enabled. I took the cautionary measure of using a specially configured version of OC 0.7.6 on a USB GPT thumb drive, just in case the boot process failed. It didn't. Since this might be just a lucky fluke (although I consider that highly unlikely, considering my "discovery" earlier today), it would be good if someone else could test out my procedure and report the results.

EDIT: If this is confirmed, how do we explain this? Have Apple developers got rid of the race condition and left things as they were in Big Sur 11.2.3? Or have OpenCore developers integrated SurPlus into the boot loader itself, so that users needn't worry about including SurPlus in config.plist?

 

[macguru9999]

Well I have just tried opencore for the first time. Its on a spare 5,1 and so far I am impressed. I downloaded martin lo's package with 0.7.6 and applied to a sata clone of my dosdude catalina drive. Then I installed Big Sur 11.6.2 and everything except the wifi seems to work. I think that would have deactivated all the dosdude patches... I have an upgrade kit for this mac's wifi so ill give that a try later. My main mac already has the upgraded wifi... Otherwise everything seems to be really good......

Questions. I assume if you try multiple boot drives you only need the one instance of open core ? I could not see how to bless other drives in system prefs, they did not show up, so i just selected them at the open core boot screen. Also, as I have a flashed video card I assume you can select older systems at the apple boot screen instead of the efi boot option....

 

[sfalatko]

Well I have just tried opencore for the first time. Its on a spare 5,1 and so far I am impressed. I downloaded martin lo's package with 0.7.6 and applied to a sata clone of my dosdude catalina drive. Then I installed Big Sur 11.6.2 and everything except the wifi seems to work. I think that would have deactivated all the dosdude patches... I have an upgrade kit for this mac's wifi so ill give that a try later. My main mac already has the upgraded wifi... Otherwise everything seems to be really good......

Questions. I assume if you try multiple boot drives you only need the one instance of open core ? I could not see how to bless other drives in system prefs, they did not show up, so i just selected them at the open core boot screen. Also, as I have a flashed video card I assume you can select older systems at the apple boot screen instead of the efi boot option....

Yes only one instance of OC even with multiple OS installs. I have Mojave (don't use OC to boot), Catalina and Monterey on separate partitions/drives with only one OC instance.

My Mojave install is so that I have one way to boot into a supported OS if I have an issue with OC (per post #1)

 

[cdf]

^I've just done so. On the very first (and only) attempt, my Mac Pro 5,1 booted into Monterey 12.1 via OpenCore 0.7.6 WITHOUT SurPlus (i.e., both instances were set to NOT Enabled. I took the cautionary measure of using a specially configured version of OC 0.7.6 on a USB GPT thumb drive, just in case the boot process failed. It didn't. Since this might be just a lucky fluke (although I consider that highly unlikely, considering my "discovery" earlier today), it would be good if someone else could test out my procedure and report the results.

EDIT: If this is confirmed, how do we explain this? Have Apple developers got rid of the race condition and left things as they were in Big Sur 11.2.3? Or have OpenCore developers integrated SurPlus into the boot loader itself, so that users needn't worry about including SurPlus in config.plist?

This needs to be looked into. As far as I know, SurPlus is not part of OC.

 

[Capricorn1965]

@cdf Thank you your hint "try again" was the solution. That means give the volume macOS installer a second try from the boot manager. This I'd to do for every reboot during installation.

My Mac is now on 12.1 and the desktop apps are working.

Unfortunately brew shell apps are confused. Even brew is not starting:

brew
/usr/local/bin/brew: line 27: /usr/local/bin/readlink: Bad CPU type in executable

And arch is showing:

arch
i386

Which might be wrong. Never checked this on Mojave or any Mac OS before. Also MenuMeters is now reporting 80486 as CPU what I'd also never seen before.

 

[prefuse07]

If I'm not even using HDMI, just DP, and as it's already set to "false" within my config.plist anyway.... Do I even need AppleALC.kext?

In other words, is it safe to get rid of both the XML in config as well as the kext for it?

I know that Lilu affects it.

Looking to slim down my config to only what I need/use.

