macOS 14 Sonoma on Unsupported Macs Thread

[xboxbml]

14.8.8RC was reieased on Monday.🧐

Yeah.. I saw that.. fun.

 

[OKonnel]

Subject: iMac 14,2 (Late 2013) Gold Standard Setup:
Fixing Menu Bar Icons, Wi-Fi Glitches, Local of Country Code, etc. on Sonoma 14.3.1

EDIT 2026-07-14
The /etc/rc.wakeup script has finally been perfected with the help of the AI Claude, partly because the Wi-Fi signal was behaving erratically.
Now, after coming out of sleep mode – whether it’s been a short or long period, or even two days – the icons on the menu bar always appear neat and tidy.

IMPORTANT! These instructions, although tested and working on my iMac, are purely indicative and intended exclusively for experienced and enthusiastic macOS users who fully understand what I'm writing and should use this report only to save themselves the effort I put into trying dozens of configurations before finding the perfect balance.
I assume no responsibility for data loss and/or errors or damage of any kind.

Hi everyone,
I wanted to share my definitive guide and "Gold Standard" setup for the iMac 14,2 (i7, 32GB RAM, NVIDIA GTX 780M 4GB VRAM) running macOS Sonoma 14.3.1, OCLP 3.0.0 Nightly (by June 2025) but the Post Install Patch by OCLP 1.3.0. With this configuration, the machine is rock-solid, and graphics performance is outstanding (scoring 1145.98 @ 60fps on MotionMark 1.3.1 as in attached screenshot - Geekbench 6 CPU Benchmark Result Score: 1192 Single-Core and 4013 Multi-Core - 13578 GPU OpenCL).
If you are facing the dreaded invisible menu bar icons after deep sleep, a freezing/gray Wi-Fi icon in the Control Center, or your Country Code is stuck on "Unknown", here is how to fix everything structurally.

1. The Strategy: Stay on Sonoma 14.3.1
Do not update past 14.3.1 if you value raw Kepler performance and break-free Safari maps. macOS 14.4+ introduced heavy kernel rewrites and invasive wireless patches (IOSkywalkFamily) that add background overhead, break tracking maps on websites, and cause UI micro-stutters. 14.3.1 is the sweet spot.

2. Clean up your EFI Kexts (The Local: "Unknown" of Country Code in WiFi informations fix)
OpenCore Legacy Patcher tends to inject generic fallback kexts that clash with original Apple hardware. If your Wi-Fi Country Code shows Local "Unknown" or "US" instead of your actual region (e.g., IT/ETSI), you likely have Hackintosh-specific kexts interfering.
Using ProperTree, perform an OC Clean Snapshot (Cmd+Shift+R) and completely remove the following ghost kexts from your EFI/OC/Kexts folder and config.plist:

• AirportBrcmFixup.kext (Crucial: This causes the Country Code bug on native Apple Broadcom cards!)
• CatalinaIntelI210Ethernet.kext (Unnecessary for the native iMac Broadcom Ethernet)
• AutoPkgInstaller.kext
• USB-Map-Tahoe.kext

Keep only the essentials: Lilu, AMFIPass, FeatureUnlock, IOSkywalkFamily, IO80211FamilyLegacy, RestrictEvents, KDKlessWorkaround, RSRHelper, and your main USB-Map.kext.
Result: Your native Wi-Fi will immediately register your correct local region (e.g.: ETSI/IT) opening up full channel widths (e.g., 5GHz Channel 108 @ 80MHz) and stabilizing Tx rates.

3. Disable Deep Standby (pmset)
To prevent Kepler drivers and legacy wireless extensions from dropping power states incorrectly during long sleep sessions, force a responsive, standard sleep mode via Terminal:

sudo pmset -a standby 0 autopoweroff 0

4. Deploying SleepWatcher via Homebrew
To orchestrate the system events, we will use sleepwatcher.
Install it via Homebrew:

brew install sleepwatcher

To make sure it triggers globally across all states (including the LoginWindow), create the daemon configuration file under /Library/LaunchAgents/homebrew.mxcl.sleepwatcher.plist and paste the following XML:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>KeepAlive</key>
    <true/>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>homebrew.mxcl.sleepwatcher</string>
    <key>LimitLoadToSessionType</key>
    <array>
        <string>Aqua</string>
        <string>Background</string>
        <string>LoginWindow</string>
        <string>StandardIO</string>
        <string>System</string>
    </array>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>/usr/local/opt/sleepwatcher/sbin/sleepwatcher</string>
        <string>-V</string>
        <string>-s</string>
        <string>/etc/rc.sleep</string>
        <string>-w</string>
        <string>/etc/rc.wakeup</string>
    </array>
    <key>RunAtLoad</key>
    <true/>
</dict>
</plist>

