Can no longer login (OCLP)

[zachleft]

Need some help. I think I may need to completely reset my MBP

I have a mid-2012 MBP (500 ssd, 16 gb ram) that I’ve been running Ventura with OCLP on for a couple (?) years now and it’s been great. Highly recommend.

The other day I restarted because my airpods were having difficulty connecting (they’re on their last legs) and restarting usually solves the problem. Only this time after entering my login password, the progress bar stalled halfway for several minutes and I was greeted with this screen:

My correct login credentials did not work.

To make a long story short, after my troubleshooting efforts and many resets (pram, recovery mode, safe mode, etc) and one SATA cable replacement later, I’ve come to the conclusion that I just need to wipe my computer and start over. I didn’t bother making a time machine backup (I know) cause I usually just drag and drop things I want to keep long term onto a separate hard drive every couple months. Helps reduce clutter. Will be doing Time Machine going forward.

When I booted into recovery mode, I only have one ssd actually installed so not sure which one it is. I’m assuming they’re split cause of OCLP. Here’s photos of all 3:

Anyone know why the Update drive shows “used” as 69 MB while all of my actual files and content (315 GB) are shown under “other volumes”?

Is this salvageable or am I better off just factory resetting and starting over?

 

[Bigwaff]

Before wiping anything, try booting OCLP manually. Hold down Option key while booting. This Apple firmware bootpicker. Pick EFI disk. Next is OCLP boot picker. Pick your Monterey disk. Did you have automatically install software updates disabled? You might have a macOS update messing up the boot sequence. Need to know if it is Monterey update or (gulp) Tahoe update.

 

[zachleft]

Before wiping anything, try booting OCLP manually. Hold down Option key while booting. This Apple firmware bootpicker. Pick EFI disk. Next is OCLP boot picker. Pick your Monterey disk. Did you have automatically install software updates disabled? You might have a macOS update messing up the boot sequence. Need to know if it is Monterey update or (gulp) Tahoe update.

I’ve tried that and also the OCLP boot picker and got the same result sadly. I’m pretty sure I had automatic software updates disabled cause I’d get pop ups asking if I wanted to update (which I’d just close out of). If they were enabled I’m guessing I wouldn’t get those pop ups and it would automatically try to upgrade?

Also did you mean Ventura and not Monterey?

 

[Bigwaff]

Also did you mean Ventura and not Monterey?

Yes, sorry. Ventura. You are booting Ventura Recovery at OCLP boot picker, yes? In Disk Utility, please select menu View > Show All Devices and post screenshot.

 

[zachleft]

Yes, sorry. Ventura. You are booting Ventura Recovery at OCLP boot picker, yes? In Disk Utility, please select menu View > Show All Devices and post screenshot.

Ok just a moment

 

[MacCheetah3]

When I booted into recovery mode, I only have one ssd actually installed so not sure which one it is. I’m assuming they’re split cause of OCLP. Here’s photos of all 3:

View attachment 2604660
View attachment 2604661
View attachment 2604662

What is macOS Base System?

macOS Base System is the recovery partition that allows you to boot into Recovery mode, run low-level utilities, reinstall macOS, and restore your Mac.

iboysoft.com

Macintosh HD vs. Macintosh HD Data: What Are the Differences

A full explanation about What is Macintosh HD and Macintosh HD - Data. And also tells the difference between Macintosh HD and Macintosh HD - Data.

iboysoft.com

How do APFS volume roles work?

What separates System and Data volumes, and how does macOS know they’re part of a boot volume group? What distinguished backup volumes, and what is Sidecar?

eclecticlight.co

 

[zachleft]

Yes, sorry. Ventura. You are booting Ventura Recovery at OCLP boot picker, yes? In Disk Utility, please select menu View > Show All Devices and post screenshot.

Sorry it took a bit, had to redo the OCLP usb

 

[Bigwaff]

Select the Update volume and press the minus “-“ button. Reboot to OCLP manually.

 

[zachleft]

Select the Update volume and press the minus “-“ button. Reboot to OCLP manually.

So just double checking before I potentially screw this up

“-“ to delete, even though it seems to contain all my data?

And reboot to oclp by holding option upon restart and selecting the flash drive with oclp on it correct?

