Mattaton

Bumping this since it got buried pretty quick... I've had Nextcloud working fine for well over a year, but now my devices say the server is unavailable. Checking the server, NC is stuck in maintenance mode. If I manually turn maintenance mode off, the web ui then says there's an update to the mail app. When I try to update it, it says an error occurred and it goes back into maintenance mode. The "detailed logs" after the failed update says: So I'm stuck with either a mail update screen or a maintenance mode screen. Both result in a server that is unavailable/offline. I just updated to the latest nextcloud version, hoping that would knock out the issue, but no luck. I don't use the mail app, so I'm also fine if that could just be disabled to get around this. I still consider myself an unRAID/docker novice, but I can follow instructions. 😄 Thanks for any help!

I've had Nextcloud working fine for well over a year, but now my devices say the server is unavailable. Checking the server, NC is stuck in maintenance mode. If I manually turn maintenance mode off, the web ui then says there's an update to the mail app. When I try to update it, it says an error occurred and it goes back into maintenance mode. The "detailed logs" after the failed update says: So I'm stuck with either a mail update screen or a maintenance mode screen. Both result in a server that is unavailable/offline. I just updated to the latest nextcloud version, hoping that would knock out the issue, but no luck. I don't use the mail app, so I'm also fine if that could just be disabled to get around this. I still consider myself an unRAID/docker novice, but I can follow instructions. 😄 Thanks for any help!

So, make fun of me, I can take it, but I am not comfortable with CLI-based solutions. I feel like it's way too convoluted compared to GUI solutions. Yes, I do come from a primarily Windows workflow and have very limited knowledge of Linux-like environments. But, I love unRAID. 😄 Currently I am using SyncBack Pro on Windows to copy data from shares, over the network, and then back to the shared external drive plugged into the unRAID box. Obviously, this is slow (45-ish MiB/s) and I know I could do much better with a backup solution running directly on unRAID. Basically, I want a simple mirror to run nightly. Nothing overlay fancy yet, but I would like everything to be one-to-one. No compression or obfuscation. I found talk of Borg, and it supposedly has a GUI, but when I got into it, it still seems very CLI and config file based. Any help is appreciated!

We have a Veeam v11 backup running on a Windows Server 2016 machine. It backs up 3 Virtual Machines to our unRAID NAS. I am getting these errors fairly often, but not every time. Here's an example: Agent: Failed to process method {Transform.Patch}: An unexpected network error occurred. Failed to flush file buffers. File: [\\AP-ARCHIVES\BU_APServers\AP_VM_Backup\AP-Files.4d02479f-1280-4619-adcd-acd4831be3c4D2022-02-24T190053_66FD.vbk]. Agent: Failed to process method {Transform.Patch}: An unexpected network error occurred. Failed to flush file buffers. File: [\\AP-ARCHIVES\BU_APServers\AP_VM_Backup\AP-AD.9afa42e3-468c-499a-904a-c931eaa3112aD2022-02-24T190053_ED77.vbk]. I've also attached a screenshot of the Veeam report. You can see at the bottom it still says Success for all 3 VMs. So weird. Veeam support wants me to run Wireshark on our network to make sure specified ports are open, but since it runs sometimes, it doesn't seem like it'd be a port issue. Our external IT firm agrees that it doesn't seem to be a port issue. They blame the unRAID NAS since they aren't familiar with unRAID. And they could be right. I've just never had trouble with running backups to unRAID with apps other than Veeam. Has anyone out there used Veeam with unRAID? Thanks! ap-archives-diagnostics-20220309-1537.zip

I use RDP for Windows. I'd love something similar for MacOS. I'm completely new to MacOS, in general, let alone VMs. Splashtop and NoMachine are meh, too. I like how RDP uses my local display resolution as though I just connected that display to the actual machine.

Sorry. I'm late to the party. I see what you're talking about now. If it has a graphics card passed through (and with it, its graphical horsepower), will VNC access be smoother? Good question. And this is me speculating, because I don't know...my limited understanding is that VNC acts as its own display with drivers, etc. like a real graphics card. I'm not sure that the horsepower from a graphics card will affect VNC access at all. It seems like they'd be separate to me. When I access my Windows PC via VNC, it's still more sluggish than the physical hardware experience, even over the local network.

