MP 1,1-5,1 APFS Boot issue after Time Machine restore Running bless to place boot files failed

[zibonst1]

Hello, looking for some help. I was attempting to correct an issue where my MP was getting stuck while booting up. The progress bar would stop about halfway and just get stuck. This happened when I first rebooted after I installed software for an old firewire audio interface. A friend was trying to change a setting on this old Universal Audio interface that was only accessible in the interface software. Since the MP has firewire, he brought it over. I downloaded the software, installed it, rebooted and it gets stuck as I previously described. And I did disconnect the interface for all of the troubleshooting.

I tried safe mode and it made more progress but still got stuck. I have 2 external clones of my Mac HD (made with CCC before the interface issue). So I booted from these and they both also got stuck. I then tried doing a time machine restore (again, from before the interface issue). The TM restore appeared to be successful. Now it won't boot from the Mac HD. It won't let me select it to boot from. Disk Utility can't erase it and the only option there is APFS. I get the "Running bless to place boot files failed" also. I tried loading a fresh OS from recovery (not internet recovery) and it said it needs to update firmware. Also, after the TM restore, now if I try to boot from the clones, I get the prohibitory symbol (clones are on HFS+ drives).

I've read what I can find on this and it seems it's an issue with the Mac HD being AFPS and installing High Sierra. I've come across solutions like doing internet recovery and downloading the original MacOS, but wouldn't that be some really old OS on my 2009 MP? Regardless, what I've read says that I can eventually, using this fix, get to where I can format the drive HFS+ and then a TM restore would work.

I've also read about using terminal in recovery to erase the Mac HD volume and then I will be able to format it HFS+. I watched a Youtube video of that being done so I saw it work. If that's a good fix, I was worried that the Mac HD (after the TM restore I did) also has recovery, preboot and VM volumes. Can I safely erase the entire Mac HD with these volumes with Terminal and get back to recovery? I was on the last or next to last build of High Sierra btw.

In the end, I need to be able to restore one of the clones to my Mac HD. That's the end goal. I wish that would've worked from the start. TIA everyone!

Shawn
MP 5,1 (early 2009)
High Sierra 10.13.6

 

[Macschrauber]

What firmware version, exactly, does the box have?

 

[zibonst1]

What firmware version, exactly, does the box have?

Hello, I don’t know the firmware. Is there a way to find that out?

When I got to trying to install an OS from recovery and it gave me the firmware message I looked up the issue and it seems this is common when the HD gets formatted AFPS. Then I read about the 2 different fixes I described above.

I still don’t understand why after the TM restore, I get the prohibitory symbol when trying to boot from my clones. Is this saying that there’s a firmware issue now between the Mac and the OS on the clones? Isn’t that what the symbol means? That the Mac and the OS aren’t compatible? Since these were CCC clones of my Mac HD, wouldn’t they be still compatible or did the TM restore change something?

 

[tsialex]

Hello, I don’t know the firmware. Is there a way to find that out?

 > About This Mac > System Report > Hardware Overview > System Firmware Version or BootROM Version.

I still don’t understand why after the TM restore, I get the prohibitory symbol when trying to boot from my clones. Is this saying that there’s a firmware issue now between the Mac and the OS on the clones? Isn’t that what the symbol means? That the Mac and the OS aren’t compatible? Since these were CCC clones of my Mac HD, wouldn’t they be still compatible or did the TM restore change something?

If you have a BootROM version earlier than at least MP51.0089.B00, you won't load the APFS driver from the macOS installer disk and you will have issues running the Recovery for the TM restore.

 

[zibonst1]

 > About This Mac > System Report > Hardware Overview > System Firmware Version or BootROM Version.



If you have a BootROM version earlier than at least MP51.0089.B00, you won't load the APFS driver from the macOS installer disk and you will have issues running the Recovery for the TM restore.

Thanks, can I view About This Mac from recovery? I had been running the last version of high Sierra and i know it’s 5,1. Also when I did the TM restore it formatted my HD AFPS so does that indicate that I have the version you listed above?

 

[tsialex]

Thanks, can I view About This Mac from recovery?

AFAIK, is not possible to see this info from Recovery.

You can see it from macOS or even Windows with some difficulty, but not from Recovery or macOS installer.

I had been running the last version of high Sierra and i know it’s 5,1. Also when I did the TM restore it formatted my HD AFPS so does that indicate that I have the version you listed above?

