Clover boot menu frozen on legacy motherboard

[Vyzantion]

The latest three Clover builds (4674, 4700 and 4722), on my legacy motherboard with PS2 mouse and keyboard have the boot menu frozen. I had to use an older build in order to get my Mojave installation pen drive. Obviously, on long term, this is not a solution, since updating the OS requires the latest Clover build. The newer builds work fine outside the boot menu if, on first install into Mojave, on boot.plist I set to boot in seconds from the main portion, but I loose the acces to the boot menu functions anyway, of course.

Specs
Motherboard: Asus P5P41TED

CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo e8500

Graphics: Nvidia GeForce 6200

RAM: 2 gb DDR3

Mouse and keyboard: PS2

Edited November 2, 2018 by Vyzantion

[Vyzantion]

1) Clover was installed first, of course, on the pen drive, on there I have got the build 4658, the last build that has a working menu. On the main macOS partition, I have the latest build, updated from an earlier build, where was already set to boot in 3 seconds from the partition. Without that, the latest build would have made the installation, obviously, unbootable.

2) Here is a link to the uploaded content of my EFI partition. I could not attach it as a zip, being to large, so I have uploaded it in there and pasted the download link in here:

https://we.tl/t-m9u5v7afun

I have used that graphics card out of inertia, for a while but, in time, I started to like the idea of using something this old on something new so, until the macOS will become unusable, I plan to keep the current configuration. Mojave works with it, with some drawbacks that not concern me. VLC video does not work, iTunes visualisation do not work as well, transparency in the OS does not, Maps load a black blank image, but that is about it. I am not into video or photo editing. GarageBand works fine, probably Logic Pro as well. I also prefer to use PS2 mouse and keyboard, to keep as much of the USB ports free. Indeed, some USB ports have issues recognising some pen drives. But nonetheless, the pen drives work for booting and the boot menu works with older Clover builds.

[bronxteck]

instead of reinstalling clover you can test using just the clover64.efi and boot.efi binaries from the Bootable_ISO download. it might not be clover itself. it might just be the legacy boot files are not built properly on the installer.

Edited November 3, 2018 by bronxteck

[Vyzantion]

43 minutes ago, bronxteck said:

instead of reinstalling clover you can test using just the clover64.efi and boot.efi binaries from the Bootable_ISO download. it might not be clover itself. it might just be the legacy boot files are not built properly on the installer.

Burned the iso file of the latest build into a CD-RW and tried to boot from it. The same issue of frozen boot menu.

[Badruzeus]

I previously installed High Sierra 10.13.x on an ancient Hitachi Flora Desktop PC with Core 2 Duo T6xxx CPU + 2GB DDR2 SDRAM + NVidia Tesla 9500GT + 40GB SATA HDD, and found no issue with Clover Legacy; both with MBR or GPT.

I guess:

1. Configure your BIOS options properly, not sure.. our specs are different on some cases, many hackintosh guides out of there

2. Try with a vanilla install, use createinstallmedia for bootable USB installer and avoid any *beast tool (I don't say they're bad, but nobody know what options you choose on *beast, sorry)

3. (Optional) Erase your EFI Partition if using Legacy-GPT:

diskutil list
newfs_msdos -v EFI -F 32 /dev/rdiskXsY
\\where X & Y are your disk & partition number.

4. Install Clover from SourceForge, rebuild your config.plist from scratch, check only needed ACPI fixes, enable "Generate CStates & PStates" for native PowerManagement and remove NullCPU*.kext, use a right SMBios version (macOS version dependant; MacPro3,1 is no longer supported with Mojave for example), patch your DSDT generated from your own mach

5. Use only needed kexts (Slice FakeSMC v3.5.1, Rehabman's VoodooPS2Controller, USBInjectAll are enough for me), others are depend on devices you have

6. Use only needed EFI drivers on /EFI/CLOVER/drivers64 (ApfsDriverLoader & FSInject are enough for 10.13++)

7. No idea with your "Nvidia GeForce 6200" graphics.

Edited November 5, 2018 by Badruzeus

[Vyzantion]

1) BIOS options seem fine. It worked fine until the latest builds. Of course, there may be some options there that may be blocking, I do not know, honestly, what all do. Indeed, I use only -v as boot flag, no dart=0. I do no use any USB kexts, but those things are probably not relevant, I guess, in working/blocking the Clover boot menu, since the boot menu comes before all that.