 

[DeltaMac]

You should note that the "Update" volume shows only 70 MB used,
and, Macintosh HD appears to have nothing stored at all.
Unless I miss my guess, anything on your internal drive is likely corrupted, and nothing can be recovered.
I would love to be proven completely wrong on that, and I hope that you have a good backup
(I use OCLP on several different Macs, and I take the attitude that OCLP really needs careful attention to regular full backups)

 

[zachleft]

You should note that the "Update" volume shows only 70 MB used,
and, Macintosh HD appears to have nothing stored at all.
Unless I miss my guess, anything on your internal drive is likely corrupted, and nothing can be recovered.
I would love to be proven completely wrong on that, and I hope that you have a good backup
(I use OCLP on several different Macs, and I take the attitude that OCLP really needs careful attention to regular full backups)

So in my earlier troubleshooting I was told to mount the Macintosh HD - Data - Data drive (and it’s since been unmounted again it seems since it’s greyed out) I just mounted it again and it seems to show my data…

Not sure what to take away from that tbh

 

[Bigwaff]

You have a container with two volumes. The volumes share the free space. Select Update volume and press the “-“ to delete that volume. Should not effect your Macintosh HD - Data - Data volume.

 

[zachleft]

You have a container with two volumes. The volumes share the free space. Select Update volume and press the “-“ to delete that volume. Should not effect your Macintosh HD - Data - Data volume.

Ok so just did that and restarted to bring up the startup manager to boot the oclp on my flash drive. Clicked it and got shown two images on the next screen: Macintosh HD and Install Ventura. But before I could click one the screen went to the main login screen so I entered my password and now I find myself here

 

[Bigwaff]

Reboot and hold down Option key. This Apple Boot Picker. Choose OCLP EFI Boot on flash drive. Next will be Open Core Boot Picker. Select the Install macOS flash drive.

 

[MacCheetah3]

So just double checking before I potentially screw this up

“-“ to delete, even though it seems to contain all my data?

View attachment 2605214

So in my earlier troubleshooting I was told to mount the Macintosh HD - Data - Data drive (and it’s since been unmounted again it seems since it’s greyed out) I just mounted it again and it seems to show my data…

View attachment 2605279

Not sure what to take away from that tbh

Descriptions from the sources I linked to earlier:

Macintosh HD volume loads the Mac system files and scripts while Macintosh HD - Data volume stores personal data on Mac.

The Macintosh HD - Data volume is used to store Mac user files such as documents, videos, photos, and audio. Mac users have read-write access to this volume, which means Mac users can edit and manage files on Macintosh HD - Data directly.

The Other Volumes value relates to the other volumes in the container (e.g., Container disk2). It’s relevant because:

The volumes share the free space.

A layperson explanation:

...

I will guess the Update volume exists as a temporary space for OS update files. That is, it’s accessed/used during the stage when your Mac is mid-update, displaying the Apple logo and a progress bar.

Ok so just did that and restarted to bring up the startup manager to boot the oclp on my flash drive. Clicked it and got shown two images on the next screen: Macintosh HD and Install Ventura. But before I could click one the screen went to the main login screen so I entered my password and now I find myself here

View attachment 2605281

This could be evidence to support my assumption. Although, to me, this would also indicate the macOS update was already prepared when your Mac was shut down/restarted. In other words, your machine’s OS is stuck partially updated.

As for recovery… @Bigwaff and others will need to guide you as I’ve never used OCLP.

 

[DeltaMac]

Yes, you said that you use a thumb drive for OCLP. I guess that you mean that you have an EFI partition on that thumb drive. I do that same trick, but my thumb drive also has the system installer.
Is your Ventura bootable installer on that same thumb drive? (I make these bootable macOS installers all the time, for my Mac service work.) If both are on the same flash drive, that will bypass the need to boot into the recovery system.

 

[zachleft]

Yes, you said that you use a thumb drive for OCLP. I guess that you mean that you have an EFI partition on that thumb drive. I do that same trick, but my thumb drive also has the system installer.
Is your Ventura bootable installer on that same thumb drive? (I make these bootable macOS installers all the time, for my Mac service work.) If both are on the same flash drive, that will bypass the need to boot into the recovery system.

The thumb drive has both macOS installer and oclp as I understand it? It’s set up as guid partition

I used the “create macOS installer” and it’s all loaded onto the flash drive

(ignore the version I just pulled this off google images. I’m using the latest version)

So I booted up in startup manager again and was able to select install Ventura and it’s allowing me to do so and so it’s currently installing. Crossing my fingers this fixes it

 

[zachleft]

Yes, you said that you use a thumb drive for OCLP. I guess that you mean that you have an EFI partition on that thumb drive. I do that same trick, but my thumb drive also has the system installer.
Is your Ventura bootable installer on that same thumb drive? (I make these bootable macOS installers all the time, for my Mac service work.) If both are on the same flash drive, that will bypass the need to boot into the recovery system.

So I tried installing Ventura, it went through a couple loading screens so I figured it was installing. Then it showed me a screen with the options of Macintosh HD - Data, Install Ventura, install macOS

I’ve clicked both Ventura and macOS options at this point

Ventura opens up this screen

But when I enter my login credentials it says it cannot connect to apple. There’s also no place to click and connect to wifi on this screen.

