[HOW TO] Fix QuickLook and Preview loading issues in Mojave

[Cyberdevs]

33 minutes ago, arsradu said:

Guys, did you get this kind of updates before...? Problem is...it doesn't really get installed. I mean, it completes the installation successfully. But, after reboot, it asks for the same update again.

 

Is this intended?

Yes I did get that on my IvyBridge rig all the time and I just tell the App Store to hide it, you can just ignore it.

Edited July 20, 2018 by Cyberdevs

[surfcaster]

What software do you use for that hardware info?

[Cyberdevs]

2 minutes ago, surfcaster said:

What software do you use for that hardware info?

MacX Video Converter Pro

[arsradu]

49 minutes ago, Cyberdevs said:

Yes I did get that on my IvyBridge rig all the time and I just tell the App Store to hide it, you can just ignore it.

 

Yep. I used the following command to ignore it:

softwareupdate --ignore ThunderboltFirmwareUpdate1.2

Interesting that this never occurred with the Haswell SMBIOS.

[Cyberdevs]

Just now, arsradu said:

 

Yep. I used the following command to ignore it:

softwareupdate --ignore ThunderboltFirmwareUpdate1.2

Interesting that this never occurred with the Haswell SMBIOS.

Yeah that would do it. This update is only for iMac 13.x models. It won't be offered for newer models. 

[arsradu]

1 minute ago, Cyberdevs said:

Yeah that would do it. This update is only for iMac 13.x models. It won't be offered for newer models. 

 

I suppose there is no way to use a newer SMBIOS while keeping the working Quick Look and Preview, is it? I mean, aside from going back to the previous method of doing things.

For as far as I could see, iMac13,x seems to be the only one to use the 600 series Nvidia cards. So...I guess the answer here would be...no. Unless I upgrade to a GTX750 or something. :))

[Cyberdevs]

1 minute ago, arsradu said:

I suppose there is no way to use a newer SMBIOS while keeping the working Quick Look and Preview, is it? I mean, aside from going back to the previous method of doing things.

For as far as I could see, iMac13,x seems to be the only one to use the 600 series Nvidia cards. So...I guess the answer here would be...no. Unless I upgrade to a GTX750 or something. :))

Well I can dig a little bit deeper into the subject and see which other SMBIOSes use the same Config Map as the iMac 13.x family uses but it's highly unlikely because you already tested the iMac14,x SMBIOS right?

[arsradu]

1 minute ago, Cyberdevs said:

Well I can dig a little bit deeper into the subject and see which other SMBIOSes use the same Config Map as the iMac 13.x family uses but it's highly unlikely because you already tested the iMac14,x SMBIOS right?

 

Yep. That was my first choice, due to the perfect match for the CPU. However, the GPU is not a match there.

[Cyberdevs]

Just now, arsradu said:

Yep. That was my first choice, due to the perfect match for the CPU. However, the GPU is not a match there.

As far as I checked there aren't that much newer iMacs with an nVidia GPU to go through but I guess testing the iMacs with AMD GPUs wouldn't hurt but to be honest I don't think that would work anyways.

[arsradu]

8 minutes ago, Cyberdevs said:

As far as I checked there aren't that much newer iMacs with an nVidia GPU to go through but I guess testing the iMacs with AMD GPUs wouldn't hurt but to be honest I don't think that would work anyways.

 

Are the RX series AMD cards (such as an RX 580 for example) compatible with any SMBIOS? Or at least with Haswell SMBIOS? I would buy an RX580 tomorrow if I knew there's a fix for that screen flashing issue everyone is having at second stage boot... But there isn't. At least none that I know of. So..for now, I'll keep using this GPU until it breaks. :)) It served me really, really well all these years. And for this one I actually did do the research so that it works OOB. And it did. And still does. So I'm not sorry for buying this card. But looks like it's becoming harder and harder to use it without other tweaks.

Edited July 20, 2018 by arsradu

[Cyberdevs]

Just now, arsradu said:

Are the RX series AMD cards (such as an RS 580 for example) compatible with any SMBIOS? Or at least with Haswell SMBIOS? I would buy an RX580 tomorrow if I knew there's a fix for that screen flashing issue everyone is having at second stage boot... But there isn't. At least none that I know of. So..for now, I'll keep using this GPU until it breaks. :)) It served me really, really well all these years. And for this one I actually did do the research so that it works OOB. And it did. And still does. So I'm not sorry for buying this card. But looks like it's becoming harder and harder to use it without other tweaks.

iMac18,2 (21.5") has an AMD RX560 and iMac18,3 (27") has RX570 and RX580 and they are all use KabyLake processors the Haswell based iMac's are simply older than the AMD RX GPUs they either use Intel Iris GPUs or AMD R9 Seires.