Next, create the dummy sleep script at /etc/rc.sleep:

#!/bin/sh
exit 0

5. The Ultimate Wakeup Script (/etc/rc.wakeup)
The order of execution is vital. Resetting the Wi-Fi hardware at the very end ensures that when ControlCenter and SystemUIServer relaunch, they read a freshly initialized network state. This eliminates the glitchy, blinking, or gray Wi-Fi icon.
Create the script at /etc/rc.wakeup (make sure both rc.sleep and rc.wakeup have chmod 755 permissions and root:wheel ownership):

#!/bin/bash
# /etc/rc.wakeup
# iMac 14,2 Late 2013 — Sonoma 14.3.1 + OCLP 3.0.0 Nightly
# Restore menu bar icons and Wi-Fi menu after sleep
# Last updated: July 10 2026
# Permissions: chmod 755 | Owner: root:wheel

AIRPORT="/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Apple80211.framework/Versions/Current/Resources/airport"
LOG="/tmp/wakeup-wifi.log"
WIFI_IF="en1"
MAX_WAIT=25
COUNT=0

# ─────────────────────────────────────────────
# 1. WAITING FOR THE WI-FI CONNECTION TO BE ESTABLISHED
# ─────────────────────────────────────────────
while [ $COUNT -lt $MAX_WAIT ]; do
    STATUS=$(/sbin/ifconfig "$WIFI_IF" | /usr/bin/grep "status: active")
    if [ -n "$STATUS" ]; then
        break
    fi
    /bin/sleep 1
    COUNT=$((COUNT + 1))
done

echo "──────────────────────────────" >> "$LOG"
echo "$(date): Wi-Fi attivo dopo ${COUNT}s" >> "$LOG"
echo "── Stato driver al risveglio ──" >> "$LOG"
"$AIRPORT" -I >> "$LOG" 2>&1

# ─────────────────────────────────────────────
# 2. SHORT BREAK
# ─────────────────────────────────────────────
/bin/sleep 2

# ─────────────────────────────────────────────
# 3. RESET MAIN UI
# ─────────────────────────────────────────────
/usr/bin/killall ControlCenter          2>/dev/null
/usr/bin/killall TextInputMenuAgent     2>/dev/null
/usr/bin/killall Spotlight              2>/dev/null
/usr/bin/killall -KILL "BetterDisplay"  2>/dev/null

# ─────────────────────────────────────────────
# 4. BREAK IN PROCESS SEPARATION (8s)
# ─────────────────────────────────────────────
/bin/sleep 8

# ─────────────────────────────────────────────
# 5. SYSTEM MENULET RESTORE (e.g.: Eject icon)
# ─────────────────────────────────────────────
/usr/bin/killall SystemUIServer         2>/dev/null

# ─────────────────────────────────────────────
# 6. FINAL PAUSE (7s) + BETTERDISPLAY RELOAD
# ─────────────────────────────────────────────
/bin/sleep 7

echo "── Stato driver a fine script ──" >> "$LOG"
"$AIRPORT" -I >> "$LOG" 2>&1

/usr/bin/open -a "BetterDisplay"        2>/dev/null

exit 0

Conclusion
By offsetting the hardware cycle to the end of the script, clearing the Kext clutter, and enabling multi-session loading through the custom LaunchAgent, wake-from-sleep is now so instantaneous and invisible that you won't even notice the menu bar reloading. The Wi-Fi fan stays solid black, the toggle switch is fully functional, and the Tx rate remains rock-solid.
Hope this helps someone keeping their late 2013 27" iMac alive and kicking!