I would think it'd be night and day. Any computer is more sluggish accessed via VNC.

Myself and others have had the exact same problem. I'm a complete newb and I eventually got it going through the messages in this thread. Although, I did end up doing the VM manually rather than via MIAB.

I'm gonna have to buy you your drink of choice for all this knowledge you're slapping me with. 😄 Very much appreciated, sir! I'll be putting all this to use this evening! Well, most of it anyway. 🙂

So I understand correctly, the SMBIOS is basically the identity of the Mac, it contains model, serial number, and hardware info that identifies it on Apple servers? Does it matter what model you pick from the lineup? Gotcha, so if you ever let the OS update, you need to update the bootloader. Is that just as simple as swapping out the OpenCore image in the VM with the latest one? I have the OpenCore image as a separate image as you suggested. I did not modify the EFI on the OS image. And as we touched on earlier, the OpenCore image already has the kexts, right? So, I would also assume you never want to check the box in MacOS to automatically apply updates! Just getting a feel for what I'm getting into with an ongoing MacOS VM. 🙂

I haven't logged in with any Apple ID yet. Am I good to create a new Monterey VM (with a new SMBIOS) if I get the AMD card, or should I try to use the same SMBIOS from my current Big Sur VM? Clear some (more) confusion for me...you say to check once a month on the OpenCore updates. Does that mean I should be updating the bootloader image monthly on an existing/working VM? Or once I get a VM going and working properly, I can just use it as a normal computer without worrying about the bootloader?

You're an invaluable wealth of knowledge, sir! Thanks so much for the detailed explanations. I have learned a lot in just a few days! Sidenote question for you about the OpenCore bootloader... Via VNC, have you ever had the issue where the bootloader picker screen goes black as the mouse runs over the disk icons? Eventually, it's all just black and I have to blindly press Enter and hope the default drive is correct. I thought it was isolated to one instance, but it does the same thing on a different server. Same OpenCore.img, but different OS.

HAHAHA! Nobody games on a Mac VM, do they? 😄 That's just asking for trouble! 😄

Excellent. Thanks so much for the explanations! Helps me, "get it." 🙂 I've been using the latest OpenCore.img you sent me in the MIAB thread and have become accustom to getting the MacOS VMs to run without MIAB. I have no idea why using MIAB was proving so troublesome. I can do it manually without issue. The kexts are already in the OpenCore image? Is that right? I don't have to add kexts manually? I have a working Monterey VM on my main server (VNC only), and a Big Sur VM on this sandbox server. That's currently VNC only until I give the pass-thru a shot. If I can get the RX580, I'll just nuke the Big Sur VM and start over with Monterey. I want to up the size of the vdisk anyway. It's currently only 130GB, but I'm replacing a tiny 180GB cache drive with two 1TB cache drives. So, I'll up it to 500GB or so. 🙂

As this is all new to me, I will refrain from breaking the OS seal for now. 😄 Ah, so I'll need to switch my unRAID branch to get the 6.10 version in order to get the reset patch in order to get the AMD card to work? Gotcha. Not a problem since this is my sandbox server. 🙂 I'll swap out the graphics cards, add some 1TB cache drives, and upgrade to 6.10 tonight. Then we'll see how the graphics pass-thru goes. Thanks again for your help and insight!

Gotcha. Once my data-rebuild is done on this new server build (old hardware), I'll check the BIOS to see if I can select the default graphics. Otherwise, I'll just drop the better card to slot 2. You have me beat by a little bit, I'm putting an 8600 GTS in for the host gpu. 🙂 Here's my old-skool system, I'm interested to know your opinion on how screwed I am in getting a Big Sur VM to use the graphics card. Asus P9X79 LE i7 4820K MSI Twin Frozr GeForce GTX 760 24GB of RAM (3x8GB until I replace a bad 8GB stick) I'm an extreme novice (as you've seen on the MIAB thread), but from reading, it sounds like Big Sur can still work with a GTX 760. Is that correct? I'm going to try to get my hands on an AMD RX580 from work. That looks like it'll work up through Monterey. How monumental of a task am I about to tackle??? 😄 Thanks, @ghost82. You've been MOST helpful!