 

[JiggyFly999]

Hello all,
I wanted to check to see if this is normal when I boot my 5,1 via OC to Monterey 12.1 (did the same thing on prior versions of Monterey also). Monterey is on a 970 blade on my 7101-A card.

After selecting the Monterey disk with the boot picker, the Apple logo comes on with the progress bar. After about 10 seconds of fast movement, the progress slows dramatically. It then take approx. 150 seconds of very slow movement of the progress bar until the screen flashes, the progress bar comes back and then completes very quickly.

The system always boots and never fails. But I am wondering if this slowness is normal. OC config attached.

Thanks!

 

[prefuse07]

Hello all,
I wanted to check to see if this is normal when I boot my 5,1 via OC to Monterey 12.1 (did the same thing on prior versions of Monterey also). Monterey is on a 970 blade on my 7101-A card.

After selecting the Monterey disk with the boot picker, the Apple logo comes on with the progress bar. After about 10 seconds of fast movement, the progress slows dramatically. It then take approx. 150 seconds of very slow movement of the progress bar until the screen flashes, the progress bar comes back and then completes very quickly.

The system always boots and never fails. But I am wondering if this slowness is normal. OC config attached.

Thanks!

This always happened to me with OpenCore running on: Mojave, Catalina, and then with Big Sur as well. I think it's just normal OC behavior.

 

[Macschrauber]

Hello all,
I wanted to check to see if this is normal when I boot my 5,1 via OC to Monterey 12.1 (did the same thing on prior versions of Monterey also). Monterey is on a 970 blade on my 7101-A card.

After selecting the Monterey disk with the boot picker, the Apple logo comes on with the progress bar. After about 10 seconds of fast movement, the progress slows dramatically. It then take approx. 150 seconds of very slow movement of the progress bar until the screen flashes, the progress bar comes back and then completes very quickly.

The system always boots and never fails. But I am wondering if this slowness is normal. OC config attached.

Thanks!

The progress bar gives no information. Setup verbose mode to get human readable text and make some photos where it stalls.

 

[Flacko]

Hello all,
I wanted to check to see if this is normal when I boot my 5,1 via OC to Monterey 12.1 (did the same thing on prior versions of Monterey also). Monterey is on a 970 blade on my 7101-A card.

After selecting the Monterey disk with the boot picker, the Apple logo comes on with the progress bar. After about 10 seconds of fast movement, the progress slows dramatically. It then take approx. 150 seconds of very slow movement of the progress bar until the screen flashes, the progress bar comes back and then completes very quickly.

The system always boots and never fails. But I am wondering if this slowness is normal. OC config attached.

Thanks!

I see you are using a 970 blade. Have a look here: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/samsung-nvme-and-super-slow-boot-on-monterey.2310537/
I had exactly your problem with a 970 evo. Swapped it for a WD Blue blade. Problem fixed. Now boots up quickly in Monterey.

 

[Dewdman42]

This needs to be looked into. As far as I know, SurPlus is not part of OC.

So I did upgrade a Monterey volume to 12.1 and booted it up the first time, but now you have me wondering if the SurPlus MaxKernel setting in my OC config.plist is actually skipping SurPlus now that I've upgraded MacOS to 12.1....which means I just got lucky that it booted that time and its just a matter of time until the problem SurPlus is normally supposed to protect against will happen to me. Do I have that right? Can't I just bump up the MaxKernel value in the OC config.plist?

 

[PeterHolbrook]

Right now, SurPlus is unnecessary for Monterey 12.1, but I dare not predict anything for future versions. Chances are it was precesely @Syncretic’s awesome work that allowed Apple to rectify the race condition their kernel code was causing on old machines, so perhaps future macOS releases will continue to work on our aging hardware. We’ll have to wait and see.

 

[0134168]

Hello all,
I wanted to check to see if this is normal when I boot my 5,1 via OC to Monterey 12.1 (did the same thing on prior versions of Monterey also). Monterey is on a 970 blade on my 7101-A card.