I can't speculate, you really need to boot a macOS disk and check it.

 

[zibonst1]

AFAIK, is not possible to see this info from Recovery.

You can see it from macOS or even Windows with some difficulty, but not from Recovery or macOS installer.



I can't speculate, you really need to boot a macOS disk and check it.

Ok thank you. Unfortunately that’s my issue. After the TM restore to my Mac HD, it won’t boot. I get the "Running bless to place boot files failed” message. And also after the TM restore for some reason both of my Mac HD clones give me the prohibitory symbol when I try to boot from them

 

[tsialex]

Ok thank you. Unfortunately that’s my issue. After the TM restore to my Mac HD, it won’t boot. I get the "Running bless to place boot files failed” message. And also after the TM restore for some reason both of my Mac HD clones give me the prohibitory symbol when I try to boot from them

Get a spare disk, install anything from 10.6.4 to 10.12.6 to it, without restoring anything via TM, and then check the BootROM firmware version.

You can also take another Mac with Fire Wire, running something from the range above, put in Target Disk Mode, connect it to the Mac Pro via the Fire Wire cable and make your Mac Pro boot from it.

 

[zibonst1]

Get a spare disk, install anything from 10.6.4 to 10.12.6 to it, without restoring anything via TM, and then check the BootROM firmware version.

You can also take another Mac with Fire Wire, running something from the range above, put in Target Disk Mode, connect it to the Mac Pro via the Fire Wire cable and make your Mac Pro boot from it.

Thanks again. How do I find these versions?

 

[tsialex]

Thanks again. How do I find these versions?

How to download and install macOS - Apple Support

Download and install current or previous versions of the Mac operating system on compatible Mac computers.

support.apple.com

 

[zibonst1]

https://support.apple.com/en-us/102662[/URLhttp://

Could I get some more explanation of what I’m trying to accomplish? I don’t understand the relationship between any given OS and the Mac Pro firmware. Did the TM restore do something to my firmware? I still don’t understand what the TM restore did to make my clones incompatible with my MP (getting the prohibitory symbol AFTER the TM restore).

Am I trying to get some working OS loaded do that I can copy a clone over to my Mac Hd? I assume if I got an OS loaded I’d have to install Carbon Copy Cloner and then restore a clone?

 

[tsialex]

Could I get some more explanation of what I’m trying to accomplish? I don’t understand the relationship between any given OS and the Mac Pro firmware. Did the TM restore do something to my firmware? I still don’t understand what the TM restore did to make my clones incompatible with my MP (getting the prohibitory symbol AFTER the TM restore).

Am I trying to get some working OS loaded do that I can copy a clone over to my Mac Hd? I assume if I got an OS loaded I’d have to install Carbon Copy Cloner and then restore a clone?

Long story short, Apple divided the APFS driver in two components, one inside the BootROM and another stored inside the macOS system partition. This is made this way since Apple could update the part of the driver that is stored in the partiton without having to qualify the BootROM again - faster development and less issues/risk.

If you have a BootROM older than MP51.0083.B00, you don't have any APFSJumpstart inside the BootROM, since the first start Apple added APFS to the Mac Pro firmware was with MP51.0083.B00. This earlier Mac Pro BootROMs that started to support APFS barely work, it was a very much work in progress at the time with Apple releasing around one BootROM upgrade each month and half.

If you have a High Sierra BootROM newer than MP51.0083.B00, but older than MP51.0089.B00, you have APFSJumpstart inside the BootROM, but this APFSJumpstart EFI module could be incompatible with recent APFS revisions.

To have an universal BootROM you need to upgrade to Mojave and 144.0.0.0.0.

Anyway, the first question when someone post about prohibited signal when trying to restore via TM is the BootROM release currently installed because you could have an incompatible APFSJumpStart inside the BootROM.

 

[zibonst1]

Long story short, Apple divided the APFS driver in two components, one inside the BootROM and another stored inside the macOS system partition. This is made this way since Apple could update the part of the driver that is stored in the partiton without having to qualify the BootROM again - faster development and less issues/risk.

If you have a BootROM older than MP51.0083.B00, you don't have any APFSJumpstart inside the BootROM, since the first start Apple added APFS to the Mac Pro firmware was with MP51.0083.B00. This earlier Mac Pro BootROMs that started to support APFS barely work, it was a very much work in progress at the time with Apple releasing around one BootROM upgrade each month and half.

