2015 MBP SSD and Big Sur Upgrade

 If you do a search you probably would find lots of pertinent information.

The 13" 2015 MBP is on its last leg on being able to upgrade to the current macOS.  There is no way I can upgrade my 2008 MacPro and 2012 MBP to Big Sur without major major hassles.  They are in Catalina already.

The original 13" 2015 MBP came with 128GB of SSD.  This certainly on the meager side.  I changed the battery a few months ago after it started to bulge.

I gathered 3 items to do the upgrade.

1. The Rongdeson M.2 NVME SSD enclosure

2. SPG SX8200 PRO 512GB

3. Sintech NGFF M.2 adapter card

I didn't bother to backup anything on TimeMachine or otherwise.  Just do it.

Put 2 into 1.  Connect to the MBP, erase the new SSD into APFS and the rest default values.

Upgrade the MBP to Big Sur by downloading and installing on the new SSD

The upgrade will prompt you for anything it needs and it also prompts you to migrate your existing Mac to the new Mac, ie copy the old SSD data to the new SSD.

After the migration, the last step is to turn off the MBP, open the bottom cover, unplug the battery, remove the old SSD.  Remove 2 from 1.  Then slide 2 into 3 completely.  Take 3 with 2 attached and plug 3 into the existing slot, make sure they are inserted all the way.  It's like at an angle, seat it and screw it down.  Plug the battery.  Put the back cover back on and the screws.

Turn on the MBP, answer a few prompts like verify your Apple ID and stuff.  That's it.

this is the swapped out old 128GB SSD, it's not M.2 or NVMe.

LG WH14NS40 1.03

 Finally downgraded the firmware to 1.02

Hopefully there are many more years to come for VLC, MakeMKV and LG to live happily ever after.

macOS 10.15.7 Supplemental Update

Apple released this update on 11/5.  It wouldn't be a pain if your Mac is supported.  For me running on macpro3,1 with unsupported GPU, it's a major pain.

Maybe one day I will finish this update or maybe not.

Or maybe I will get a Mac supported GPU so I can do the boot screen thing when updating.

Too much work for me.

Post Stamp

Once upon a time when I studied law, the post stamped date determines the date of acceptance, not the date of receipt.  That's if one actually can read the stamped date on the envelop and the mail is delivered promptly without undue delay like a year later or never.

I don't know what is the rule for the US Election, it seems like people make up the rule as they go.  My initial impression was the ballot mailed on Election date should be counted even it came after the Election date.  Mail in ballots are a little mess given that plenty of people can't follow instructions, mostly people do not sign the envelop or cross the ovals instead of filling the ovals . . . .  When one casts the ballot on site, those errors can be avoided or corrected right away.  If you take any public exam in multiple choice format, those answers would be discarded as you can't follow the instructions.  I don't know how those ballots would be treated like without signature or marking it kind of wrong.  Or "lost in mail" or "stuck in the post office" or simply delivered days late or no clear readable postal stamped date on it.

Perhaps these errors, if any, may not be statistically significant to be important to the outcome of the race.

Catalina 10.15.7

 Even Mojave has some supplemental update and security update.

After a few months I itch to upgrade again.

No surprise, the Catalina patch still won't go through the second phase.

Every time I do this I do this in a feverish pace and in the end, I don't know what I am doing.

But I have to say I am calm and a little bit more prepared.  When it failed to boot up to continue the second phase.  I was able to recover from the Mojave recovery snapshot though I forgot the details.  But it certainly emboldened me to go really to Catalina instead of just going update Mojave as I know initially I was able to upgrade to Catalina but somehow in subsequent update I wasn't able to complete.

No surprise I wasn't able to go to the second phase of the patch to complete but then it didn't destroy the last bootable OS I was able to boot back holding the Alt or Option key.

So here are the steps

Download the latest Catalina patch from dosdude1

Make the USB drive

Boot from the USB drive (for me I have to switch back to the supported GPU card, otherwise I can't do this ALT boot sequence)

The installation reboot and back to the USB installation screen and in some instances it gives me the mouse setup, just click Next or similar to back out

Reboot holding down Alt key, you should see the Install partition of whatever it's properly called, you should see the USB and other possible Boot EFI from previous failed upgrades but pick the installation thingy you've never seen before that was just created in the first phase of the update

This should complete the second part of the installation.

Once it reboots you should be home free 

Good luck.

PS:  you won't be able to stream Netflix on Safari, but Chrome is perfectly fine.

Catalina 10.15.6

 I have bad experience with Catalina hack with my MacPro3,1.  But that's a hack so I can't really be too angry with things don't work out.

My MBP mid-2012 is officially supported and the update is officially approved.

It took forever to update and when it's done the system is crawling and worse the system refuses to charge the battery.

I re-install the macOS hoping that it may correct something.  I started the re-install in the afternoon, maybe around 4PM it just won't finish, and at 6AM the follow day it was still updating.

When it finally finished, the same thing.  The system is crawling and the system refuses to charge the battery.

