[SUCCESS] Gigabyte Designare Z390 (Thunderbolt 3) + i7-9700K + AMD RX 580

[CaseySJ]

My Experience Performing
In-Place Upgrade of Mojave 10.14.6 to Catalina 10.15​

Updates:

• 13 October 2019: Before upgrading from Mojave to Catalina, make a full bootable backup. Then install latest versions of the following kexts on the Mojave system before beginning the Catalina upgrade:
  • Lilu
  • WhateverGreen
  • AppleALC

---

After performing the upgrade last night, here's a quick summary of my experience. At times I was certain that the upgrade process had crashed or frozen, but in fact it worked. Here's how it went...

• My SMBIOS: Mac mini 8,1 (with VirtualSMC)
• Made a full bootable backup of the Mojave SSD.
• Because my home or user folder is on a different SSD, I made the following backups of that drive:
  • Time Machine.
  • Acronis Backup to Network Attached Storage (NAS).
• Began the Catalina upgrade from System Preferences --> Software Update.
  • This was an approximately 8.09 GB download.
• Catalina installer opened a window in Mojave and began the preparation work.
  • When ready, it asked for a reboot.
  • The real install begins after the reboot.
• When machine rebooted, there were new boot volumes at the Clover Boot Menu.
  • Selected Boot macOS Install from Mojave
  • The standard black screen with a single Apple logo appeared, along with standard boot progress bar.
  • A little past the midway point those short purple horizontal lines appeared.
    • These lines are a symptom of GPU VRAM testing. Nothing to worry about.
  • However, it took almost 5 full minutes before the screen finally switched to a white background and "Installing MacOS Catalina" appeared.
    • I thought the system had crashed or frozen, but glad I waited.
• Phase 1 of the installation began.
  • The message on screen stated:
    • 25 Minutes Remaining, and then jumped directly to...
    • 16 Minutes Remaining, and then after another long pause (maybe 8 minutes or so) jumped back to...
    • 25 Minutes Remaining.
  • During this entire phase, the progress bar was stuck at about the first letter "l" in Installing MacOS Catalina.
  • It seems this first phase is analogous to the sudden-reboot first phase of Mojave.
  • Anyway, the system auto-rebooted (no graceful countdown) with "25 Minutes Remaining".
• Back at the Clover Boot Menu, I selected once again:
  • Boot macOS Install from Mojave
• Phase 2 of the installation began.
  • Once again it took a good 5 minutes or more before the single Apple logo gave way to the white background and the message:
    • "25 Minutes Remaining"
  • And now the progress bar moved forward in a the familiar, normal manner.
  • And the remaining time indicator moved normally as well.
  • Finally there was the familiar graceful countdown for a final reboot.
  • The keyboard and mouse were not responsive during this entire phase.
  • When the countdown ended, it took another 20-30 seconds to reboot the computer automatically.
• Now back once more at the Clover Boot Menu, the Boot macOS Install from Mojave option was gone (which is, of course, the correct behavior).
  • This is the indication that the setup is complete.
• I selected Boot macOS from Mojave (will rename the SSD later).
  • Logged into Catalina.
  • Followed a couple of welcome screens.
  • And the system was up and running.

Tested the following -- all successful:

• Sound
• WiFi / Biuetooth
• Handoff / Continuity
• Sleep / Wake
• Reboot / Shutdown
• Network
• Thunderbolt

However:

• SideCar on iPad Pro 11" showed only black screen.
  • I have Fenvi FV-T919.
  • Will switch SMBIOS to iMac 19,1 later today or tomorrow.
• UPDATE: Sidecar is fully working now, but requires a non-T2 SMBIOS such as iMac19,1 or iMac18,3. Please see this post for details.

Some Impressions of Catalina:

• When connecting an iPad, iPhone or other iOS device, it appears directly in Finder and can be managed through Finder.
  • This enhances the sense of integration between macOS and iOS devices. It's a very welcome change.
• The new Music app begins by updating the iTunes library and it seems to download new artwork (album covers).
  • Nice to see the former "corporate giant" called iTunes broken up into a handful of more elegant and streamlined applications.
• The new Photos app also updates the previous Photos library. This can take some time so make sure the computer doesn't sleep or reboot (as an extra precaution).
  • One of the Catalina Public Betas corrupted my Photos library during the update procedure. Thankfully I had a backup.
• The new Mail app also updates the previous Mail database. This happens relatively quickly.
• There's a lot more yet to discover (much of it is under the hood), but overall first impressions are quite positive.

 

[FriFlo]

I ran into this problem with one of the Catalina public betas, but the problem went away with a subsequent release -- or with the latest Lilu/WhateverGreen. I would suggest:

1. Perform a full bootable backup.
2. Then update Lilu, WhateverGreen, and AppleALC first. Don't forget to run Kext Utility to rebuild the kernel cache after copying these files into /L/E.
3. If you're running VirtualSMC instead of FakeSMC, then update that as well. Remember to update VirtualSmc.efi in the CLOVER/drivers64UEFI folder (for Clover 4xxx) or in the CLOVER/drivers/UEFI folder (Clover 5xxx).
4. If you're running a version of Clover older than 4961, upgrade to 4961 by downloading this file. If you're comfortable to upgrade to Clover 5xxx and moving EFI files from drivers64UEFI to drivers/UEFI, then by all means upgrade to Clover 5xxx.
   • But do Steps 1, 2, 3 first and if the DisplayPort problem remains, then do #4.

