macOS 10.15 Catalina on Unsupported Macs

[Daniva]

Sorry if not read 633 pages of this thread.
Since browsers of my Macbook mid 2010 High Sierra with ssd and 8GB RAM cannot be updated, I decided to upgrade to Catalina os with dosdude1 Catalina patcher. All apps work well, the macbook shuts down quickly but the only problem is that it's very slow when boots up, more than 3 minutes. I tried to rebuild cache system, manually and with Onyx and repaired permissions but not solved the issue. I know that APSF file system is not the best solution for SATA disks but maybe someone may help me to solve the issue. Thanks

 

[joevt]

Sorry if not read 633 pages of this thread.
Since browsers of my Macbook mid 2010 High Sierra with ssd and 8GB RAM cannot be updated, I decided to upgrade to Catalina os with dosdude1 Catalina patcher. All apps work well, the macbook shuts down quickly but the only problem is that it's very slow when boots up, more than 3 minutes. I tried to rebuild cache system, manually and with Onyx and repaired permissions but not solved the issue. I know that APSF file system is not the best solution for SATA disks but maybe someone may help me to solve the issue. Thanks

What part is booting slowly? Boot verbose mode or look at logs with timestamps.

 

[Daniva]

What part is booting slowly? Boot verbose mode or look at logs with timestamps.

Back to High Sierra and disabled java script in Safari Preferences - Security tab

 

[wicknix]

Back to High Sierra and disabled java script in Safari Preferences - Security tab

There are better more up to date browsers than safari for 10.13. Namely chromium-legacy, pale moon, and sealion. Give them a shot so that you don't have to suffer with a crippled safari.

Web browsers for early Intel Macs

Finding web browsers that are still usable on today’s web can be a chore for older versions of OS X. The following is a list of known, up-to-date (or relatively up-to-date) and maintained web browsers, e-mail clients, and FTP clients, for Intel Macs with at least Snow Leopard support, then Lion...

forums.macrumors.com

 

[Daniva]

There are better more up to date browsers than safari for 10.13. Namely chromium-legacy, pale moon, and sealion. Give them a shot so that you don't have to suffer with a crippled safari.

Web browsers for early Intel Macs

Finding web browsers that are still usable on today’s web can be a chore for older versions of OS X. The following is a list of known, up-to-date (or relatively up-to-date) and maintained web browsers, e-mail clients, and FTP clients, for Intel Macs with at least Snow Leopard support, then Lion...

forums.macrumors.com

Many thanks, but I tried to initialize and reinstall Catalina patcher and now all works fine
My MacBook 7.1 with Safari 15.6.1 is reborn

edit: the guilty was the assistant of Bjango iStat menu 6

 

[Heindijs]

A new thing that has been happening on my parents' iMac 9,1 is that Firefox seemingly crashes multiple times when trying to start it after boot upand then after a couple of times it does work. No idea why, I'll post a crash log if that'll help but it doesn't seem to give me much info.

 

[FFX304]

Hey guys, I have a 2011 15" MBP with intel 3000, AMD GPU is off, but not permanently, if I do PRAM reset I get black screen and I have to turn off dGPU blindfold. Wanna know, is it safe to install Catalina on it? And if after install dGPU turn on, can i turn it off same way, by putting gpu-power-prefs command?

 

[Minghold]

I know that APSF file system is not the best solution for SATA disks but maybe someone may help me to solve the issue. Thanks

APFS is painstakingly engineered to thrash the drives of out-of-warranty product to pieces -- that's your problem right there. Solution: obtain Carbon Copy Cloner 5 and Get Backup Pro 3, and use them to clone a Mojave installation into a MacOS Extended Partition (which should ideally be the first partition on the drive). Getting an SSD will speed things up, but APFS OSes are still slow on those too.

 

[Minghold]

Q. Has anyone figured out how to stabily run Catalina (or higher) in an HFS+ partition yet?

 

[purplepalace205]

Not sure where to post this.
I'm dealing with a mid-2009 or 2011 MacBook Pro 13", can't remember the year. (10.15.7)

It was having issues so I felt a need to reinstall Catalina.
Following instructions I made a backup on an external drive then wiped the drive on the Mac, in the order instructed.