If your CPU power management works ok and the SpeedSteps are working as they should using a different SMBIOS won't affect anything, besides even if the CPU PM isn't working properly you can always use SSDTs to fix that.

[surfcaster]

is what I do, I was always reluctant to use a SMBios not suitable for the hardware but now with Mojave I have no other option since updating the equipment is beyond my reach, the hardware is the signature and I must use iMac 18.2, iMac 13.2 or directly move to Mac Pro 6.1, seeing the operation of the processor in all of them I almost do not care

[arsradu]

On 7/21/2018 at 1:07 AM, Cyberdevs said:

iMac18,2 (21.5") has an AMD RX560 and iMac18,3 (27") has RX570 and RX580 and they are all use KabyLake processors the Haswell based iMac's are simply older than the AMD RX GPUs they either use Intel Iris GPUs or AMD R9 Seires.

If your CPU power management works ok and the SpeedSteps are working as they should using a different SMBIOS won't affect anything, besides even if the CPU PM isn't working properly you can always use SSDTs to fix that.

 

Thanks, man!  Yeah, CPU PM seems to be working fine here.

 

I'll update the main post, then, so that people can try switching to another SMBIOS before attempting the other things. Definitely worked for me. But I'm not sure that's gonna be the case for unsupported GPUs.

[Cyberdevs]

12 minutes ago, arsradu said:

 

Thanks, man!  Yeah, CPU PM seems to be working fine here.

 

I'll update the main post, then, so that people can try switching to another SMBIOS before attempting the other things. Definitely worked for me. But I'm not sure that's gonna be the case for unsupported GPUs.

Your'e welcome

Thanks to you for maintaining this topic

About the unsupported GPUs we need to do more tests and pick the closest SMBIOS available and see how the macOS behaves in that regard.

But I think with the final release of Mojave these issues might be fix. (hopefully)

[arsradu]

5 minutes ago, Cyberdevs said:

Your'e welcome

Thanks to you for maintaining this topic

About the unsupported GPUs we need to do more tests and pick the closest SMBIOS available and see how the macOS behaves in that regard.

But I think with the final release of Mojave these issues might be fix. (hopefully)

 

That. If it's not intended. Which...wouldn't be a surprise coming from Apple. But yeah, we'll see. 

 

And yes, I'll keep maintaining this thread with news/adjustments/simplifications both from my own experience, and from you guys.  And for as long as you guys continue to use it.

 

Thanks a lot.

Edited July 22, 2018 by arsradu

[arsradu]

@Cyberdevs I was wondering, is there any way to keep the SMBIOS for the CPU (in my case, iMac14,2) while emulating only the graphics part of it....? Something like combining the CPU from the iMac14,2 with the GPU from the iMac13,2.

Crazy, I know. :)) But anyway, any idea if that would be possible?

[surfcaster]

Yes, before a few years ago to get more states of the processor was a "hybrid" with the plist of iMac 11.2 with the Mac Book 8.1 for it only needed to cut the part that called the MB states and paste replacing it the iMac, it worked well, I do not know now but it would not be hard to prove it, again I regret to have to use Google translator

[Cyberdevs]

Yeah that's possible , I'm not sure about the hybrid scenario I never used such thing but there's another way to achieve such result by manipulating the config map of the AppleGraphicsDisplayPolicy.kext inside the AppleGraphicsControl.kext and also AppleGraphicsDisplayPolicy.kext inside the AppleGraphicsPowerManagement.kext. 

It's not gonna be an easy task to make the changes and make it work but it's totally possible.

 

Programs such as AGDPFix, clover's on the fly patch and/or kexts like WEG, IntelGraphicsFixup and nVidiaGraphicsFixUp do the same thing as a part of their functionality (among many other things).

All you have to do is to check the board-id of the iMac's SMBIOS that works and compare it to the iMac's SMBIOS and board ID that you want to use and make the changes accordingly.