2) I have tried that, but official Clover build did not work. Why? I do not know. Not even the ”6” appeared on the official Clover build, from scratch. So I have tried with custom Clover builds. I was able to make it work using the Clover from the M*beast for High Sierra. Why? I had no options, I tried and it worked. I updated the Clover on the pen drive using the official Clover build. And this worked fine until the last three builds of Clover, when the freezing boot menu issue appeared. I had to solve other issues, so I reported this one late, after I got rid of the rest. If someone has a better idea, I look forward for it.

3) Before re-creating the pen drive and before installing, I wipe out the whole HHD by erasing it into MBR-Fat32, then into GPT-HFS+ (the pen drive) or GPT-APFS (the internal HDD). This in order to wipe out all traces of previous Clover. Indeed, I use on master HDD on SATA that has macOS on it and a slave HDD on ATA that acts as a deposit for documents and stuff. The ATA is on HFS+ for some time, the SATA on APFS. 

4) I am not that advanced to perform all you say in here. Custom DDST it is already well beyond my current expertise. How can I rebuild the config.plist from scratch? How can I change SMBios? I do not use NullCPUManagement kext for some time. Indeed, the OS sometimes, especially when the PC gets overheated, it gets stuck on shut down. I was told it has something to do with DDST. Indeed, I have in the machine a SB Audigy sound card that is unused, having not kexts for it. I use the build in sound card into the Asus Motherboard with VooDoo HDA, re-packed to install in the old, classic way. 

5) I already do that.

6) From the default options chacked into the the custom Clover, when I update to the official Clover package I check the add the APFS driver.

7) This ancient graphics card worked even with High Sierra, with some minor drawbacks that were not too relevant, like video playing on VLC, iTunes visualisations, iMovie and Maps not working, no transparency. With patched Mojave using High Sierra kexts by the Dosdude1 app it works the same, more or less.

[bronxteck]

i think you misunderstood when i mentioned the ISO. open the iso file and literally just extract and use clover64.efi only. transfer it to your existing working pen drive or whatever you are using to boot. that would tell you if it is actually clover binary itself that has issues or the installer is not properly installing the legacy boot0 files. 

 

[Vyzantion]

1 hour ago, bronxteck said:

i think you misunderstood when i mentioned the ISO. open the iso file and literally just extract and use clover64.efi only. transfer it to your existing working pen drive or whatever you are using to boot. that would tell you if it is actually clover binary itself that has issues or the installer is not properly installing the legacy boot0 files. 

 

I did understood what did you said, more or less. But I tough that, if I try the whole iso, I shall now if what you said had a chance to work, it seemed easier to try it at first. And, if the installed Clover on the pen drive and the cd from the iso behave the same, would it make sense to try what you said?

[Vyzantion]

The latest Clover build came with a fix to this issue. Thank you. 

[Vyzantion]

The issue re-appeared in build 4769, after being fixed into build 4741 . The standard theme does not load on the installed OS since 4741, only the Christmas and New Year themes, but I considered that a minor inconvenience. Now it can be a clue about what is going on. Here is the content of the EFI partition.  

https://we.tl/t-MMSB754jOL 

@Slice I know we also talked about this on Sourceforge, I remember what you told me there. But now there is new information. The developers made something right in the build 4741 and on 4769 seems to be gone. It is not necessary to reply, just wanted to let you know. Although I have a special situation, this issues may appear on the machine of others who do not have the same circumstances as my own. 

Edited November 19, 2018 by Vyzantion

[Badruzeus]

Your configs seem complicated to me;

1. Attached "Clover_Install_Log.txt" told that you have two GUID (GPT) disks with also 2 EFI Partitions.

Not sure why you choose "boot0af" (for MBR) instead of "boot0ss" when installing Clover on GPT scheme.

2. You loaded "apfs.efi" and "ApfsDriverLoader-64.efi" at the same time; IDK from where this idea comes from.

Try removing "apfs.efi", also "XhciDxe-64.efi" if your mach has no USB3.0 port available.

3. These things are more confusing:

>> "\EFI\CLOVER\misc\debug.log" said you boot Clover r4741, but "\EFI\CLOVER\CLOVERX64.efi" is r4769

>> debug also told that Clover load "XhciDxe, SMCHelper, FSInject" *.efi, but non of them are located on "\EFI\CLOVER\drivers64"

Well, for point (3) we assume that "debug.log" was generated when you boot from prev. rev (r4741).

 

Last, we suggest you to remove these files when uploading your EFI (to avoid damn big file size):

- \EFI\APPLE
- \EFI\CLOVER\themes\*

Except GUI change, recent Clover Legacy / UEFI are working fine on my case. No idea what issue with yours.