I think this is the worst ever upgrade I've ever experienced.

LG WH14NS40 NS50 ROM VER 1.02

I thought I have it set for a long time.  I even ordered a couple more Blu-ray.  Then one arrived and the disc doesn't mount.  I thought it was a bad disc.  It happens.  But then I tried others, didn't work either.  I know there is a problem.  But where exactly I wouldn't know.  The drive seems to be spinning just fine.  I took the drive apart and cleaned it twice.  The lenses don't look dirty at all.

The fact that I am running a few hacks on my system doesn't help.

The original Superdrive works somewhat but over time, it would just disappears, so I don't know what the deal.

I was planning to bite the bullet to get another one but it's just hard to be all that lucky to be able to get one with the exact firmware I want without flashing.

Anyway to be continued.

High Speed Sync

I always thought the built-in flash of my Nikon cameras can do high speed sync on its own.  Wrong!
How often do I flash?  Not too often.  And when I flash I either flash using the SB-800 or my Sunpak 120-J.  And honestly I seldom use high speed sync and when I do it's with an external Nikon flash like the SB-800 or my broken SB-600 if I ever did.  But I always thought it can be used with the internal pop-up flash.

Well today I tried because I was too lazy and too weak to carry an external flash and a battery pack let alone any trigger or light stand.  It's not worth it.

So I thought that little flash can sync above 1/320.  Wrong.  The fastest it goes is 1/320.  So the pictures can't be too crispy.  But then again it's not at all that bad if you manage to catch the right moment and don't look at it at 100%.

Right now I almost think it's imperative to shoot with a flash otherwise the pictures look kind of flat and lifeless.  But that's just one man's opinion.

Mojave 10.14.6

After downgrading this back to 10.14.6 it has been solid.  No more booting up to recovery or can't wake up, which I think is related to APFS not being supported in MacPro3,1 and somehow the patch can't handle it.

I need to resist the ever desire and urge to upgrade to the latest patch.

Convert MKV to M4V

It took longer than I'd like.
The MKV is > 2 hours and has a size of 36GB.
The M4V is 4.46GB and it took almost 3.5 hours to convert ...

VLC plays Blu-ray disc

Finally got VLC to play blu-ray disc on my MacPro3,1.  Sure you need MakeMKV in order to make all this work.
My next frontier is to play 4K UHD disc on it.

MacPro3,1 10.14.6

Downloaded JRE 8 something something and now the Blu-ray menu can be played.  I understand my player can even play 4K though I have yet to own any 4K monitor but I'm interested to see a scaled down 4K picture on my monitor.  It's hard to believe Blu-ray is only 1920x1080.

The temptation to upgrade to the latest is always there.  I am still itching to update to 10.15.4 but past experience really left me with a bitter taste.

10.14.6 seems to be very stable for what I do and experience.

macpro3,1 Mojave 10.14.6

I demoted the OS back to 10.14.6 Mojave

For some reason 10.15.4 Catalina just wouldn't stick.

I've spent a few days trying to fix that but no luck.

One good thing came out of this is with the latest vlc 3.0.10 and MakeMV, I can finally made Blu-ray disc playing a reality.  I don't know if I overlooked previously.  Or 3.0.10 is really a new new one, or MakeMV.  It was just a feature in MakeMV to allow itself shared the decoding libraries or something.  Previously, I mean the sticky note on MakeMV forum still has that old information.

So it couldn't be simpler.

macpro3,1 Catalina 10.15.4

I think I somehow destroyed the system.

When you trouble shoot late at night and end up regreting.

I think the SSD is kind of sort of not doing its job but there is no way I can find out what causes the OS couldn't see it.

So against my better judgement I opted to re-install the OS on a separate HDD and in the course of the installation, the HDD got wiped.  And so went my data.  Except there is a copy in my Time Machine, hopefully.

You know there is something wrong just not know what.  In the middle of data migration, the system re-boot itself so in the end, I gave up migration.

I wish I'd stay in MOJAVE.  But I know I'd never learn.

macpro3,1 Catalina 10.15.4

mac went to sleep, wake up screen OK, good sign.  But once entered password, the beach ball keeps spinning.  I guess that's the state of affairs now.
On the other hand my MBP 2012 seems to be just fine with 10.15.4.

At least when I did a reboot I got right back to the login unlike previously when the SSD basically couldn't be read when mounted on drive bay one.

Short sleep doesn't seem to affect the login but a protracted sleep causes the problem.

macpro3,1 macOS10.15.4

The machine has been booting to recovery mode pretty consistently and alarmingly.

So I thought there is something wrong with the file system or something.  But I have a hunch.

So I removed the SSD from the drive bay 1 totally.  And surprise, the mac still boots up what I think it's the recovery mode.  It asks for Language that goes to Utilities.  Apparently the recovery mode is running off entirely from its own, probably from the Time Machine's recovery I imagine but I don't know.

I plugged back the SSD to the optical bay drive via the secret SATA port and power.