 

19 minutes ago, arsradu said:

@Cyberdevs I was wondering, is there any way to keep the SMBIOS for the CPU (in my case, iMac14,2) while emulating only the graphics part of it....? Something like combining the CPU from the iMac14,2 with the GPU from the iMac13,2.

Crazy, I know. :)) But anyway, any idea if that would be possible?

 

7 minutes ago, surfcaster said:

Yes, before a few years ago to get more states of the processor was a "hybrid" with the plist of iMac 11.2 with the Mac Book 8.1 for it only needed to cut the part that called the MB states and paste replacing it the iMac, it worked well, I do not know now but it would not be hard to prove it, again I regret to have to use Google translator

 

[surfcaster]

referred:

https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/258611-speedstepper-now-supports-mountain-lion-1083/?page=9&tab=comments#comment-1745343

 

 

[Cyberdevs]

5 minutes ago, surfcaster said:

referred:

https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/258611-speedstepper-now-supports-mountain-lion-1083/?page=9&tab=comments#comment-1745343

Thanks and to be fair that looks a lot easier to do but still I've never used it is I'm not sure if that's gonna work to resolve the GPU issue as well as the CPUPM and SpeedSteps.

Edited July 22, 2018 by Cyberdevs

[surfcaster]

I think I understand that we are talking about taking the CPU to the GPU or vice versa, looking for a correct SMBios for the GPU and managing the CPU according to said SMBios, although here more things come into play that I do not know and that from what I have seen Apple has changed some things, but leaves us others to be able to "play"?

[Cyberdevs]

5 minutes ago, surfcaster said:

I think I understand that we are talking about taking the CPU to the GPU or vice versa, looking for a correct SMBios for the GPU and managing the CPU according to said SMBios, although here more things come into play that I do not know and that from what I have seen Apple has changed some things, but leaves us others to be able to "play"?

Yeah we can definitely give it a try and see if that works or not otherwise we can't know for sure

[arsradu]

57 minutes ago, Cyberdevs said:

Yeah that's possible , I'm not sure about the hybrid scenario I never used such thing but there's another way to achieve such result by manipulating the config map of the AppleGraphicsDisplayPolicy.kext inside the AppleGraphicsControl.kext and also AppleGraphicsDisplayPolicy.kext inside the AppleGraphicsPowerManagement.kext. 

It's not gonna be an easy task to make the changes and make it work but it's totally possible.

 

Programs such as AGDPFix, clover's on the fly patch and/or kexts like WEG, IntelGraphicsFixup and nVidiaGraphicsFixUp do the same thing as a part of their functionality (among many other things).

All you have to do is to check the board-id of the iMac's SMBIOS that works and compare it to the iMac's SMBIOS and board ID that you want to use and make the changes accordingly.

 

LOOOOLL I didn't think this was going to be THAT easy. I've got a hybrid SMBIOS now. And yeah, Quick Look and Preview and all that still work. Thank you!

 

So, changing the board-id will take the CPU PM options from the working (iMac13,2) and add it to the iMac14,2.

Aaand, if I wanna have only the graphics part patched, I need to find what's different in those kexts and apply a Clover patch-on-the-mosquito to it, right? Any idea what to look for?

Edited July 22, 2018 by arsradu

[Cyberdevs]

5 minutes ago, arsradu said:

LOOOOLL I didn't think this was going to be THAT easy. I've got a hybrid SMBIOS now. And yeah, Quick Look and Preview and all that still work. Thank you!

That's great

So did you change the config map of your iMac14,2 SMBIOS with the iMac13,1's settings?

[arsradu]

8 minutes ago, Cyberdevs said:

That's great

So did you change the config map of your iMac14,2 SMBIOS with the iMac13,1's settings?

 

I'm a noob. I only switched the board-id in the SMBIOS itself.  Which...well, works. :))) But now I'm sure it's not quite what you meant.

 

I'm looking into AGDP.kext's info.plist right now... I guess that's what I should have done in the first place, right? :)) Also, what do I need to replace in Clover config...? That's the confusing part. I mean, kext-to-patch -> the kext -> find -> replace etc. Ok but WHAT to look for and what to replace with? That's what I don't know.

 

I guess this is what you mean. The highlighted row is iMac13,2 (Mac-FC02E91DDD3FA6A4).

And the board ID of the iMac14,2 would be Mac-27ADBB7B4CEE8E61.

 

Right. Now, how do I get that into the config itself?

 

 

Edited July 22, 2018 by arsradu