Ryzen 5 7600X + ASRock B650E PG Riptide ATX - Sonoma installer freezes at 12 Minutes remaining

[Porco]

Hello Everyone,
After some hardware headaches, I've finally gotten my EFI right and manage to successfully boot Opencore and launch the installer.
I built my EFI myself following the AMD Dortania guide. Files should be the latest, given I downloaded everything last week.

Everything seems fine, however every time I try to install MacOS Sonoma I get stuck at 12 minutes remaining. This appears to be an issue with NVRAM entries getting written for the reboot.
I've looked at the Dortania guide and tried multiple things, but none have worked so far. In particular I paid attention to this section: 2 Minutes Remaining

Looking for any help to get this working. I've been running MacOS on my thinkpad using opencore for some years so I have a decent understanding of what is going on in the config.plist I think.

Below is my hardware, and attached is the installer Log, OC log and my EFI with SMBIOS info stripped out.

• AMD Ryzen 5 7600X 4.7 GHz 6-Core Processor
• ASRock B650E PG RIPTIDE WIFI ATX AM5 Motherboard
• XFX Speedster QICK 308 Black Radeon RX 6600 XT 8 GB Video Card
• Corsair Vengeance RGB 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-5600 CL36 Memory (CMH32GX5M2B5600C36K)
• Samsung 990 Pro 2 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive + 240GB NVME (Linux) + 1TB NVME SSD (Windows)

 

[Edhawk]

From experience I would look at replacing the macOS installer app on your installation drive, as the error is likely to be caused by an issue with the installer. By that I mean erasing the installer, deleting the macOS application used to create the installer, downloading a new installation app, recreating the USB installer.

You should also be aware that the Samsung NVME drive you are using for macOS is known to be problematic and have Trim and other issues when used as a macOS boot drive.

 

[Porco]

Alright, I'll try to redownload the installer and make a new USB Drive.
That's unfortunate to hear about the NVME drive. I thought the problem was only related to older Samsung models. My 1TB drive I am currently using as a windows drive is even worse as it is a PM981 that I had to replace in the thinkpad to get MacOS to play nice there.
I'll try my luck with it for now, and look to replace it down the line.

Will report back if the installer was indeed the issue.

 

[Edhawk]

For future reference Western Digital/SanDisk NVME drives are a much better option for macOS boot drives. With your system the WD SN850 drives would give similar performance to the Samsung NVME drive you are currently using.

 

[Edhawk]

From what I recall the NVME controller used by Samsung is the main problem when it comes to running macOS. Whereas the SanDisk NVME controller used by Western Digital is one of the controllers that Apple uses.

 

[Porco]

So made a new installer, unfortunately it seems to be the same problem.
I suspect some NVRAM setting in my config.plist is set incorrectly, but I can't seem to find what. I've gone through the guides multiple times.

I'm going to see if I can install to the drive from another computer.

 

[Porco]

Unfortunately I believe you may be right about the SSD just not being compatible. I get weird behavior even mounting/unmounting the NVME drive on a real mac through a USB enclosure.

 

[Edhawk]

If you think it is a NVRAM entry causing the issue, have you tried using the OpenCore ResetNvramEntry.efi driver from the OC boot screen? Hopefully this is a driver that is present in your /EFI/OC/Drivers folder and enabled in your config.plist. If it is try the following:

1. Boot to OpenCore boot screen
2. Press the 'Spacebar'
3. This should unhide any drivers and tools that are present in your OC setup.
4. Select the ResetNvramEntry.efi icon and the system should automatically reboot, while clearing all old NVRAM settings.
5. You may need to enter the Bios to reset your Boot disk, as this can also clear the USB pen/macOS drive from the top of the list. This is most obvious when dual booting Windows on another drive, as the Windows drive will be placed at the top of the boot menu.
6. When you next boot in to OpenCore the NVRAM settings in your OC setup should be in use and any old settings removed.

Obviously this is not going to fix any Samsung NVME drive issues. But it might help.

