macOS 11 Big Sur on Unsupported Macs Thread

[Nobodee]

All I know is that you made to until step 14. If it fails you likely missed one of the 13 steps before, booting into EFI or setting the NVRAM boot args correctly or a bad USB installer?
Start with step one again.

Unfortunately I have already done this several times, scrupulously. I don't know why on my iMac it loops at startup with a kernel panic .. I'll try a clean install maybe
anyway case thank you for your answer

 

[Ausdauersportler]

Finally after a lot of perseverance got the BigSur working fully on the iMac mid 2011. Siri Audio works and post patches went well with wifi working. I used the Micropatcher installer of BarryN followed by post patches.sh. Thanks to @jackluke and @Ausdauersportler specially for extra help.

View attachment 1671042


Only major issue I am facing is iMac does not show desktop after startup chime. I have to restart, Start, fresh boot the machine by pressing Option/alt key of the keyboard.
Please provide solution to this ongoing issue. Thanks😉

Nearly perfect!!
Did you save the patch-kext.sh output in the terminal?

 

[jackluke]

Only major issue I am facing is iMac does not show desktop after startup chime. I have to restart, Start, fresh boot the machine by pressing Option/alt key of the keyboard.
Please provide solution to this ongoing issue. Thanks😉

You meant after startup chime the iMac shows a blank screen, you already had this issue during Catalina, also in selecting a startup disk for apple startup manager, I guess your issue it's mainly related to your non EFI GPU flashed firmware.

 

[Dilli]

You meant after startup chime the iMac shows a blank screen, you already had this issue during Catalina, also in selecting a startup disk for apple startup manager, I guess your issue it's mainly related to your non EFI GPU flashed firmware.

Yes true I had this issue since Catalina, then it got solved when you released the opencoreafsloader 2nd version I guess and I just inserted the usb and booted the mac normally and first the white screen came with some scripts running fast and it bought me to the login page. All was well but recently this issue cropped up.

No wonder after every boot of bigsur I had to manually force shut the imac the press option key to continue with installer.

Now whether I restart or initial boot the machine I have to use option key. How do I solve this.

 

[Dilli]

Nearly perfect!!
Did you save the patch-kext.sh output in the terminal?

yes with the instal command you gave me and wifi, and audio is working great. 🙂 If you can help me with my startup of machine too without pressing option key on the keyboard I would really be relieved.

 

[jackluke]

Yes true I had this issue since Catalina, then it got solved when you released the opencoreafsloader 2nd version I guess and I just inserted the usb and booted the mac normally and first the white screen came with some scripts running fast and it bought me to the login page. All was well but recently this issue cropped up.

No wonder after every boot of bigsur I had to manually force shut the imac the press option key to continue with installer.

Now whether I restart or initial boot the machine I have to use option key. How do I solve this.

That was an internal opencore version that used BOOTX64.efi from EFI internal , anyway try this directly from BigSur normal booting:

sudo bless --folder /System/Volumes/Preboot/*/System/Library/CoreServices/ --file /System/Volumes/Preboot/*/System/Library/CoreServices/boot.efi --setBoot

 

[Glemp]

Hi guys,

first of all many thanks to everybody for this great work. Without you I never could install Big Sur in my iMac.

On saturday I finally installed Big Sur on my late 2012 iMac.

Everything works great, except my instant personal hotspot. I already searched this thread but didn't find a solution. Sorry, if I ask again.
I can see the hotspot in my WiFi status. If I select it, I can see, that the hotspot is activated on my iPhone. The switch toggles instantly and WiFi switches to LTE. But then I get a message on my iMac that the personal hotspot could not be activated.

On my 2015 MacBook everything works fine.
I tried two iPhones and two users with different iCloud accounts. Both with same result.

Is this problem already known and is there a solution for this problem?

Many thanks for your help!

 

[alfon_sico]

For some users, WiFi in Big Sur 11.0.1 is so unreliable that it is effectively unusable. This is happening on 802.11ac WiFi cards which are supported natively by Big Sur, as well as on Macs which are officially supported by Big Sur, so this is not due to a patcher bug. To be clear, WiFi does work well in Big Sur for many users. However, be prepared to use Ethernet or USB iPhone tethering if you upgrade to Big Sur. If WiFi must work on your Mac, then do not upgrade to Big Sur at this time.

Actually yesterday take care that my Wifi was on but isn't connect to any net. It discovers as usual but doesn't connect
I guess it doesn't happen with RC1

So is it a bug of Big Sur 11.0.1? Would I admit that wifi isn't going work since now in later versions?

I have a Mac mini 2012 late

 

[Ausdauersportler]

yes with the instal command you gave me and wifi, and audio is working great. 🙂 If you can help me with my startup of machine too without pressing option key on the keyboard I would really be relieved.

First things first:

Your GPU has been flashed with the BIOS @Nick [D]vB published here. It has a approx 5-10s boot delay and will show the boot screen aka the progress bar only after this delay. Unfortunately most fast SSDs boot the complete MacOS in this short amount of time and you see no "boot screen" - but it is always there. The first thing you get is the complete login screen...