 

Edited November 19, 2018 by Badruzeus

[Vyzantion]

12 hours ago, Badruzeus said:

Your configs seem complicated to me;

1. Attached "Clover_Install_Log.txt" told that you have two GUID (GPT) disks with also 2 EFI Partitions.

Not sure why you choose "boot0af" (for MBR) instead of "boot0ss" when installing Clover on GPT scheme.

2. You loaded "apfs.efi" and "ApfsDriverLoader-64.efi" at the same time; IDK from where this idea comes from.

Try removing "apfs.efi", also "XhciDxe-64.efi" if your mach has no USB3.0 port available.

3. These things are more confusing:

>> "\EFI\CLOVER\misc\debug.log" said you boot Clover r4741, but "\EFI\CLOVER\CLOVERX64.efi" is r4769

>> debug also told that Clover load "XhciDxe, SMCHelper, FSInject" *.efi, but non of them are located on "\EFI\CLOVER\drivers64"

Well, for point (3) we assume that "debug.log" was generated when you boot from prev. rev (r4741).

 

Last, we suggest you to remove these files when uploading your EFI (to avoid damn big file size):

- \EFI\APPLE
- \EFI\CLOVER\themes\*

Except GUI change, recent Clover Legacy / UEFI are working fine on my case. No idea what issue with yours.

 

1. I have not chosen ”boot0af”. I did not knew that that is for MBR. As I said, I used a custo made Clover, that has some preloaded settings, since I am not too technical (for now, but I try to learn, of course), then I update it using an official Clover build. It worked fine on previous builds, anyway.

2. I have both options due to the fact that, when updated to 10.14.1 I had a FakeSMC block that seemed related to APFS, I wanted to make sure that APFS is loaded. 

3. When I install Clover on the pen drive, there are some BIOS drivers selected, but when I install it on the main partition they are not. I have checked them to be installed on the main partition as well, to make sure I have no surprises. When I update Clover, on BIOS drivers, I have only the APFS driver checked. 

I did not remove the theme files and the because I also had a theme issue, and I think it might be related to this. 

I have re-installed the custom Clover build, then updated to build 4769 again, to remove some of the things I modified. Reinstalled Voodoo HDA as well. 

Here is the new contents of the EFI partition.

https://we.tl/t-PTKRlwzhMj

@Slice Tested with the iso of build 4769, taken from your official Sourceforge. Burned it on a CD-RW and tried to boot from it. The boot menu is still frozen. The keyboard is completely unresponsive and Num Lock is turned on. I am not a programmer, but my guess is that the issue it is in the build itself, not from the old custom build we talked about on Sourceforge. If it were there, probably the CD from the untouched iso would work fine. My guess is that it is probably an issue with PS2 keyboards. 

[Vyzantion]

@Slice , but not only to him: The issue is solved again, in build 4784, thank you. I have a suspicion there was an issue regarding PS2 keyboards.

Edited December 1, 2018 by Vyzantion

[Slice]

I just keep boot6 and boot7 from release 4741 untouched. Wish you same.

[Vyzantion]

2 hours ago, Slice said:

I just keep boot6 and boot7 from release 4741 untouched. Wish you same.

Yet, what has changed between the builds? If it is possible to explain, of course. I have looked into the Sourceforge page and found references to resolution and themes.

[Slice]

Nothing changed. Only different compilation.

[Vyzantion]

1 hour ago, Slice said:

Nothing changed. Only different compilation.

I have a suspicion that the themes may be the culprit. I the latest 3 (or 4?, I can not remember) builds the default theme was not displayed right. The default theme does not show, only the Christmas or New Year themes (the second one mostly) I the theme can not be changed from the preference panel. Once I have installed all the themes from the package, the metal silver theme took over, but that can not be changed either, once it got automatically enabled. I have burned the iso on a cd-rw of each build, to see it how it behaves when it is on the official default state, untouched. On the previous build, the silver metal theme was present and the menu was frozen. On the latest build, the menu works and it was a different theme, apparently the default theme, but there some option with a long name (containing the name of Apple) that was covered in a black square.

Indeed, the custom build I use that we have talked about on Sourceforge is the one that makes the drive invisible at boot, not even the ”6” appears. After I update to the latest official build over it, it gets visible. The pure Clover boots the OS, but it depends on the boot menu to be working, not frozen. I could not replicate the option of setting the automatic boot of the drive on my own, at least for now, so I am unfortunately, stuck into this combination of installing the custom Clover, then the latest official package over it. Until I see this bug of the frozen boot menu gone, I can not use just the official Clover, because that automatic boot is the only thing that keeps the installation usable if the bug of the frozen boot menu appears. I shall watch the next builds, in hope that the bug disappears for good.