 

[Edhawk]

Just checked your EFI contents and the ResetNvramEntry.efi driver is not present in your OC setup.

You do have ClearNvram.efi and ResetSystem.efi in the /EFI/OC/Tools folder.

If you use those two Tools instead, in the order written here, they should do the same thing, clear the NVRAM and restart the system.

 

[Porco]

The reason I suspect it is an NVRAM issue is because the error seems similar to that in the dortania guide I linked to in the first post.
The installer log seems to be unmounting some partitions, which I suspect happens right before a reboot. However, then the machine hangs, and does not shutdown. After a reboot the installer does not see an install on the drive to continue (I'm guessing some flags not set?)
I tried following this comment:

https://www.reddit.com/r/hackintosh/comments/15hxdou/_/jvepwv8

But had no success either.

I previously tried to use ClearNvram, but it didn't make a difference. I got stuck at the same spot.
What does ResetSystem.efi do?
Right now I am giving it a try with the Ventura installer. If that doesn't work I will come back to trying to install sonoma. And eventually I guess I will have to spend even more money and get a new drive...

 

[Porco]

Strangely, with the Ventura installer the computer reboots when it is trying to launch the UI. This didn't happen with Sonoma.
Here is the OC log in case it helps.

 

[Edhawk]

Does what the name says it does, it resets/reboots the system.

Are you using VMWare on this system to boot macOS?

Couldn't see anything that stood out in the log to indicate why your system was not booting.

During the boot process macOS unmount any EFI partition on any drive installed in the system. It won't normally unmount the macOS or Windows C:/ drives.

 

[Porco]

I've tried doing both nvram clear and reset, but again it made no difference.
If the problem was the drive, wouldn't the installer fail at different points in time?

No I am not. No virtualization yet of any kind of this system. I made the installer from a macbook m1 I have.
Just to be clear - when I say load the UI I am refering to the installer AI.

I'm tempted to buy a new NVME SSD, like a WD you suggested, but If it doesn't work, it will seem kind of a waste. Shame none of my existing free drives are compatible.

 

[Edhawk]

Which free drives?

You can run macOS perfectly well on a SATA SSD, bit slower but perfectly useable.

 

[Porco]

So I bought a new drive, a WD SN 850. Unfortunately I am faced with exactly the same problem

 

[Edhawk]

Then your EFI is probably not set correctly. As you just eliminated the macOS drive as being the cause of the issue.

Are you trying to install macOS with just the WD SN850 drive connected to the system, i.e. all other drives disconnected or physically removed from your hack? If not try doing this as it is part of the standard troubleshooting procedure.

 

[Edhawk]

I assume that you have checked your bios and used the AMD settings so it will work with macOS.

Ryzen and Threadripper(17h and 19h) | OpenCore Install Guide

 

[Porco]

I've doublechecked my BIOS, and although a few minor things were different, I'm having the same error.
Does the photo of the installer log, not help us at all? I can't spot any critical errors, but maybe there is something we overlooked?
I'll try removing the other drives now, although I doubt that might be the reason.

I've even tried to install to this new disk from my m1 mac, and although the installer seems to have run. When installing it in the PC it doesn't show up for opencore to see. (not sure if it was installing the ARM version or if every install is dual architecture.

 

[Porco]

Removed all other drives, and end up at a slightly different Installer log error, but seems to be the same issue.

 

[Edhawk]

Post a copy of your EFI folder so we can see what you are using to boot the system.

Did you use the ResetNvramEntry.efi driver before trying to boot using the WD NVME drive? If not do so, as you may have old NVRAM entries that are messing with your system.

Are you using a macOS Recovery image to boot the system?
Have you tried downloading a Full macOS Installer, using Corpnewt's gibMacOS script? Assuming you don't have access to another hack or a real Mac this script can be used on Windows.

GitHub - corpnewt/gibMacOS: Py2/py3 script that can download macOS components direct from Apple

Py2/py3 script that can download macOS components direct from Apple - corpnewt/gibMacOS

github.com

Download the zipped gibMacOS-Master folder via the green button named 'Code'.