I haven't gotten into the nitty-gritty of this yet, but I wanted some input about sequencing. My motherboard/CPU does not have on-board graphics, so I have to have a graphics card for basic output. I'm assuming I'll need to have one, cheapo graphics card just for that basic output and then add my better graphics card to be passed-thru. At the moment, I only have the graphics card to be passed thru in the system. So, how would you guys go about switching things around? Can the better card stay in the top x16 slot on my mobo and then add the lesser card in the next slot? How do I get BIOS and unRAID to use the second-slot card by default? Thanks!

Hmmm...I see. No special sauce, per se. Makes sense!!! Luckily I'm just playing right now. I have no need or desire to run MacOS for important tasks. So, if I blow up the VM, not a big deal. I have Monterey up and running without MIAB, and as you suggested, I left the OpenCore image in place and all seems to be working. All this is running on unRAID, obviously. But now I'm toying with the idea of pulling out some old hardware (x79, 4820K, and maybe a GTX1050) and putting together a Linux machine specifically to run a MacOS VM where I can try passing through a graphics card. But, I need to do some research first on nVidia drivers and which MacOS versions I can use (I know that not all of them have up to date nvidia drivers available). That starts getting a lot deeper than a VM accessed virtually with VNC, NoMachine, etc. But, it'd be nice to have an actual machine, with an actual display, to sit down and mess with learning MacOS. 🙂

Excellent. I'm starting to see how it works. For me, it's always the 'why'. I can follow tutorials, but if I don't get the 'why' something is done, I can't wrap my head around it. So, OpenCore or Clover intercept the boot sequence and initiates the MacOS boot with some special sauce added that makes it all work. For the QEMU XML settings that SI1 has you copy from his text file specifically for High Sierra or Mojave, do I need to find something specific to Monterey, or will the settings for Mojave work? Thanks for all your help. Very much appreciated!!!

Oh, so I leave the opencore image in the VM settings? So the VM will have 2 images, opencore and the macos vdisk. I'm sorry. I know I seem terribly obtuse. 😄 I'm getting it slowly, but surely.

I did as SPI1's video said, which I believe was to copy the EFI files over to the macos install image/disk. I thought you just had to do this to make it work. I'm ig'nant of how all this stuff works. 😄 I have nothing to lose here. So, if it's best to just start over with a new VM, I can do that rather than trying to salvage an existing VM. When doing the clean install, do I not do the part with the EFI that SI1 shows in the video? I just do the SMBIOS and that's it?

I ended up being successful in getting a Mojave VM going based on one of SI1's earlier videos that did not use Macinabox. Is it possible to either upgrade Mojave to Monterey within the VM or could I follow the same steps with a Monterey install image? For some reason, every time I use Macinabox, I end up with the "Guest has not initialized the display" error. 😕 Though I'm not sure why, because the first few times I installed via Macinabox I did not get that problem.

I seem to be going from bad to worse. All kinds of seemingly unrelated issues. I have fully cleaned out MIAB several times. Here is what's happening... After creating the VM with the MIAB helper script, I then try to run the VM to install the OS. I get this: That led me to realize that the Macinabox_VARS-pure-efi.fd file was not being downloaded. So I downloaded that from GitHub and manually added it to the custom_ovmf folder. That let the VM start. But then I get this: As I said, I've fully removed MIAB, the VM, appdata, Docker template, etc. I've rebooted my server. Other VMs are running fine. I'm not sure what's wrong here. First time I've seen this. I've installed MIAB yesterday and created VMs, installed MacOS, I just couldn't get it to boot. I started over today and now I can't even get into the VM. 😞

I did it as @ghost82 described in his post that @KittenMittons said worked for him in the comment I linked to previously. Here's the original comment with the steps: I must be missing something in what his Step 7 means. (Again, I am a straight-up newb.) Does mount partition and change SMBIOS mean the step where we copy the EFI files to the MacOS disk? Now I'm seeing that his step 8 says NOT to copy the EFI files, but I don't know what else was done in Step 7. What does changing the SMBIOS look like? What part of SpaceInvaderOne's video did that? Sorry, I'm being dense. 😄

I swapped out the opencore.img file as described below and still have the same problem. 😕 Oh well. I'll just wait for a new version of MIAB and then see what happens.