If you have a High Sierra BootROM newer than MP51.0083.B00, but older than MP51.0089.B00, you have APFSJumpstart inside the BootROM, but this APFSJumpstart EFI module could be incompatible with recent APFS revisions.

To have an universal BootROM you need to upgrade to Mojave and 144.0.0.0.0.

Anyway, the first question when someone post about prohibited signal when trying to restore via TM is the BootROM release currently installed because you could have an incompatible APFSJumpStart inside the BootROM.

Thank you for the detailed reply. Some of this is over my head, but why would anything change if I’m restoring from TM? Isn’t this supposed to be a snapshot of the current state? Or is it because the Mac HD was formatted during the Tm restore and it shouldn’t be AFPS? This is what I’ve been reading make it sound like. But I may be misunderstanding all of it. I guess I don’t understand why the TM restore/reformatting or my clones are suddenly not compatible? Again I apologize if I’m just not understanding but are you saying the bootROMs are now different? Thanks again for all your help

 

[tsialex]

Thank you for the detailed reply. Some of this is over my head, but why would anything change if I’m restoring from TM? Isn’t this supposed to be a snapshot of the current state? Or is it because the Mac HD was formatted during the Tm restore and it shouldn’t be AFPS? This is what thing I’ve been reading make it sound like. But I may be misunderstanding all of it. I guess I don’t understand why the TM restore/reformatting or my clones are suddenly not compatible? Again I apologize if I’m just not understanding but are you saying the bootROMs are now different? Thanks again for all your help

Mismatch between the half of the APFS driver inside the BootROM with the other half stored in the disk. You need to be sure that both can work with each other. You also could have a BootROM that does not even have APFS support at all.

For this to work, you need to know the BootROM version installed and then upgrade it if needed.

Btw, don't try to workaround this in anyway, like installing to a JHFS+ disk, you will just postpone the problem to a later date…

 

[zibonst1]

Mismatch between the half of the APFS driver inside the BootROM with the other half stored in the disk. You need to be sure that both can work with each other. You also could have a BootROM that does not even have APFS support at all.

For this to work, you need to know the BootROM version installed and then upgrade it if needed.

Btw, don't try to workaround this in anyway, like installing to a JHFS+ disk, you will just postpone the problem to a later date…

Ok thanks again. I think I understand a bit better. My last question would be why did this happen? Is it the reformatting and/or the TM restore? The only thing that been done so far is the TM restore which also reformatted the Mac HD, so I assume this is what has made the incompatibility? If so, why would Mac let a TM restore create this problem instead of keeping the system exactly like it was through the restore process?

 

[zibonst1]

I guess I’m confused why a TM restore just doesn’t bring everything back to the last state. Instead it creates bootrom problems so you can’t boot from the restored drive

 

[tsialex]

I've already explained these questions in detail and you didn't understood the reach of the underlying issue.

Is possible that you have a Mac Pro that does not support booting from APFS at all, with High Sierra forced to be installed to a JHFS+, that now does not work with the disk formatted as APFS and hence the prohibithed screen.

Could also be a Mac Pro that was upgraded to the first High Sierra BootROM, with partial APFS support and never upgraded again, but macOS was updated overtime and now is using incompatible half module inside the disk partition. This is the reason for knowing the currently installed BootROM.

Mac Pro BootROM firmware upgrades are manual, if you didn't upgrade it, you could still have the factory installed BootROM, then you can't boot from an APFS disk or have issues with APFS driver in the partition that was installed with macOS updates and need the correspondent BootROM upgrade that was never done.

Anyway, you could have forced an install of High Sierra without the required BootROM upgrade and now you have an issue with APFS disks. Apple did not completely enforce the requirement of firmware upgrades back with High Sierra, as they did later with Mojave, and you could incorrectly find a way to workaround it back then.

 

[tsialex]

I guess I’m confused why a TM restore just doesn’t bring everything back to the last state. Instead it creates bootrom problems so you can’t boot from the restored drive

Simply because the mismatch of APFS support of the BootROM (APFSJumpStart) between the other half inside the partition.

There are several scenarios that make this not possible, the most simply to understand is a BootROM with no support for APFS at all and 10.13.6 macOS Recovery/installer is now enforcing macOS to be installed to an APFS disk - this will result in a prohibited screen. Other scenarios are more complicated and can also have hardware interaction in other ways, but let's keep this simply for now.

