Problem getting smbios part of config.plist working for me

Detosx · Jul 24, 2014

I am having problems getting the smbios part of my config.plist working, no matter what serial I put in it doesn't show up, even when I use other people's apparently working smbios config.plists for the same Gigabyte motherboard chipset and just change the serial number. I install Clover manually via terminal commands, so I wonder if I am missing something, somewhere, because of that? Any thoughts appreciated!

Detosx · Aug 1, 2014

What progress I have made with this one has been little and frustrating. It seems not to matter whether I generate a config file using clover Configurator, make one manually, edit an existing one that has an smbios entry, the serial remains the same default clover one. I tried moving everything to the OEM folder, which is to say naming the folder in it to GA-Z77MX-D3H-TH, my motherboard's name; I'm told if you do that, clover defaults to that config.plist during boot. What gave me the idea was that if you press O on Clover's menu screen, you have the option of setting the smbios manually, there. It mentions the OEM folder, there. Entering a serial number, there, works. Once booted up, I click on About This Mac and More info and there is the serial number that I typed in. Next boot, it's back to the default. As I like to power down my computer when I leave the house, rather than put it to sleep, that isn't an option for me and typing out the serial, etc, manually at boot doesn't make sense. Are clover's defaults editable? All other things that I change in the config.plist work perfectly.

vbo · Aug 1, 2014

I'm not a Clover expert by any means, but I'll be happy to have a look at your config.plist if you post it.
It would be good to also see what you have in your CLOVER folder, i.e. ls -lR PATH_TO_CLOVER_DIR/
Are you using UEFI or legacy option?

Update: Seeing the output of bdmesg wouldn't hurt either!

Detosx · Aug 2, 2014

vbo said:
I'm not a Clover expert by any means, but I'll be happy to have a look at your config.plist if you post it.
It would be good to also see what you have in your CLOVER folder, i.e. ls -lR PATH_TO_CLOVER_DIR/
Are you using UEFI or legacy option?

Update: Seeing the output of bdmesg wouldn't hurt either!

Hi vbo, thank you for your offer. I thought it best to take some sreenshots. I installed clover manually to mount_msdos /dev/disk2s1 /Volumes/EFI . This is my experimental HD drive. I have two other Clover installs on disk0s1 and disk1s1, which I can select via F12 at boot. In this particular config.plist example, I tried using a friend's MacBook 9,2 to fill in the smbios entries in Clover Configurator and so for the screenshot I have necessarily replaced the numbers with asterixes. Up until yesterday I used the same smbios format but with iMac13,2 and the serial for which generated by clover configurator. I have, I think, also tried using numbers generated by Clover Wizard. I have tried adding five extra numbers to the serial, which apparently Clover needs or needed and have tried with just the MacBook's 12 digit serial number, also. As I say, I usually use the iMac13,2 as model with Clover Configurator-generated numbers.

Here is my Finder screenshot of EFI. The HD says Yosemite but that's just a place holder name. I am using Mavericks at this point. For the screenshot, I cut my config.plist into two sections. I am sure there are some redundancies in it. I am having no luck hiding "Boot Clover from EFI" in the Hidden section. I'm not sure how to do that. As I have three Clover EFI partitions, Boot Clover from EFI appears as three unwanted hard drive icons in the boot menu. Any thoughts welcome there, also! Thanks.

vbo · Aug 2, 2014

That's an unusual setup to say the least

I guess you've been trying a lot of things.. Here's what I'd do in your situation:

Make sure you have a USB with clover installed that will boot your system.
You have way too much stuffs going on to be able to diagnose the issue so:
1. Delete the contents of the EFI partitions on disk0 and disk1 - you can zip everything up first if you want to have a backup. Alternatively, temporarily disconnect these 2 drives
2. Same deal with the OEM folder on disk2 - zip it up for backup, then delete it.
At this point, you'll only have one config.plist to worry about - the one in the main clover folder. Try rebooting to see if it is still working. If not, clover was using one of the other config.plist files to boot. You'll have to figure out which one by restoring a config.plist from your backup(s), and replace it into the main clover folder.
At this point you should have a bootable install that is using the main config.plist file. Make a backup of it, then edit the SMBIOS section so it only contains the 4 keys ProductName, SerialNumber, BoardSerialNumber, BiosVersion (example from mine at the bottom of this post). Attach this config.plist (attachment is easier than picture, so I can open it in a text editor) and also the output of bdmesg (i.e., bdmesg > ~/Desktop/bdmesg.log).

One note from the config.plist you posted: RtVariable/MLB is deprecated (http://clover-wiki.zetam.org/Configuration/RtVariables#MLB) so remove this part.