At the point where I was given the choice of where to reinstall the OS from, I chose internet download.
I got a warning box, telling me that an Internet Connection is Required.
I was cable connected to my router and the internet had been stable the entire time.

Thought this weird, so my next move was to restart the computer.
As soon as it started up, I got the startup "chime", and then nothing but a white screen.

No graphics, no text. Just a white screen. No keyboard or mouse input.
Apple Service was stumped and told me to go to an Apple tech.

I'm looking for feedback from people more intelligent than I.
Thanks for any input.

 

[Fishrrman]

A 2009 MBP can't do internet recovery.

A 2011 MPB CAN do internet recovery.

A 2009 MBP is only supported by Apple through OS 10.11.6 (El Capitan).

A 2011 MBP is supported by Apple through OS 10.13.x (High Sierra).

Obviously, you're trying to boot with a hacked or patched copy of the OS.

Try this, and get back to us with the result:
1. Power down, all the way off (hold down the power-on button until it shuts off)
2. Press and HOLD "Command-OPTION-R"
3. Press the power on button (KEEP HOLDING THOSE KEYS DOWN)
4. After a few seconds, you should be asked for a wifi password. Take your fingers off the keys and enter it.
5. You should now see a spinning globe. This is "internet recovery" loading. It takes a while, so wait it out.
6. You should see the internet utilities screen.

Does this work?
If it does, then it's probably a 2011 MBP.

If it DOES NOT WORK, then it's probably a 2009 MPB.
You will need to address this with a bootable USB installer.
To make one, you need access to another working Mac. Do you have one?

 

[purplepalace205]

I did some research. It's a 2011.
I've done the CMD OPT R process multiple times over the past 2 weeks. Same result every time.
Startup "chime", white screen.
That's it.

 

[Fishrrman]

purple wrote:
"I've done the CMD OPT R process multiple times over the past 2 weeks. Same result every time.
Startup "chime", white screen."

I'm thinking "bad graphics".

Probably time to look for a replacement...

 

[Daniva]

I did some research. It's a 2011.
I've done the CMD OPT R process multiple times over the past 2 weeks. Same result every time.
Startup "chime", white screen.
That's it.

Try to use the original DVD to reinstall os x 10.6.6 and then upgrade it.....step by step
Here are the older versions from Lion to Sierra: https://support.apple.com/en-euro/102662

 

[CrispyDog]

I am hoping someone can throw me a lifeline here.. I have been absolutely fighting with a very frustrating Mid 2011 Mac Mini (MacMini5,1). I had an APFS container failure on High Sierra, and have not been able to reinstall HS using any methods whatsoever. I have set up Catalina Patcher 1.4.7 in combination with Catalina 10.15.7 in the hops I can just ignore the dumpster fire that is HS. I can boot the USB and run the installer, but once it gets to about 4 minutes remaining, I think it may be kernel panicking or something, as I get the white spinning wheel below the installer progress window before it abruptly restarts. I have tried this a number of times, erased SSD in target disk mode, from the installer, and at one point used KillDisk to wipe out the EFI partition on it.

Any attempts of booting the USB a second time and trying to run the Post Install tasks fails as it claims there is not a valid installation on Catalina on the SSD. I am pretty sure I have the bootROM patch as it was running High Sierra for quite a while.

Is there anything I can do here? Or is this thing just not gonna work for me? I fear the ultimate fix might just be to grab a 2014 Mac Mini for not that much money and have considerably less issues (I even got one of those to install W11 with zero identifiable issues)

 

[Minghold]

Is there anything I can do here?

Easiest: Install Catalina into a partition on an external drive. Boot into it and do all updates. Open Migration Assisstant and recover your user profile from the internal drive. Use Disk Utility to erase the internal drive. Use Carbon Copy Cloner to clone the external back to the internal.