There is a post-install verification checklist in the spoiler labeled State of the System AFTER Post-Installation in Post #1.

Yeah! Display Port works now after doing 1 - 3! Thanks!

 

[Stewie23]

Has anyone done a clean install of Catalina on this build? I am asking as I can not update through the software updater as I get a kernel panic that I can not find a solution to, after several attempts to Change different Kexts

So I made those changes system was running fine. Went to update and exact same Kernal panic, I think its to do with the FakeSMC, going to try to create a new USB installer and hopefully, that will fix the issue, i will try adding in the newest version of FakeSMC

I have yet to try the above as i decided to wait for Catalina to be released, but i now can't get a version of Multi beast to create the USB installer and trying it the way Tonymac has suggested yields a can not find os warning

 

[ummario]

Has anyone done a clean install of Catalina on this build? I am asking as I can not update through the software updater as I get a kernel panic that I can not find a solution to, after several attempts to Change different Kexts

I did a clean install, and with success, but stalled on the after install since there's not yet a multibeast compatible for Catalina. So decided instead to update existing Mojave (or a cloned disk in this case)

To perform clean install is advisable you wait at least for Unibeast and Multibeast versions for Catalina, and maybe wait as well for @CaseySJ to update this guide.

Good Luck!

 

[Letalent]

This can happen when the firmware detects a certain type of problem. The motherboard has a "BIOS Flashback" function that restores a factory default BIOS (vF3) when certain failures are detected. This is generally okay, but we must take some precautions such as:

• Always shutdown the system and unplug from the wall (or flip off the power switch on PSU) every single timewe do the following:
  • Insert or remove any PCIe card.
  • Insert or remove memory DIMMs.
  • Insert or remove internal USB devices (connected to F_USB header).

Other conditions can also trigger the flashback, but the above are some of the more common causes.

Thanks a lot!!!!

 

[Manu1001]

• Make a full bootable backup first. Please see the build guide section Easy Bootable Backup.
• It's especially important to back up your Photos and iTunes libraries because those libraries are updated in Catalina. An error during the update could result in loss of data.
• Then do an in-place upgrade from System Preferences --> Software Update.

See this post for important precautions:

[SUCCESS] Gigabyte Designare Z390 (Thunderbolt 3) + i7-9700K + AMD RX 580

Testing to see if this fixes the issue with IGPU and Final Cut. I need my IGPU enabled for my setup. UPDATE - Quick test shows that it's working OK now https://appleinsider.com/articles/19/10/07/final-cut-pro-x-update-paves-the-way-for-the-mac-pro-and-pro-display-xdr • New Metal-based...

www.tonymacx86.com

Thanks a lot, Casey.

 

[djlild7hina]

Ive had a thought about Sidecar. For those that haven't had luck making it work, what's your Wifi and BT card? Is it possible the limitation is related to wireless connectivity challenges? For example, isn't the Fenvi based on a native Broadcom chip that is rather old in the Mac ecosystem?

i think the issue is if you use an SMBIOS with vs without a t2 chip. If the SMBIOS has a t2 chip, Apple probably uses some additional encryption or something the igpu handles so that’s why we’re getting the black screen.
Hopefully I’m wrong though and someone figures it out lol

 

[svandive]

Well just updated a cloned disk of my mojave disk to Catalina. Everything went ok without problems during update. And sidecar is working fine! Just like in my Macbook Pro.

What is not working for me is sound. I can only get sound from HDMI. Also maybe i did something wrong with clover boot, because i can't start automatically the disks when computer is retarting at clover menu, I have to select them manually.

Also because I updated a cloned disk of my Mojave disk, after update to Catalina could not find clover at EFI partition of Catalina. So I copied EFI folder from the Mojave partition to the Catalina partition.

Everything seems to be ok apart from the sound.

Update: after updating Lilu, WhateverGreen and AppleALC, sound is working Fine! Just need to solve the boot automatically from Catalina!

What are you running for SMBIOS? Please

 

[DJEarthworm]

i think the issue is if you use an SMBIOS with vs without a t2 chip. If the SMBIOS has a t2 chip, Apple probably uses some additional encryption or something the igpu handles so that’s why we’re getting the black screen.
Hopefully I’m wrong though and someone figures it out lol

That was my I initial thought as well. I’m shocked the iMac19,1 didn’t ship with a t2. Good for us!

 

[hussar]

Hi again.
I'm running Clover 4960, and I'm wondering if I should update it before upgrading to Catalina?
My issue is... I can't find a step by step guide on updating the Clover boot loader.

I'm afraid that one move in the wrong direction will jeopardize my perfect installation!

@CaseySJ I think I remember you posting a how-to but cannot find it.
Any chance you can point me in the right direction?

Huge thanks as always