Bang, the system goes back to regular login with 10.15.4

So something is wrong with drive bay 1 or how things are connected together I guess.

There are lots of strange thing that I never thought make sense or a difference but it does.

Now the GTX 770 is working the way I expect it to work.  The sleep and wake up seems alright.

At some point I was prepared to make another bootable USB stick to re-install macOS.  The strange thing is I made the stick on my MBP and when I plugged the stick to my MacPro, it doesn't recognize it in recovery....

Too many things I can't explain.

If overnight, the system still boots OK, I will try to reconnect the Blu-ray drive.

Unrealized Gain and Loss

No matter.  Still realizing gains and holding on losses, hoping wishing the losers may one day come back or black.  Not a sound investment strategy.  Take the loss and move on.

macpro3,1 maOS 10.15.4

There is a good chance, I won't say for sure, that if I unplug the power cable, then reconnect and boot, my chances of booting back to normal is 100% or close to 100%.  So there is some state stored in the memory that tells the OS to reboot to Recovery inadvertently or what I think it is inadvertently.  By unplugging the power cable I sort of clear that so the system starts anew.

I try to make sense of the scenario the best I can by making up stories the best I could.

The things that could go wrong:-
This is a 2008 macpro3,1 so it's not even supposed to be running 10.15.4 which was make possible by running dosdude1's patch since Mojave
The GPU is not supposed to be the PC version like I have installed.  Without the EFI from Apple, I don't see the boot up screens except the very last stage where I was prompted to enter my login and password.
Wired the one internal SATA to a Blu-ray drive and re-connected the EIDE superdrive, though presently disconnected to narrow down the problems for troubleshooting purpose.

To recap:
The system has been very stable starting Mojave.
Then comes Catalina 10.15 which was still stable for me.
Then I put in the Blue Ray and moved things around ... my SSD used to be using the internal SATA and put in the empty drive bay.
When I tried to connect the SSD and the Blue Ray drive using the SATA ports, it gives my problem, the system won't boot up.
In the end, I was able to put the SSD to drive bay 1 using some caddie, put all the HDDs onto bay 2 and 3.  The BR and Superdrive into the optical drive bay.
By and large it's working except after a while the superdrive would disappear.  But I can live with that.
Then somehow somewhere along the line, it develops this boot and sleep and wake up problem.  I decided to upgrade it to 10.15.4 to see if that removes the problem, alas it didn't.
Overnight, the system rebooted itself into recovery, it actually prompted the mouse setup and language setup before getting into recovery.  There were instances when the wake up screen appeared but after entering the login and password, the beach ball appeared and spins it went then it just froze.  Maybe something to do with the AFPS script boot or some kernel text with the patch ...

When the system is up and running it pretty solid.  Just don't let it go sleep or shut down.  Chances are it may boot to recovery.

macpro3,1 macOS 10.15.4

I left the machine sleep and then the next morning it rebooted into recovery mode, waiting for me to click next like setting the mouse (which is actually a trackpad) and selecting the language.  So I started the day with a bummer.  I thought with the optical drives unplugged I have it "fixed."  The thing is it's relatively more reliable to boot to the OS and sleep and wake up to the regular OS.

I wonder if a genuine or flashed GPU would make any difference.  The secret SATAs and power for the BR and Superdrive can't of destabilize the system I believe.  Removing them gives it a more sleep and wake up.  I suspect maybe the circuit or power don't quite support the drives to sleep and wake up in macOS 10.15.4 rendering the system unstable or rather unpredictable.  Mojave is the last stable macOS I have on my unsupported mac.  I understand it's on borrowed time.

MacPro3,1 macOS 10.15.4

After fixing it for two days, I finally got a handle of the situation.
I updated the patch and installed 10.15.4 on my macpro3.1 But the sleep and wake up problem won't go away.  It was just bad, at some point the mac simply boots to recovery mode and I can't see to do anything about it.

Because I am running the PC GTX 770 so I can't trouble shoot using the keyboard combination keys as there is no EFI rom on the GPU.  I needed to switch back to the stock GPU which is pokey and barely runs.  Even with the stock card I got into same problem, it just boots to recovery.

So that was no good.

In the end, I unplugged all the optical drives, the SATA BR drive and the stock Superdrive.  And so far I manually reset twice and the Mac boots back to 10.15.4 as solid as before.

I long suspected the optical drives, as from day 1 there seems to be some problem with the power after plugging them in and the stock superdrive would disappear after an hour or so.  So I don't know if starting 10.15.2 that problem manifests to sleep and wake up problem.  After I updated to 10.15.4 the OS doesn't even want to boot up normally as if it's damaged but it is not as it boots and reboots normally.

With the library closed for more than a month, I see no immediate need to use the optical drives at this point.  Oh well.

Hopefully it stays solid ...

Without a solid EFI graphic card it's just a pain to trouble shoot.  Open the case, get the card out, put the stock card back in, testing, wait to reboot.  Just lots of BS.