Step by Step Fix for iMessage - Requires Clover (Alternate Bootloader)

SIMPLE STEP BY STEP GUIDE

i been reading through all the posts here, Nobody has explained things for noobs.
So here is the simple step by step things to do. Read carefully and you will have your iMessage working in no time.

THIS APPLIES TO
1. those who can boot normally into OSX 10.8.x using Chimera/Chameleon bootloader
2. EITHER using DSDT / non-DSDT
3. those who got iMessage issue after December 14th.

THINGS NEEDED
1. A USB pendrive 2 GB or higher.
2. Clover bootloader Clover_v2_rL980.pkg.zip
3. config.plist (attached with this post) View attachment 43575

BENEFITS OF MY METHOD
1. your chimera or osx booting hard drive is untouched.
2. clover is installed on pendrive, so your computer is not messed if anything goes wrong, u can simply format the pendrive.
3. after successful imessage login u can remove pendrive and boot normally as u were doing all this time.

WHAT TO DO
1. Boot normally to OSX.
2. format the pendrive using disk utility in Aple HFS (Mac OSX Extended Journalled) ( UPDATE: some people got success by formatting FAT32)
3. Run clover set up and before installation step, click SELECT DESTINATION, and choose the Pendrive. DO NOT CHOOSE MAC HD
4. after installation is done, go to pen drive, and go to folder EFI, and replace config.plist with the one thats attached.
UPDATE: if you have a patched DSDT.aml, then you can insert your5. Reboot, and bootup the computer using this Pendrive.
6. Select "boot into OSX on MAC HD" from the clover boot menu
7. this will boot osx of your HDD using clover boot loader, which automatically will inject a UUID etc. if boot fails go "IF CLOVER BOOT FAILED" section below.
8. login to iMesasage (it will login) if you got error "contact customer support", see "IF CUSTOMER SUPPORT REQUIRED" below.
9. now that you are logged in, remove pendrive, boot back normally.
10. ALWAYS REMEBER, any change you make to iMessage > Preferences > accounts section here after, will log you out, and then steps one to ten again.

IF CLOVER BOOT FAILED
1. boot back normally, connect the clover pendrive
2. go to pen drives EFI folder, open Config.plist using textedit.
3. using chameleon wizard, generate a serial number and system type. (example "imac12,2" & "CMX77JGT"
4. replace them in the config.plist (always remeber the serial number we get is 11 or 12 digit, clover needs 17, so fill some numbers to make it 17 (example CMX77JGTPUT to CMX77JGTPUTxxxxxx where x = any digit )
5. reboot using pendrive and the follow the guide above

IF CUSTOMER SUPPORT REQUIRED
1. this is easy. the moment it asks for cust support, leave as it is.
2. NOW YOU NEED A REAL MAC OR A REAL iOS device for 5 minutes.
3. signin using your ID on real apple device.
4. Now keeping it signed in, sign into ur hackintosh, iMessage will sign in. make needed preferences at iMessage > Preferences > accounts section. now reboot normally using ur chameleon/chimera, removing pendrive.
5. ALWAYS REMEBER, any change you make to iMessage > Preferences > accounts section here after, will log you out, and then steps one to ten again.
......OR......
1. go to applied.apple.com
2. sign in there, and change your password to 8+ characters (some people reported this to be the working trick)
3. try to sign in now. if succeeded, reboot uisng your default normal boot loader, removing the pendrive.

UPDATE / footnotes
1. software which requires activation, like Adobe Photoshop which relies on system serial number may ask you to activate again or misbehave, once you change the system serial number in clover. however once u boot back using the normal bootloader thats on your MAC HDD, i guess it will be fine as well. not sure its always a possibility thats 50 by 50.

2. there are things... that will break this sort of activation.
this applies to after successful sign in by clover, and then we normally boot using our boot loader.
i message will remain signed in. Things that will immediately sign you out includes

1. changing DNS or IP address in system preferences/network after the success
2. Changing computer name in system preferences
3. changing sharing options in System Preferences
4. changing serial number in present boot loader
5. changing from one network to another network
6. signing out from iMessage manually.
7. changing any settings in iMsg Accounts section in Msgs>preferences>accounts > imessage
8. crashing or force quitting iMessage
9.resetting iMessage Plists
10. deleting any related certificates in Keychain access
11. changing time zone or date and time in system preferences
12. modifying hosts file
13. changing iCloud password

Any of these may/may not sign you out immediately, but chances are very high as in 99% cases.
im unsure, why, but knows that it happens.