Best: Like above, but install Mojave instead of Catalina. After the all-updates phase, create another MacOS Extended (journaled) partition on the external drive, the clone the new APFS Mojave partition to it. Boot into it to very it works, manually migrate your documents, then erase the internal drive as MacOS Extended (journaled), then clone the OS again. Result: a system that runs noticeably faster, and runs much, much more software.

 

[CrispyDog]

Easiest: Install Catalina into a partition on an external drive. Boot into it and do all updates. Open Migration Assisstant and recover your user profile from the internal drive. Use Disk Utility to erase the internal drive. Use Carbon Copy Cloner to clone the external back to the internal.

Best: Like above, but install Mojave instead of Catalina. After the all-updates phase, create another MacOS Extended (journaled) partition on the external drive, the clone the new APFS Mojave partition to it. Boot into it to very it works, manually migrate your documents, then erase the internal drive as MacOS Extended (journaled), then clone the OS again. Result: a system that runs noticeably faster, and runs much, much more software.

So if I glean this correctly, the best route is to install and fully update Mojave onto an external disk and clone it into HFS+, then clone that again to HFS+ on the internal SSD?

That's a workaround to not using APFS at all? I have yet again nuked the EFI partition and it looks like the Catalina installer is proceeding as normal on the second phase. But if performance really is that bad, i would probably just do Mojave as i just need this to work and connect to a thunderbolt array for file storage.

Thanks

 

[Wolfpup]

I am hoping someone can throw me a lifeline here.. I have been absolutely fighting with a very frustrating Mid 2011 Mac Mini (MacMini5,1). I had an APFS container failure on High Sierra, and have not been able to reinstall HS using any methods whatsoever. I have set up Catalina Patcher 1.4.7 in combination with Catalina 10.15.7 in the hops I can just ignore the dumpster fire that is HS. I can boot the USB and run the installer, but once it gets to about 4 minutes remaining, I think it may be kernel panicking or something, as I get the white spinning wheel below the installer progress window before it abruptly restarts. I have tried this a number of times, erased SSD in target disk mode, from the installer, and at one point used KillDisk to wipe out the EFI partition on it.

Any attempts of booting the USB a second time and trying to run the Post Install tasks fails as it claims there is not a valid installation on Catalina on the SSD. I am pretty sure I have the bootROM patch as it was running High Sierra for quite a while.

Is there anything I can do here? Or is this thing just not gonna work for me? I fear the ultimate fix might just be to grab a 2014 Mac Mini for not that much money and have considerably less issues (I even got one of those to install W11 with zero identifiable issues)

What did you do to get Windows 11 installed?

I know that wouldn’t be supported hardware, but then there’s apparently a registry entry you can add that allows it to install an unsupported hardware? I’m not clear if you have to make the change in Windows 10 and then Windows 11 will install and replace it or what. (Though I’ve read that Microsoft doesn’t guarantee you’ll get security updates on unsupported hardware).

I don’t have a single windows PC that officially supports Windows 11 and the deadline is coming up quickly, and my MacBook doesn’t support it either and hasn’t supported MacOS in years.

 

[CrispyDog]

What did you do to get Windows 11 installed?

I know that wouldn’t be supported hardware, but then there’s apparently a registry entry you can add that allows it to install an unsupported hardware? I’m not clear if you have to make the change in Windows 10 and then Windows 11 will install and replace it or what. (Though I’ve read that Microsoft doesn’t guarantee you’ll get security updates on unsupported hardware).

I don’t have a single windows PC that officially supports Windows 11 and the deadline is coming up quickly, and my MacBook doesn’t support it either and hasn’t supported MacOS in years.

Funnily enough, I just compiled an image of Tiny11 and removed the hardware checks using RUFUS and it installed pretty easily. I ended up finding a Windows 10 Bootcamp driver set and installed that without issue. Then it took an update from Apple Software Update to the latest supported by the machine. Works pretty damn well and I have not seen many issues (there is no MacOS even installed on it). As far as the security update thing is concerned... I really haven't experienced that much trouble (standard W11 image seems fine and Tiny11 is too after the author fixed the .net support that it lacked for a time), and i have installed W11 on PCs as old as 1st generation i5.