After selecting the Monterey disk with the boot picker, the Apple logo comes on with the progress bar. After about 10 seconds of fast movement, the progress slows dramatically. It then take approx. 150 seconds of very slow movement of the progress bar until the screen flashes, the progress bar comes back and then completes very quickly.

The system always boots and never fails. But I am wondering if this slowness is normal. OC config attached.

Thanks!

I think I have switch off my Mac Pro once this year.

 

[cdf]

So I did upgrade a Monterey volume to 12.1 and booted it up the first time, but now you have me wondering if the SurPlus MaxKernel setting in my OC config.plist is actually skipping SurPlus now that I've upgraded MacOS to 12.1....which means I just got lucky that it booted that time and its just a matter of time until the problem SurPlus is normally supposed to protect against will happen to me. Do I have that right? Can't I just bump up the MaxKernel value in the OC config.plist?

If you got the patch from post #1, then the kernel version is set to 21.2.0, which is the one for macOS 12.1, so the patch would actually still be applied. However, the patch is not (currently) necessary for macOS ≥12.1.

 

[Dewdman42]

Thanks! Yea I read the other post on the other thread after posting this. I'll probably leave it on there a little longer to make sure the problem has truly been resolved....but its nice to know we don't really need BigSur anymore (hopefully), on macOS >= 12.1

 

[gradyg22]

Hi all,

I'm looking to install linux, specifically PopOS, on a spare drive on my Mac Pro 4,1->5,1. I'm using Opencore, and having no problems with either Monterey or Windows 11.

The Live USB boots up no problem, but the install freezes on configuring the disk. I force shut down the machine, and a new NO NAME disk shows up, but booting to it just gives me a grey screen. Not a black screen, but a fully grey screen. I tried doing the install on my laptop, a 2017 15" MacBook Pro, and the install went no problem. Putting that disk (with the completed, booting, working install) back into my Mac Pro results in the same grey screen.

I've seen mentions of an OpenLinuxBoot kext, but I'm not sure where to begin with that. Google has not been helpful, unfortunately. If anyone can point me in the right direction, I'd be very grateful. I remembering seeing a guide to installing Linux in the first post of this thread, but that's no longer there, I'm assuming due to changes brought about this mysterious OpenLinuxBoot?

Specs are as follows: OC 0.7.4 (Martin Lo flavour), x5690, 24GB 1333 DDR3, RX 5700XT, and a Crucial 1TB SATA SSD for the Linux install.

Thank you all in advance!

-Grady

 

[Capricorn1965]

@cdf Thank you your hint "try again" was the solution. That means give the volume macOS installer a second try from the boot manager. This I'd to do for every reboot during installation.

My Mac is now on 12.1 and the desktop apps are working.

Unfortunately brew shell apps are confused. Even brew is not starting:

brew
/usr/local/bin/brew: line 27: /usr/local/bin/readlink: Bad CPU type in executable

And arch is showing:

arch
i386

Which might be wrong. Never checked this on Mojave or any Mac OS before. Also MenuMeters is now reporting 80486 as CPU what I'd also never seen before.

The issue with CLI apps is resolved and not related to OpenCore. The issue came from old GNU executable I've installed around 2009/2010. They where fat apps with i386 and PPC7400 executables. I moved the to a folder and immediately brew was working again. In 4 weeks I'll delete this folder.

From googling for arch I found that arch on Mac will always report i386 - I think it was on Stackoverflow.

 

[Fastsavage]

Here's a little quirk which appears on my MacPro5,1 occasionally. Sometimes, usually when booting from cold (or so I imagine) I get the following error from Lilu:



A little digging turned up very few reports of others seeing this, so I took a peek at the code and as expected, it's trying to pull the model and board identifiers from the EFI. Have other people seen this? Should I be worried?

View attachment 1910866

My solution is to turn it off and back on again, usually everything is fine on the next attempt. This is happening with OC REL-075-2021-11-02, Lilu v1.5.7, though it also happened on earlier versions.

Well there you go - this happened to me today as well - had to switch off and restart twice....

REL-076-2021-12-06

Anyone figured out the issue?

Cheers