Als long as you can force the boot selection to come up on boot with alt/option everything is fine and works as designed!

 

[Potsdamer]

Please, help me! My Screensaver didn't work. How can I fix it on MBP 13' 2011? Thank you so much!

 

[Stuessi]

Very strange - I have used Barry's patcher multiple times on 2 different mac mini 2012 machines and never had a problem like that. The script is pretty straight forward - it contains

# Make sure there isn't already an "EFI" volume mounted.
if [ -d "/Volumes/EFI" ]
then
echo 'An "EFI" volume is already mounted. Please unmount it then try again.'
echo "If you don't know what this means, then restart your Mac and try again."

so the shell thinks you *do* have an EFI partition mounted at that point.

If you go into Terminal right after you get this error and issue
ls -l /Volumes
what does it return?

An alternate possibility would be to try the following in Terminal:
sudo nvram boot-args='-no_compat_check'
and see if that will let you reboot into the usb installer w/o having to use the efi partition to set the nvram. If you are already on Big Sur you probably shouldn't need to set it again, and if you are not on Big Sur you should be able to set it in the terminal.

Thanks for the tips. There is an EFI Volume loaded: d--x--x--x 3 root wheel 96 Nov 13 20:35 EFI. It says it is not mounted, however. The nvram command failed with the following error: nvram: Error setting variable - 'boot-args': (iokit/common) not permitted

 

[Stuessi]

be sure to format the drive as HFS+ and GUID before creating the image. often times there are hidden partitions in the usb.

Both sticks were formatted as HFS+ and GUID but from a separate thread there is some kind of phantom EFI drive showing that says it is not mounted but seems to be causing the problem.

 

[pyedog]

Thanks for the tips. There is an EFI Volume loaded: d--x--x--x 3 root wheel 96 Nov 13 20:35 EFI. It says it is not mounted, however. The nvram command failed with the following error: nvram: Error setting variable - 'boot-args': (iokit/common) not permitted

Curiouser and curiouser ... If ls -l /Volumes shows it, it is mounted. I am hesitant to suggest you to try to rename EFI because you might not be able to reboot afterwards, but you might be able to rename it, run inst-setvars, then rename it back.
If you did sudo before the nvram command it shouldn't have given you that error (assuming you gave it your password anyway). An alternative would be to boot into recovery and try the nvram command, or possibly boot a previous OS version usb installer like Catalina to perform the nvram command.
I don't know why you seem to have EFI automatically mounted, something seems messed up ... I can't guess whether or not it might cause other issues.

 

[air.man]

That's issue ARV error it's weird because "csrutil auth root" is disabled (even if I still using a patched boot.efi from previous beta, maybe I should use the new 724 KB boot.efi), ignoring this ARV issue, another attempt, after you used disable snapshot (or delete snapshot), rebooting BigSur with CMD+S from its shell type:

mount -P 1
mount -P 2
mount -uw /
kmutil install --update-all
kcditto
reboot

then reboot targeting BigSur with CMD+S, type "mount -P 1 ; mount -P 2 ; mount -uw / ; exit"

The first four attached pics are related to the 5 commands provided separately., the last is related to the string of commands. I turned off when the "core dump for pid" reached the value of 400.

 

[pyedog]

there is some kind of phantom EFI drive showing that says it is not mounted but seems to be causing the problem.

What files are inside the /Volumes/EFI directory? Does it look like a valid EFI - i.e. does it contain EFI/APPLE/EXTENSIONS/Firmware.scap?

What does ls -@ -l /Volumes return?

It seems possible that you just have an EFI directory sitting in /Volumes ... if it were the "real" mounted EFI directory it should look more like
drwxrwxrwx@ 1 admin staff 512 Nov 17 16:54 EFI
Your date showed Nov 13 - if you have rebooted since then the date should have increased when it remounted. If it just a directory the date wouldn't change and there shouldn't be any harm in renaming it.

 

[webg3]

I easily installed macOS Big Sur 11.0.1 (20B29) in my 27'' iMac (Late 2013 - fully Apple BTO improved) and everything works perfectly. My iMac is equipped with a Fusion Drive which I intend to separate and replace the mechanical HDD with a 2TB Crucial MX 500 SSD.
So, if you have a 27-inch iMac from late 2013, rest assured it's perfectly suited to Big Sur.

I add some details to facilitate the transition, without risking anything, proceeding to do everything BEFORE disassembling the iMac to change the original HDD with the new SDD.
1) I used Micropatcher as suggested by default (without additional flags) to patch the USB Key with Big Sur. I created the USB Key by createinstallmedia.
2) I connected the Crucial SSD via an external USB 3.1 adapter and formatted it as APFS.
3) I restarted the Mac from the USB Key patched with Micropatcher and after having first booted from the "EFI Boot" unit I turned the iMac back on and installed Big Sur from USB key to the external Crucial SSD that I named "Macintosh SD".