 

[webg3]

Funnily enough, I just compiled an image of Tiny11 and removed the hardware checks using RUFUS and it installed pretty easily. I ended up finding a Windows 10 Bootcamp driver set and installed that without issue. Then it took an update from Apple Software Update to the latest supported by the machine. Works pretty damn well and I have not seen many issues (there is no MacOS even installed on it). As far as the security update thing is concerned... I really haven't experienced that much trouble (standard W11 image seems fine and Tiny11 is too after the author fixed the .net support that it lacked for a time), and i have installed W11 on PCs as old as 1st generation i5.

Windows 11 24H2 Safeguard Holds können ein Upgrade verhindern (Liste) - Deskmodder.de

According to what was said in this article, if you have one of these applications installed, you will not be able to upgrade to the 24H2 version of Windows 11, due to lack of compatibility, and may have a BOSD if the upgrade were possible. From what I understand, Microsoft blocked the upgrade when it noticed these applications on the hardware they tried to upgrade.

I don't know if this limits our older hardware, but it's something we should monitor and wait until we have Windows 11 24H2 RTM

 

[keith5152]

I am hoping someone can throw me a lifeline here.. I have been absolutely fighting with a very frustrating Mid 2011 Mac Mini (MacMini5,1). I had an APFS container failure on High Sierra, and have not been able to reinstall HS using any methods whatsoever. I have set up Catalina Patcher 1.4.7 in combination with Catalina 10.15.7 in the hops I can just ignore the dumpster fire that is HS. I can boot the USB and run the installer, but once it gets to about 4 minutes remaining, I think it may be kernel panicking or something, as I get the white spinning wheel below the installer progress window before it abruptly restarts. I have tried this a number of times, erased SSD in target disk mode, from the installer, and at one point used KillDisk to wipe out the EFI partition on it.

Any attempts of booting the USB a second time and trying to run the Post Install tasks fails as it claims there is not a valid installation on Catalina on the SSD. I am pretty sure I have the bootROM patch as it was running High Sierra for quite a while.

Is there anything I can do here? Or is this thing just not gonna work for me? I fear the ultimate fix might just be to grab a 2014 Mac Mini for not that much money and have considerably less issues (I even got one of those to install W11 with zero identifiable issues)

I have the exact same Mac mini and I have it on Sonoma current.
I went through these issues in the past and I ended up wiping it completely and adding a two ssd drives.
the Catalina was a nightmare but so far with legacy patcher I have not had any issues .

 

[Wolfpup]

Windows 11 24H2 Safeguard Holds können ein Upgrade verhindern (Liste) - Deskmodder.de

According to what was said in this article, if you have one of these applications installed, you will not be able to upgrade to the 24H2 version of Windows 11, due to lack of compatibility, and may have a BOSD if the upgrade were possible. From what I understand, Microsoft blocked the upgrade when it noticed these applications on the hardware they tried to upgrade.

I don't know if this limits our older hardware, but it's something we should monitor and wait until we have Windows 11 24H2 RTM

Huuuuh! Interesting...so maybe it really is safe on newer unsupported hardware. Thanks to both of you!

 

[Frantisekj]

Hey guys. Thanks that I can be happy user of Catalina on 2009 unibody 13" MBP for years. Besides its age I have only one not critical issue. I tried to search but not sure I find relevant situation.

When I deplete battery in sleep mode next time mac wakes to white screen. I had to force to shut it down by holding power button and boot it again. Is it how it works or can it be solved/changed somehow? Thanks

 

[Alpha Centauri]

Hey guys. Thanks that I can be happy user of Catalina on 2009 unibody 13" MBP for years. Besides its age I have only one not critical issue. I tried to search but not sure I find relevant situation.

When I deplete battery in sleep mode next time mac wakes to white screen. I had to force to shut it down by holding power button and boot it again. Is it how it works or can it be solved/changed somehow? Thanks

I don't have an answer for you but that behavior isn't normal. My 2009er just restarts as per normal if the battery is depleted, and once hooked up to power again.