I should add that, at this time, I wouldn't replace my iMac until macOS 27 Golden Gate is official and I can purchase a Mac Mini M5 Pro with an Apple Studio Display.
Currently, in fact, with the perfect configuration achieved using BetterDisplay Pro (with difficulty for the many options to set perfectly), my 27-inch Mac's display has gone up to 2560x1440 HiDPI and beyond (but I use 1920x1080 HiDPI at 10-bit). So, when placed next to the Studio Display and zoomed in to its maximum (Accessibility -> Screen -> Zoom and CTRL+Wheel Mouse enabled), no blurring of text, icons, or images is noticeable and the two display are indistinguibles.
The Studio Display's brightness is obviously higher, but it's useless in my environment. But more importantly, however, the lower backlight power allows my display to pass Lagom.nl's extremely difficult white satutration test.
Lagom White Saturation Test and other Tests
So! My display can perceive the black checkerboard in test 254 and sees it in test 253, while the Studio Display "burns" the white so much that the underlying checkerboard is completely invisible in 253 and 254.
(Note: both display are by LG and the external HW structure is identical)

The purchase and use of Turbo Boost Switcher Pro also helped ensure consistent Mac performance, as the Turbo feature, by not intervening, prevents the CPU and GPU from suddenly and instantly reaching high temperatures that trigger the Trottling mechanism, which lowers the frequency to prevent damage. My Mac, instead, always remains perfectly steady at 3.5 GHz, ensuring, in addition to having exceptionally constant stability, that the fan almost never intervenes.

EDIT 2026-07-14
The /etc/rc.wakeup script has finally been perfected with the help of the AI Claude, partly because the Wi-Fi signal was behaving erratically.
Now, after coming out of sleep mode – whether it’s been a short or long period, or even two days – the icons on the menu bar always appear neat and tidy.

 

[Marfan-58]

Very interesting post and the work you have put in to keep your 14,2 iMac at peak performance is commendable, however this is just too much hassle for a non pro user such as myself.
I have finally taken the decision to retire my 14,2 iMac. A number of factors, all of which have been referenced in these forums over recent times, have pushed me to this point.
“Obsolete” hardware and the limitations that brings with it, even with the excellent life extending properties of OCLP, has become less attractive to my use case (family computer and Adobe CC apps plus Parallels VM) with an increasing use of my M3 MacBook Air for all but the most basic tasks.
I never had the confidence to swap out the Fusion Drive for a SSD (a relatively simple task on my dear departed 2009 iMac) but have been successfully booting from an SSD in a LaCie Rugged Thunderbolt 1 enclosure for a couple of years.
Like you I found Sonoma to be the sweet spot. I tried Sequoia but the performance hit was too great, along with some lost features such as Continuity Camera and Unlock with Apple Watch.
So with Sonoma losing support this autumn, I decided to move to a new Mac Mini plus a Studio Display. I will wait for the M5 now but was fortunate to get the display with nano texture glass on Amazon Prime Day for £1099. It’s not the 2026 revision but perfect for my needs and as a temporary solution I have my MBAir driving the display.
So the iMac will probably go on eBay for about £100 if I’m lucky, but 13 years use has served me well.
So now just the Mac Mini 7,1 which is set up as a headless Plex server is my only unsupported Mac and will probably be retired once I have a new Mac Mini as that will do a much better job.
OCLP has served me and my computers well over the years and I’m very thankful to the developers for their work as well as the members of this community. I’ll miss the tinkering but for me it’s time to move to a more stable, secure and reliable set up.

 

[OKonnel]

Very interesting post and the work you have put in to keep your 14,2 iMac at peak performance is commendable, however this is just too much hassle for a non pro user such as myself.
I have finally taken the decision to retire my 14,2 iMac. A number of factors, all of which have been referenced in these forums over recent times, have pushed me to this point.
“Obsolete” hardware and the limitations that brings with it, even with the excellent life extending properties of OCLP, has become less attractive to my use case (family computer and Adobe CC apps plus Parallels VM) with an increasing use of my M3 MacBook Air for all but the most basic tasks.
I never had the confidence to swap out the Fusion Drive for a SSD (a relatively simple task on my dear departed 2009 iMac) but have been successfully booting from an SSD in a LaCie Rugged Thunderbolt 1 enclosure for a couple of years.
Like you I found Sonoma to be the sweet spot. I tried Sequoia but the performance hit was too great, along with some lost features such as Continuity Camera and Unlock with Apple Watch.
So with Sonoma losing support this autumn, I decided to move to a new Mac Mini plus a Studio Display. I will wait for the M5 now but was fortunate to get the display with nano texture glass on Amazon Prime Day for £1099. It’s not the 2026 revision but perfect for my needs and as a temporary solution I have my MBAir driving the display.
So the iMac will probably go on eBay for about £100 if I’m lucky, but 13 years use has served me well.
So now just the Mac Mini 7,1 which is set up as a headless Plex server is my only unsupported Mac and will probably be retired once I have a new Mac Mini as that will do a much better job.
OCLP has served me and my computers well over the years and I’m very thankful to the developers for their work as well as the members of this community. I’ll miss the tinkering but for me it’s time to move to a more stable, secure and reliable set up.

