Black screen with blinking cursor after updating Clover

Middleman said:

I would strongly suggest try to reflash the BIOS first and see if it helps. If it doesn't then we consider other options.

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Alright mate, flashed bios to same (F8) and while it didnt work for catalina install it did work for the USB. I get verbose and then what I think is the Opencore bootloader and it shows my catalina install. I then went in but get black screen after loading which is as far as I can remember while messing with Opencore most likely related to my ati card. Ill check if all seems ok in config. Maybe it doesnt like iMacPro1,1 this time.
I could not blindly shutdown though using keyboard shortcut So Im not 100% sure I was booted into Catalina. I have to take care now not to mess up my Catalina install.

As suggested this is in place in config: For the RX580 card activation, all you will need is to add npci=0x2000 agdpmod=ignore under the NVRAM boot-arg section where the UUID reads 7C436110-AB2A-4BBB-A880-FE41995C9F82.

That's great news! At least you're back in. So now all that's left now is to replace the serials with your older ones from the backup file and you're pretty much done.

Changed agdpmod=ignore to agdpmod=pikera and got into Catalina install. It’s showing me an error that appels kernel requires internet, normal behaviour?
So now we are getting somewhere.
Weird thing is latest clover backup shows 5122 while it should show 5143 installed. It was after updating 5143 to 5149 that I started to have issues again.
So either I start looking for a proper recent clover backup or I continue forward with Opencore? I’ll start by copying serials, smuuid and rom from clover to opencore config.

update: kernel error was related to Lil Snitch so ok

So I had a working clover from an usb drive i used to install monterey. I will compare with current clover for serials and will replace if they match. But then im back to clover.
Do you guys suggest I should replace clover with opencore, requires some clover cleaning as well I reckon or stick with clover and try opencore via usb to see if it runs stable. The first thing that I would like to change in opencore is the resolution because I cant even see all the icons, way too big. Ill have to check reboot and shutdown as well as usb ports and what not.
Thanks Middleman for the heads-up on flashing bios!

Snowy said:

So I had a working clover from an usb drive i used to install monterey. I will compare with current clover for serials and will replace if they match. But then im back to clover.
Do you guys suggest I should replace clover with opencore, requires some clover cleaning as well I reckon or stick with clover and try opencore via usb to see if it runs stable. The first thing that I would like to change in opencore is the resolution because I cant even see all the icons, way too big. Ill have to check reboot and shutdown as well as usb ports and what not.
Thanks Middleman for the heads-up on flashing bios!

Click to expand...

To answer your question well I would just go over to Opencore. Generally speaking I find it quite easy to deal with. It may seem a little hard at first, but once you've gotten the hang of it it is a better bootloader to work with I find. Whilst Clover is still being updated afaik, the issue you've faced over the last few days shows it really isn't worth the time anymore as I think OC has a bigger user and support base. Plus I had heard before the reason users were jumping over from Clover was because of its difficulty getting past Catalina's memory restrictions, which is a lot more developed under Opencore.

Aside from Github and Dortania EFI guides online for OC there is also an online sanity checker at opencore.slowgeek.com you can use to check config.plists you've created against Dortania's recommended settings and tools available such as Opencore Configurator and OCAuxiliaryTools (OCAT) which can auto-update segments or kexts of the config.plist, as well as have a database of system build templates you can use. So there's plenty of tools there to help you get through any potential issues you may have (not including the forum here).

Snowy said:

Thanks Middleman for the heads-up on flashing bios!

Click to expand...

You're welcome!

Hi guys,

Question: I'm looking at OpenCore Configurator in the NVRAM section, is it normal to have different UUID's? I have 3 in the Add, 3 in Delete (same numbers as Add) and then 2 in LegacySchema 1 same as others but other is new.
I get verbose sometimes when booting Clover (yeah yeah I know still Clover) and when I clear NVRAM (F11) this goes away. I think my NVRAM has been messing with me all along. I couldn't clear nvram before because I had no access to bootloaders so maybe this was the culprit all along. A BIOS refresh probably cleared it. I thought a SMOS reset would too but now I'm not so sure anymore.
Another strange thing was when I copied over the serials from Clover to OpenCore iCloud was still messed up and it recognised another computer so had to log out everywhere and log back in but not without hiccups.

Also PlatformInfo shows little data in DataHub tab, only serials. Can I add more details from clover config? Only Generic fields are filled except ROM. PlatformNVRAM only has MLB data.
This might be the reason it recognised it as a new system.
SMBIOS shows no data at all but this is probably used to generate details.
Thanks!

Also for ROM I use UseMacAddr0 in clover, should I do the same in OpenCore?

Snowy said:

Hi guys,

Question: I'm looking at OpenCore Configurator in the NVRAM section, is it normal to have different UUID's? I have 3 in the Add, 3 in Delete (same numbers as Add) and then 2 in LegacySchema 1 same as others but other is new.
I get verbose sometimes when booting Clover (yeah yeah I know still Clover) and when I clear NVRAM (F11) this goes away. I think my NVRAM has been messing with me all along. I couldn't clear nvram before because I had no access to bootloaders so maybe this was the culprit all along. A BIOS refresh probably cleared it. I thought a SMOS reset would too but now I'm not so sure anymore.
Another strange thing was when I copied over the serials from Clover to OpenCore iCloud was still messed up and it recognised another computer so had to log out everywhere and log back in but not without hiccups.

Also PlatformInfo shows little data in DataHub tab, only serials. Can I add more details from clover config? Only Generic fields are filled except ROM. PlatformNVRAM only has MLB data.
This might be the reason it recognised it as a new system.
SMBIOS shows no data at all but this is probably used to generate details.
Thanks!

Click to expand...

Hi @Snowy,

Regarding the 3 different UUIDs under the NVRAM section, yes that is normal.

With regards to using Clover I would not advise using it again once you've moved over to Opencore, because if you do you may end up causing errors and end up in a worser situation than last time. That's because the bootloaders do somewhat 'write data' to the system setup regarding the boot drives (it pops up sometimes in the BIOS boot menu as UEFI (USB drive)).

With regards to the SMBIOS, only the PlatformInfo section under Datahub > Generic needs filling. For the missing ROM data you can use your main LAN card MAC address as the value.

Middleman said:

Hi @Snowy,

Regarding the 3 different UUIDs under the NVRAM section, yes that is normal.

With regards to using Clover I would not advise using it again once you've moved over to Opencore, because if you do you may end up causing errors and end up in a worser situation than last time. That's because the bootloaders do somewhat 'write data' to the system setup regarding the boot drives (it pops up sometimes in the BIOS boot menu as UEFI (USB drive)).

With regards to the SMBIOS, only the PlatformInfo section under Datahub > Generic needs filling. For the missing ROM data you can use your main LAN card MAC address as the value.

Click to expand...

Alright I'll switch over to OpenCore today. Hopefully it runs stable and everything works as before. One thing that worries though me is that iCloud was complaining even though I used same serials. I think it would be best to log out of iCloud (also on iPad) before switching bootloaders.