The first step to solve this is to boot anything from 10.6.4 to 10.12.6 with your Mac Pro and check the BootROM version.

 

[zibonst1]

Simply because the mismatch of APFS support of the BootROM (APFSJumpStart) between the other half inside the partition.

There are several scenarios that make this not possible, the most simply to understand is a BootROM with no support for APFS at all and 10.13.6 macOS Recovery/installer is now enforcing macOS to be installed to an APFS disk - this will result in a prohibited screen. Other scenarios are more complicated and can also have hardware interaction in other ways, but let's keep this simply for now.

The first step to solve this is to boot anything from 10.6.4 to 10.12.6 with your Mac Pro and check the BootROM version.

Ok thanks again. I apologize for not grasping some of the explanations. I appreciate your time and will work on the solution You suggested

 

[zibonst1]

Hello, it's been a while but I've been working on this. I am trying to get Sierra installed on this machine as suggested. I made a USB installer, but I can only boot into recovery using CMD+R. I cannot boot into the other 2 recovery modes (CMD+OPTION+R or SHIFT+CMD+OPTION+R). I also cannot get drive selection holding the OPTION key. When I go to STARTUP DISK in recovery, it doesn't list the Sierra USB as an option. Other USB drives are visible. But if I attempt to do a Time Machine restore, the USB Sierra drive is listed along with my other drives. I have made 2 different Sierra installation USB drives and neither show in recovery.

In recovery, I have also attempted to reinstall the OS (High Sierra) and it wants to upgrade the firmware (which tracks with the original issue discussed in the thread) but when I attempt the firmware install (restarting holding the power button) it doesn't perform the firmware upgrade, but I do get the flashing power light and the long beep). Any suggestions on the previous paragraph issue or this one? TIA!

 

[tsialex]

First thing, Mac Pros before late-2013 Mac Pro do not have Internet Recovery, so, you are wasting your time trying to boot from something that does not exist.

Install an AppleOEM GPU (or a Mac EFI flashed GPU/MacEdition GPU) and use the Apple native boot picker to boot the Sierra createinstallmedia installer.

You can also remove all other bootable disks from the Mac Pro, keep just an erased disk where you are going to install macOS and the Sierra createinstallmedia installer, after 4 minutes or so, the Mac Pro will boot from the Sierra createinstallmedia installer automatically (if no other bootable disk is present).

 

[zibonst1]

First thing, Mac Pros before late-2013 Mac Pro do not have Internet Recovery, so, you are wasting your time trying to boot from something that does not exist.

Install an AppleOEM GPU (or a Mac EFI flashed GPU/MacEdition GPU) and use the Apple native boot picker to boot the Sierra createinstallmedia installer.

You can also remove all other bootable disks from the Mac Pro, keep just an erased disk where you are going to install macOS and the Sierra createinstallmedia installer, after 4 minutes or so, the Mac Pro will boot from the Sierra createinstallmedia installer automatically (if no other bootable disk is present

First thing, Mac Pros before late-2013 Mac Pro do not have Internet Recovery, so, you are wasting your time trying to boot from something that does not exist.

Install an AppleOEM GPU (or a Mac EFI flashed GPU/MacEdition GPU) and use the Apple native boot picker to boot the Sierra createinstallmedia installer.

You can also remove all other bootable disks from the Mac Pro, keep just an erased disk where you are going to install macOS and the Sierra createinstallmedia installer, after 4 minutes or so, the Mac Pro will boot from the Sierra createinstallmedia installer automatically (if no other bootable disk is present).

Thanks for the info. I do have an AppleOEM gpu installed. The last time I tried boot picker with the OPTION key it didn’t come up.

 

[tsialex]

Check your createinstallmedia Sierra installer with a different Mac, maybe you have a USB key that is not bootable/incompatible or you are not correctly creating it.

 

[zibonst1]

I am still attempting to check the installer on another mac. I realize I am trying to install an earlier OS to check the firmware version, but I'm also wondering how to just install a fresh High Sierra like recovery wants to do. But as I stated before, I cannot get the firmware update that it wants to do to work by holding the power button, although I get the flashing power light & beeps but then nothing happens. Is there a way to just install this firmware another way? I've read some posts about people trying the power button method like 20 times and then it worked. TIA