Thank you for your friendly reply! But actually, now that the latest M5 CPUs are fully ready for AI features and with the arrival of macOS 27 Golden Gate, which stabilises that awful Tahoe hybrid, it might be the right time to buy a new Mac.

This is, in fact, a momentous step because from now on, in theory, we’ll really be able to control our computers. For example: “Hey, Finder! Search for all documents related to my work and put them in the Work folder. Then sort them by topic and create subfolders such as: Treatment Plans, Quotes, Courses, Conferences, etc.” or “Hey Photos! Create albums organised by grandchildren” or “Hey Photoshop! Upload all the photos I took in Rome and optimise the white balance and sharpness”, and so on.

Obviously, I’ve only given a few rather trivial examples, but you can imagine for yourself how everything could change and render even Macs with M2, M3 or even M4 chips obsolete.

And that’s where OCLP WOULD HAVE PLAYED A KEY ROLE, and its creators would deserve our eternal gratitude. 😍

 

[Ausdauersportler]

Thank you for your friendly reply! But actually, now that the latest M5 CPUs are fully ready for AI features and with the arrival of macOS 27 Golden Gate, which stabilises that awful Tahoe hybrid, it might be the right time to buy a new Mac.

This is, in fact, a momentous step because from now on, in theory, we’ll really be able to control our computers. For example: “Hey, Finder! Search for all documents related to my work and put them in the Work folder. Then sort them by topic and create subfolders such as: Treatment Plans, Quotes, Courses, Conferences, etc.” or “Hey Photos! Create albums organised by grandchildren” or “Hey Photoshop! Upload all the photos I took in Rome and optimise the white balance and sharpness”, and so on.

Obviously, I’ve only given a few rather trivial examples, but you can imagine for yourself how everything could change and render even Macs with M2, M3 or even M4 chips obsolete.

And that’s where OCLP WOULD HAVE PLAYED A KEY ROLE, and its creators would deserve our eternal gratitude. 😍

"Hey Doctor"will finally fix all our medical issues on the spot. No need for an expensive insurance or even worse hospitals and medical staff. Joking aside in fact the analysis of MRI or x-ray images can be done more consistently using an image processing unit nowadays.

 

[OKonnel]

"Hey Doctor"will finally fix all our medical issues on the spot. No need for an expensive insurance or even worse hospitals and medical staff. Joking aside in fact the analysis of MRI or x-ray images can be done more consistently using an image processing unit nowadays.

Hi, “Endurance athlete”, 🙂 you’ve actually guessed it spot on! 😉 Well done!
In fact, I made use of AI and eventually achieved the result I was aiming for: an ideal and perfectly stable system configuration for my iMac, which – thanks to the advantage of having a large, perfect screen (beyond the limits imposed by Apple) – more than (for my limited use) the benefits I might get from a new Mac Silicon laptop or an M4 Mac Mini, paired with the Tahoe hybrid and a monitor costing around €400, as I can’t afford the Apple Studio Display.
The AI advised me to optimise the hardware first, explaining that CPU and GPU thermal paste dries out and loses its effectiveness within a few years – on average five – and my iMac is a full 13 years old.
So, following the AI advice on the best thermal paste for CPUs and GPUs and the most suitable pads for the VRAM chips, I began by completely dismantling the iMac.
Taking advantage of this opportunity – in addition to the tasks already mentioned and a thorough dust clean – I also replaced the backup battery to restore the Mac to perfect, like-new condition.
The fact is that, whilst TG Pro previously showed constant temperature peaks of up to 100° Celsius, the Mac now stabilizes at around 60° C. Turbo Boost Switcher Pro contributes to this splendid result, as a computer that runs stably at 3.5 GHz is a thousand times better than one whose speed fluctuates due to throttling.

So! As I explained earlier, however, we’re now really pushing the limits of OCLP, and as soon as I can – that is, after the release of macOS 27 and the new Minis – I’ll buy a new Mac, as the time is finally ripe to justify the expense.