The Mac has been running great from two days. I'm stressing him out and he doesn't crash and never freezes.
In the meantime, Finder see perfectly the internal Fusion Drive with Catalina and I take the opportunity to copy my many Internet Accounts to Big Sur (by copying the files contained in My_Home/Library/Accounts/ of Catalina's disk to the identical folder of Big Sur disk.
This worked great right away and after a Logout/Login all of my Internet Accounts appear in Big Sur's System Preferences

Next, I will pass the contents of My_Home/Library/Mail/, the contents of My_Home/Music/Music folder, the Photo's library and everything in between.

At the end, when I have verified with certainty that I have passed everything on Big Sur and that it works fine, I will open the iMac and replace the HDD with the SDD in which Big Sur is.

It was simple and fun 😉

NOTE: in my opinion, maybe Big Sur could also be installed in the Fusion Drive; mine is the 1,128 TB one with 128GB SSD. If I have time I will try to do a clean installation to the Fusion Drive, from zero, to make a comparison with the external SDD; after all, if it goes wrong, I intend to proceed with the replacement of the HDD anyway.

Guy who work huh? Because you didn't use the Migration Assistant from within Big Sur itself, it works perfectly well, it doesn't need so much work, you can choose what to bring by selecting the things you want and those that are not relevant.

Good luck next time.

 

[webg3]

For some users, WiFi in Big Sur 11.0.1 is so unreliable that it is effectively unusable. This is happening on 802.11ac WiFi cards which are supported natively by Big Sur, as well as on Macs which are officially supported by Big Sur, so this is not due to a patcher bug. To be clear, WiFi does work well in Big Sur for many users. However, be prepared to use Ethernet or USB iPhone tethering if you upgrade to Big Sur. If WiFi must work on your Mac, then do not upgrade to Big Sur at this time.

Actually yesterday take care that my Wifi was on but isn't connect to any net. It discovers as usual but doesn't connect
I guess it doesn't happen with RC1

So is it a bug of Big Sur 11.0.1? Would I admit that wifi isn't going work since now in later versions?

I have a Mac mini 2012 late

I had no problem with wifi here, I do not use any patches for Wifi, just replace my 2012 card, with a newer model 2013-2017 (MacBook Air), this before installing Big Sur, so the only thing I needed was to change the boot initiator by OpenCore or put arguments in NVRAM.

 

[Stuessi]

Curiouser and curiouser ... If ls -l /Volumes shows it, it is mounted. I am hesitant to suggest you to try to rename EFI because you might not be able to reboot afterwards, but you might be able to rename it, run inst-setvars, then rename it back.
If you did sudo before the nvram command it shouldn't have given you that error (assuming you gave it your password anyway). An alternative would be to boot into recovery and try the nvram command, or possibly boot a previous OS version usb installer like Catalina to perform the nvram command.
I don't know why you seem to have EFI automatically mounted, something seems messed up ... I can't guess whether or not it might cause other issues.

Renaming EFI and then renaming it back seems to have done the trick! I am now in the middle of the installation and fighting with an error message that there is not enough disk space, although the amount shown is not at all accurate. I think someone else had that problem so will have to search and see how they resolved it. Thanks so much!

 

[buckrock]

What files are inside the /Volumes/EFI directory? Does it look like a valid EFI - i.e. does it contain EFI/APPLE/EXTENSIONS/Firmware.scap?

What does ls -@ -l /Volumes return?

It seems possible that you just have an EFI directory sitting in /Volumes ... if it were the "real" mounted EFI directory it should look more like
drwxrwxrwx@ 1 admin staff 512 Nov 17 16:54 EFI
Your date showed Nov 13 - if you have rebooted since then the date should have increased when it remounted. If it just a directory the date wouldn't change and there shouldn't be any harm in renaming it.

Do you mean:
ls -al? I don't think @ works.

 

[Ausdauersportler]

Do you mean:
ls -al? I don't think @ works.

Give it a try or better read the man page - you will be surprised 🙂

 

[buckrock]

Give it a try or better read the man page - you will be surprised 🙂

Wow! Thanks!

 

[Dilli]

deleted

 

[Dilli]

First things first:

Your GPU has been flashed with the BIOS @Nick [D]vB published here. It has a approx 5-10s boot delay and will show the boot screen aka the progress bar only after this delay. Unfortunately most fast SSDs boot the complete MacOS in this short amount of time and you see no "boot screen" - but it is always there. The first thing you get is the complete login screen...

Als long as you can force the boot selection to come up on boot with alt/option everything is fine and works as designed!

Ok. As long as it will not destroy anything I will use option/alt key to boot the machine. But I was able to get the login screen very fast without the black screen. Just recently this issue happened.

 

[Dilli]

That was an internal opencore version that used BOOTX64.efi from EFI internal , anyway try this directly from BigSur normal booting:

sudo bless --folder /System/Volumes/Preboot/*/System/Library/CoreServices/ --file /System/Volumes/Preboot/*/System/Library/CoreServices/boot.efi --setBoot

Get following error after using above terminal command.


Can't load /System/Volumes/Preboot/usr/standalone/i386/apfs.efi
Could not load apfs.efi data from /System/Volumes/Preboot/usr/standalone/i386/apfs.efi

 

[johnsawyercjs]

Has anybody tried installing Big Sur onto a Mid 2009 white Macbook (Macbook5,2)?