Can you point me in the right direction on how to use CloverGrower 4.9? I am looking to learn how to use CloverGrower as Clover seems to be the new UEFI booting option.

http://www.projectosx.com/forum/inde...80&#entry17480

I am confused how you used the package file downloaded from surgeforce and CloverGrower to extract a working version of Clover. I would like to understand this so I can update Clover as new revisions are released. Anyway you can dumb down the process for newer Clover users?

http://sourceforge.net/projects/cloverefiboot/files/

misterleekub said:

UPDATE / footnotes
1. software which requires activation, like Adobe Photoshop which relies on system serial number may ask you to activate again or misbehave, once you change the system serial number in clover. however once u boot back using the normal bootloader thats on your MAC HDD, i guess it will be fine as well. not sure its always a possibility thats 50 by 50.

Click to expand...

More like 0 by 100. I just tried that, ie. booting back using the "old" smbios.plist with the "old" serial number. Adobe CS6 still says that both (2) activations are being used and that it can't activate unless I deactivate one of the two installations.

Best to include a warning at the beginning of the guide to deactivate any Adobe software before messing with the system serials and such. It's easy enough to activate again once everything is finished. Having said that, if you leave the smbios.plist file in the /Extras folder alone and don't mess with the system information therein, you probably won't have any problems with Adobe activation at all. Just in my case I used Chameleon Wizard to generate a new serial to include in the config.plist on the Clover USB drive, and when booting failed I made sure I had the same serial in smbios.plist.

It works when I'm booted into Clover. Take out eh usb drive, reboot normally, back to the error...

I followed the steps & did notice after doing this and booting back to normal, my machine name is blank.

This is what I was waiting for, thank you for this great post! The method you described worked the first time I tried it. The only issue I had, and other's might experience, was that my monitor went blank after using clover boot loader. I could tell the computer was still running so I grabbed my iPad and used Logmein's Ignition app to access my computer. So with that I launched the iMessages app on the Computer, logged in with my Apple ID and confirmed that it was working. Then I shut down the computer, removed the USB drive and booted like normal (Chimera) and all is working perfectly! Thank you to all who worked so hard to provide this fix for the rest of us!

doesnt work with ivy bridge laptop. try everything was posted. just black screen. cant even get to the clover boot menu.

try today with clover grower and same thing. dont know what to do.

Click to expand...

I have an ivy bridge tower and it doesn't work for me either. I get to the clover boot screen and can boot but imessage doesn't work.

one reason for failed attempts is your Sys Def Type. It should be the same on both bootloaders. The example config.plist contains imac12,1 which causes the empty Hostname if your hack normaly uses an other type because of the switch between the system types on each bootloader.


If you get a black screen you can try it with "GraphicsInjector: No", which solved my problem booting my hack with clover.

shaunvis said:

It works when I'm booted into Clover. Take out eh usb drive, reboot normally, back to the error...

I followed the steps & did notice after doing this and booting back to normal, my machine name is blank.

Click to expand...

Have the same problem like you with the blank name so I did it again and this time copy all the my smbios.plist data from the Extra folder to the config.plist in the EFI folder...
In the smbios.plist the data are a little different because you have an <key>SMproductname</key> instead of a <key>ProductName</key> SO you need to take out all the "SM" stuff...
go from:
<dict>
<key>SMfamily</key>
<string>Mac Pro</string>
<key>SMproductname</key>
<string>MacPro3,1</string>
<key>SMboardproduct</key>
<string>Mac-00000000</string>
<key>SMserial</key>
<string>00000000000</string>
<key>SMbiosversion</key>
<string>MultiBeast.tonymacx86.com</string>
</dict>

to:

<key>SMBIOS</key>
<dict>
<key>BiosVersion</key>
<string>MultiBeast.tonymacx86.com</string>
<key>BoardProduct</key>
<string>Mac-00000000</string>
<key>Family</key>
<string>Mac Pro</string>
<key>ProductName</key>
<string>MacPro3,1</string>
<key>Serial</key>
<string>00000000000</string>
</dict>

Reboot with the clover stick with the new change, and change or add your computer name in System Preferences-->Sharing after that login to iMessages and restart
normally...
The computer name should be their, if not just readd it again in the system Preferences and it should stay AND iMessages should NOT logout... (It didn't log out for me...)
(I also read on some site that you can add your mackintosh DSDT.aml to Clover ACPI/patched folder. This help me for start my second hackintoch with clover)

primalair said:

one reason for failed attempts is your Sys Def Type. It should be the same on both bootloaders. The example config.plist contains imac12,1 which causes the empty Hostname if your hack normaly uses an other type because of the switch between the system types on each bootloader.


If you get a black screen you can try it with "GraphicsInjector: No", which solved my problem booting my hack with clover.

Click to expand...

Thank you!!

I changed my def to iMac12,1 in Multibeast, rebooted & added my name back. Then booted into Clover, logged into messages, & everything is working fine.

The main post should be updated to include that info.