<< Solved >> Panic on booting Catalina installer, USB config correct?

[jomatthe]

Scenario:
Followed tonymac Catalina guide, getting panic on booting usb installer. Have been making OSx86 since snow leopard and never got stuck booting the installer, only with post install. New challenge...
Searched and read many guides, help threads related to USB and graphics. Thought it might be graphics as I moved from dGPU on previous build to IGPU on this build. Now suspect USB. Using my unibeast installer, some USB ports are not recognized at boot then installer usb is not option in boot menu on these ports. When I mapped them and used custom SSDT on high Sierra this issue was fixed. Didn't seem to help with this install process for Catalina though. The other ports are recognized but still won't boot properly, even in safe mode. Have been at this for a couple full days now (ignorant amateur speed).
Actions:
Tried using my custom SSDT for USB ports from previous build. Didn't help, currently removed from clover. Figure I'd go back to basic install steps with port limit patch etc.
Have installed USBInjectAll.kext to the installer and added the two Catalina USB kext patches to clover. see config.
Note:
Any direction would be much appreciated! Just a heads up, if my config doesn't make sense, its because I do not really understand the basic inner workings and taking (almost) random stabs at it lol

Hardware: Unibeast Catalina on a Kingston traveller 3.0 USB drive, i7 7700 / UHD630, H170M-D3H IGPU ->DVI ->ACD, NVMe SSD or SATA HDD
SysDef: iMac 18,3

 

[P1LGRIM]

Any direction would be much appreciated!

Your kernel panic information has scrolled off the top of the screen.
Video the verbose boot and extract the relevant frame(s) to post here.

 

[jomatthe]

Your kernel panic information has scrolled off the top of the screen.
Video the verbose boot and extract the relevant frame(s) to post here.

Ok, apologies for the ghosting in pics. Let me know if these show required details.

 

[jomatthe]

Just found this here: NOTE: You MUST use a USB 2.0 key only! Do NOT use a USB 3.0 key - the installation will not even start.

Maybe I should try a usb2 thumb drive instead?

 

[P1LGRIM]

Let me know if these show required details.

Appears to be file system related.
Make sure that you have an apfs driver in your Clover drivers.

Maybe I should try a usb2 thumb drive instead?

If that is what the instructions say perhaps that is what you should do.

 

[UtterDisbelief]

Just found this here: NOTE: You MUST use a USB 2.0 key only! Do NOT use a USB 3.0 key - the installation will not even start.

Maybe I should try a usb2 thumb drive instead?

Hi there.

First up, those screengrabs are just a bit too small to read easily. I managed by magnifying in Preview but it would help if they'd been a little bigger.

Okay, tell me I'm wrong but I see both VirtualSMC.kext and FakeSMC.kext trying to be loaded. They do the same job. That's a big no-no.

Although you did clever stuff adding USB configuration to your UniBeast installer, this may not work until the full OS is loaded - and you aren't getting that far.

With most motherboards there are a couple of USB ports that are numbers 1 & 2. They are always live at BIOS boot so that you can use a keyboard or mouse to access the BIOS setup. So a good idea is to discover which those are. Usually, for Skylake Gigabyte motherboards, they are the two black ports over/under the PS/2 socket. Try your USB stick in one of those, or in a keyboard USB if it's a Mac wired keyboard.

USB3 sticks do work nowadays, although it is true a USB2 flash-drive is often more reliable. I recently used a Sony 16GB USB3 stick to create my Catalina installer.

 

[Namok88]

You have two -v boot arguments including -x (safe mode).

Safe mode doesn't load necessary kexts, which is probably why you get a kernel panic.

You can plug your USB3 Key into a USB2 port and it will just work as a USB2 one.

 

[jomatthe]

Thanks so much folks!
It appears the reason for the doubling up of boot arguments, kexts etc might be related to my usb preparation (and later os drive preparation during install).
Following the guide and build threads, I simply have been using the Disk Utility app to format destination drive (both for unibeast and later MacOS Installer.) Two issues have come up.
Issue #1: Ran out and bought a USB2.0 key just to be safe. Formatted the new USB key (stock FAT32) to APFS in Disk Utility app and somehow the key retained an MBR partition table (I have no idea how). What tipped me off was when running unibeast, the EFI folder was placed onto the Mac OS install partition. Once I wiped drive using command line in Terminal with the GPT instruction the unibeast ran flawlessly. Really miss the Disk Utility app from Yosemite!
Issue #2: Using this properly wiped, unibeast installed USB key I was able to get an install up and running on Catalina 10.15.5. Something funny happened again with the EFI partition. This time some old kext patches showed up on my os drive config (the high Sierra usb patches from my previous build to be specific.) Don't ask me how! J This time when installing Mac OS I used terminal command line to format the os drive during install, and upon inspection my config showed up correctly. Anyone know if this is even possible or more likely I screwed something else up?
Epilogue: can move this to post-install thread but FYI I switched back to GTX650Ti for simplicity. Three insightful days later I have a stable install running with full graphics and usb support.

 

[UtterDisbelief]

Thanks so much folks!
It appears the reason for the doubling up of boot arguments, kexts etc might be related to my usb preparation (and later os drive preparation during install).
Following the guide and build threads, I simply have been using the Disk Utility app to format destination drive (both for unibeast and later MacOS Installer.) Two issues have come up.
Issue #1: Ran out and bought a USB2.0 key just to be safe. Formatted the new USB key (stock FAT32) to APFS in Disk Utility app and somehow the key retained an MBR partition table (I have no idea how). What tipped me off was when running unibeast, the EFI folder was placed onto the Mac OS install partition. Once I wiped drive using command line in Terminal with the GPT instruction the unibeast ran flawlessly. Really miss the Disk Utility app from Yosemite!
Issue #2: Using this properly wiped, unibeast installed USB key I was able to get an install up and running on Catalina 10.15.5. Something funny happened again with the EFI partition. This time some old kext patches showed up on my os drive config (the high Sierra usb patches from my previous build to be specific.) Don't ask me how! J This time when installing Mac OS I used terminal command line to format the os drive during install, and upon inspection my config showed up correctly. Anyone know if this is even possible or more likely I screwed something else up?
Epilogue: can move this to post-install thread but FYI I switched back to GTX650Ti for simplicity. Three insightful days later I have a stable install running with full graphics and usb support.

Good news

Please update your hardware Profile to show the GTX650ti etc. Thanks.