Code:

        <key>SMBIOS</key>
        <dict>
                <key>ProductName</key>
                <string>MacBookAir6,2</string>
                <key>SerialNumber</key>
                <string>xxx</string>
                <key>BoardSerialNumber</key>
                <string>xxx</string>
                <key>BiosVersion</key>
                <string>xxx9</string>
        </dict>

Detosx · Aug 2, 2014

Thank you and yes, I do have a lot of hard drives and Mac partitions in this build, test partitions so I can make comparisons when I install something and when I want to see if a combo update works without a hitch. Also, I like to have a workflow hard drive where nothing is touched, so I can always boot into it and get on with work. I will try cutting back on the Clover Configurator generated SMBIOS to your suggested four entries and see what happens.

Detosx · Aug 2, 2014

Thank you. Definite progress. My friend's MacBook Pro 9,2 details didn't work, unsurprisingly, so I went back to Clover Configurator and generated a fresh config.plist, selecting iMac13,2 again. I let it generate an SMBIOS, as I have done before, but this time I stripped the generated SMBIOS list back to the few entries you recommended. This time the serial number changed in About This Mac/more info. I even found that I didn't need to add five extra random digits on the end of it, as some had said, for it to take (adding those five random digits just gave me a serial number in About This Mac/More info that was five digits longer than it should appear as in said dialogue box. Hardware UUID remains as it always has been. I am unclear whether I need to add my ethernet Mac number to the end of my SmUUID, and so on, for me to be able to use Apple's services but at this stage I just wanted to use a distinct serial for my build, without spoofing the details from my real Mac. So, in recap, if it helps, the bottom of my config.plist now looks as follows (but with my unique numbers blanked out with asterixis so you can replace with your own).

Code:

	</dict>
	<key>KernelAndKextPatches</key>
	<dict>
		<key>AppleRTC</key>
		<false/>
	</dict>
	<key>SMBIOS</key>
	<dict>
		<key>ProductName</key>
		<string>iMac13,2</string>
		<key>SmUUID</key>
		<string>********-****-****-****-************</string>
		<key>SerialNumber</key>
		<string>************</string>
		<key>BoardSerialNumber</key>
		<string>*****************</string>
		<key>BiosVersion</key>
		<string>IM131.88Z.010A.B05.1210121459</string>
		<key>Mobile</key>
		<false/>
		<key>Trust</key>
		<false/>
		<key>Version</key>
		<string>1.0</string>
	</dict>
</dict>
</plist>

Now, if I could figure out how to hide the three 'Boot Clover from EFI' icons/text from my Clover boot menu!?

vbo · Aug 2, 2014

Detosx said:
I am unclear whether I need to add my ethernet Mac number to the end of my SmUUID, and so on, for me to be able to use Apple's services

I think (take this with a grain of salt) that it's just a recommendation. I let clover default/generate everything but these 4 values, and I have no issues accessing purchases in the app store or messages/facetime.

Detosx said:
Now, if I could figure out how to hide the three 'Boot Clover from EFI' icons/text from my Clover boot menu!?

bdmesg will tell you where these entries are loaded from. In terminal, type:

Code:

[COLOR=#3E3E3E]bdmesg > ~/Desktop/bdmesg.log[/COLOR]

It will create a bdmesg.log file on your desktop. In it, search for "Scanning loaders". The following lines will tell you where clover get all the entries it shows on the screen. Attach the log file if you need help figuring it out.

Detosx · Aug 3, 2014

No joy trying to figure out how to remove the "Boot Clover from EFI" icon/text from the boot menu. Here is my bdmesg log. I tried adding further to the hidden list but nothing I tried from the scan log hid it for me. To keep the bdmesg.log short, I removed two of the drives. The 'Yosemite HDA' drive (again, should say that name is a place holder name for when Yosemite is out of beta; am running Mavericks, for now) has only an EFI partition and the Yosemite HDA partition on it. Again to keep it simple I removed the Ubuntu and Microsoft boot folders from the EFI partition. The only two entries showing at boot are Yosemite HDA and the Boot Clover from EFI. My searches on Google are drawing a blank, though I found someone saying to disable the Scan option and add your own option via tools, which I am not sure how to do. It was for an old version of Clover, though. Any thoughts welcome, thanks!

vbo · Aug 3, 2014

Line 223 show where these entries come from:

Code:

1:382  0:000  Scanning legacy ...
1:382  0:000   0: 'Whole Disc Boot' (legacy) not legacy
1:382  0:000   1: 'Whole Disc Boot' (legacy) not legacy
[B]1:382  0:000   2: 'EFI' (clover) add legacy[/B]
[B]1:399  0:016   added 'Boot Clover from EFI' OSType=3 Icon=clover[/B]
1:399  0:000   3: 'Yosemite HDA' (<null string>) not legacy

You mentioned you installed clover manually, did you install any MBR/PBR bootfiles? It seems like clover is picking up a BIOS bootloader from your EFI partition.
When you use the clover installer, you have the option to 'install uefi only' which disable all bios related install options (this thread has good screenshot of legacy vs uefi options and what the uefi only option grays out: http://www.tonymacx86.com/mavericks...-how-install-os-x-mavericks-using-clover.html).

Not related but you also have this issue at line #170:

Code:

0:626  0:000  Error: invalid SmUUID 'removed' - should be in the format XXXXXXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXXXXXXXXX

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