O.T.
As for AI in the medical field, however, it is very useful for in-depth analysis, particularly Vera Health, which few people mention or are aware of, but which is the only one to adhere exclusively to scientific literature and to established protocols e guidelines.
When it comes to making diagnoses, however, no AI is yet mature enough, and I cannot say whether it ever will be. But the AI is excellent, however, for differential diagnoses.
As for radiology, contrary to what you say and what I hear people claiming, I can say from direct experience that AI must be used with extreme caution in diagnostic imaging,
I won’t go into I shall not, at this point, go into the details of incidents I have experienced first-hand – some of which are even laughable – as even authoritative specialists have fallen into the trap of its supposed certainties and so, likely due to the sheer volume of examinations they were processing, they simply rubber-stamped and signed them off.

 

[Ausdauersportler]

Hi, “Endurance athlete”, 🙂 you’ve actually guessed it spot on! 😉 Well done!
In fact, I made use of AI and eventually achieved the result I was aiming for: an ideal and perfectly stable system configuration for my iMac, which – thanks to the advantage of having a large, perfect screen (beyond the limits imposed by Apple) – more than (for my limited use) the benefits I might get from a new Mac Silicon laptop or an M4 Mac Mini, paired with the Tahoe hybrid and a monitor costing around €400, as I can’t afford the Apple Studio Display.
The AI advised me to optimise the hardware first, explaining that CPU and GPU thermal paste dries out and loses its effectiveness within a few years – on average five – and my iMac is a full 13 years old.
So, following the AI advice on the best thermal paste for CPUs and GPUs and the most suitable pads for the VRAM chips, I began by completely dismantling the iMac.
Taking advantage of this opportunity – in addition to the tasks already mentioned and a thorough dust clean – I also replaced the backup battery to restore the Mac to perfect, like-new condition.
The fact is that, whilst TG Pro previously showed constant temperature peaks of up to 100° Celsius, the Mac now stabilizes at around 60° C. Turbo Boost Switcher Pro contributes to this splendid result, as a computer that runs stably at 3.5 GHz is a thousand times better than one whose speed fluctuates due to throttling.

So! As I explained earlier, however, we’re now really pushing the limits of OCLP, and as soon as I can – that is, after the release of macOS 27 and the new Minis – I’ll buy a new Mac, as the time is finally ripe to justify the expense.

O.T.
As for AI in the medical field, however, it is very useful for in-depth analysis, particularly Vera Health, which few people mention or are aware of, but which is the only one to adhere exclusively to scientific literature and to established protocols e guidelines.
When it comes to making diagnoses, however, no AI is yet mature enough, and I cannot say whether it ever will be. But the AI is excellent, however, for differential diagnoses.
As for radiology, contrary to what you say and what I hear people claiming, I can say from direct experience that AI must be used with extreme caution in diagnostic imaging,
I won’t go into I shall not, at this point, go into the details of incidents I have experienced first-hand – some of which are even laughable – as even authoritative specialists have fallen into the trap of its supposed certainties and so, likely due to the sheer volume of examinations they were processing, they simply rubber-stamped and signed them off.

O.T. reply:
A good friend runs a diagnostics business, mostly breast cancer early spotting using CT and MRI - he told me the images processing is better in some particular fields. So the standard procedure moved from double (two experts analyze the same set of pictures without knowing the result of the colleagues) to double plus AI.

I refuse to call all this AI - most of this methods are “simple” training artificial neural networks like it has been used around 1990 in research. LLM are massively scaled brute force versions of these older architectures. Nothing new, only data centers full of CPUs and GPUs doing the same stuff.

And I refuse to use AI at all. It is hard enough so recognize the human liars and stupids, I do not need new lies invented and told by computers.

 

[Go To School By Bus]

From Sonoma 14.6 to 14.8.7, is Over the Air safe?
Because I cannot find tutorial video about how to do a fresh installed OS from scratch.🙏

 

[Bigwaff]

Typically, yes. What is your Mac specs? Model and year?

 

[Go To School By Bus]

Typically, yes. What is your Mac specs? Model and year?

M2 Air. should I update over the air or do a clean install? I want a most reliable one.

 

[Bigwaff]

M2 Air, or how to update from scratch?

This wrong forum. This forum for updating older Intel Macs. Ask mods to move your post to -

Apple Silicon (Arm) Macs

talk about Macs with ARM processors M1, M2, etc.

forums.macrumors.com

 

[DCBassman]

Running a 2015 11" MacBook Air with 8GB RAM, got it on beta channel for Sonoma mainly to stop it nagging me about Tahoe. It's certainly not quick, but as an up-to-date travelling companion, it's fine.