So then I hit precious since I can’t advance on that screen and it shows me another screen with Install Ventura and Macintosh HD - Data

Sometimes before I can click anything on this screen it’ll send me to the main log in screen. Enter my password and the progress bar shows at what looks like 1% and doesn’t move for like 15 mins, so just force turn off

When turning on normally and not pressing any buttons I’m greeted with the Install macOS Ventura and Macintosh HD - Data screen. And again before I can do anything it sends me to the login page.

When turning on while holding option this is what I’m seeing

Seems I’m stuck in a bit of a loop :/

 

[DeltaMac]

Reboot, holding Option.
on the boot-picker screen (showing the boot choices) - the EFI choice at the right end is already selected, so just press Enter.
Continue to hold Option.
You SHOULD then not see EFI choices, and you should select "Install macOS Ventura", and press enter. That should then continue to boot to the Ventura installer. Follow the steps to get into the macOS installer. You should be able to install to "Macintosh HD - Data". That should get you installed with a booting system. The installer SHOULD restart a number of times. EVERY time, hold the Option key, and wait for the boot-picker screen. When you see the EFI, press Enter to accept that choice, then you should see an already selected icon, which probably will say something like macOS Installer. If that is already selected, just press Enter. Continue to watch for the occasional restart, and do the same process. The selected icon will change after 3 or 4 restarts, and will show your actual boot drive name (probably Macintosh HD - Data). It will be highlighted, so, again press Enter to allow the install to finish.
If you eventually get to your desktop - Good!

 

[zachleft]

Reboot, holding Option.
on the boot-picker screen (showing the boot choices) - the EFI choice at the right end is already selected, so just press Enter.
Continue to hold Option.
You SHOULD then not see EFI choices, and you should select "Install macOS Ventura", and press enter. That should then continue to boot to the Ventura installer. Follow the steps to get into the macOS installer. You should be able to install to "Macintosh HD - Data". That should get you installed with a booting system. The installer SHOULD restart a number of times. EVERY time, hold the Option key, and wait for the boot-picker screen. When you see the EFI, press Enter to accept that choice, then you should see an already selected icon, which probably will say something like macOS Installer. If that is already selected, just press Enter. Continue to watch for the occasional restart, and do the same process. The selected icon will change after 3 or 4 restarts, and will show your actual boot drive name (probably Macintosh HD - Data). It will be highlighted, so, again press Enter to allow the install to finish.
If you eventually get to your desktop - Good!

Ok so I get to the bolded part, holding option while clicking through the EFI and “install Ventura”. Then I release option when it shows the apple logo with a progress bar, then it sends me back to that macOS recovery screen :/

 

[Bigwaff]

Give yourself some time to select disks. When building OC USB, select Settings > Build > General, and check Show Open Core Boot Picker and bump up Boot Picker Timeout to 20 or 30 sec. Also in debug section, check Verbose. This will show logging output during boot. Make sure you have selected the correct Target Host model before you Build and Install Open Core to your usb boot disk.

Now when installer go through its cycle, you have time at OC boot picker to select the appropriate disk, eg macOS installer.

 

[zachleft]

Give yourself some time to select disks. When building OC USB, select Settings > Build > General, and check Show Open Core Boot Picker and bump up Boot Picker Timeout to 20 or 30 sec. Also in debug section, check Verbose. This will show logging output during boot. Make sure you have selected the correct Target Host model before you Build and Install Open Core to your usb boot disk.

Now when installer go through its cycle, you have time at OC boot picker to select the appropriate disk, eg macOS installer.

Alright so I stupidly didn’t play with the settings before making the boot drive before, so I readjusted all those you mentioned.

-Restart
-hold down option
-EFI boot (flash drive)
-install macOS Ventura

Get this scrolling screen (hasn’t happened before) for like 30 seconds: see attachment, for some reason this wouldn’t upload in the post

Then it goes to that macOS recovery page again, except this time there is a wifi icon in the top right corner so I can connect.

-Enter my correct Apple ID info

And I’m met with this page

Seem to be at another dead end

 

[DeltaMac]

Can you then Quit the Recovery Assistant? (Is there any way to Quit under the Recovery Assistant, so you can then choose to reinstall macOS ?

 

[zachleft]

Can you then Quit the Recovery Assistant? (Is there any way to Quit under the Recovery Assistant, so you can then choose to reinstall macOS ?

The apple icon menu gives me
- startup disk
- restart
- shutdown

Recovery assistant menu gives me
- about recovery assistant
- change language
- erase mac

Clicking “previously” on the main window just sends me back to this screen

 

[DeltaMac]

So, your "choice" is to erase the drive...
You have a backup, correct? Looks like you get to use that backup.