I had to abandon ship and completely wipe the ssd on my macbook about a month ago. I was able to back everything up to an external drive with carbon copy cloner, but apparently i did not format the drive right and it is not bootable. I have moved all my cracked components,vst, vst3, and application support folders over to the laptop, but some of the plugins are acting as if they have not been authorized. What are some other missing folders i might need to look for on the external drive ? Or is there anyway to reformat the external drive to make it bootable?

 

You should use the carbon copy drive and point the system installer at the step when it offers to migrate a saved system. It would migrate your programs and also the content of your programs that are in system library folders.
Then you just need to check if the process migrated folders from the old Documents folder, too. There are folders and files for certain plugins and programs there.
Also it's recommended naming your user (home) account identical to the old one.

 

Thanks man. Ive got pretty much everything squared except omnisphere. Its saying the its unable to access my steam folder.

 

Did you also name the new system drive identical to the previous one?

 

just noticed this thread and wanted to share info with Catalina users because I spent a week, at least 30 hours trying to deal with Catalina on a MacBook Pro and SSD drives not soldered unto the MacBook Pro version I was using., if your lucky to have one of these older MBPs you can upgrade the internal SSD, in my case I was lucky I had a external SSD enclosure for the ssd made specifically for the MBP example A1425 etc.

Here is what happened, the MBP suddenly started acting weird, it would not start up., I get a no OS folder etc
I rebooted in Recovery+R, trying running disk tools (which does nothing), reset Prm, SMC blah blah, I basically did not want to re install Catalina assuming I would erase everything on the drive..

Then i read info on the SuperDuper site about Catalina where it states that this OS creates a separate partition or volume where your data will be untouched during a update or upgrade with Catalina, so after I rebooted of ext drive OS I examined the older drive but could not see this volume, until I finally noticed it in the disk utilities after selecting show all devices!, then I backed up whatever and attempted to re install Catalina, but after hours of waiting for it to finish the computer would shut off during start up!

After so many reboots from a external drives, I decided to copy all the files (components etc) to a new system on one of the ext drives, but the same thing was going on with this drive, in fact during the installation it would get ejected!, was like back to square one.

Then I found out that although the MBP was older and had no type2 chip you still need to disable the system integrity security whatever its called, so I did this in the terminal after booting into recovery and voila!, I installed the system on the original internal SSD!, it worked, but the user was still tainted with something from a crack or developer or whatever, so I cloned everything and started over.

Everything was well since and whenever someone has any issue disabling with the terminal and re enabling this feature seemed to of worked around Catalina issues.

in fact the only issue I had after all this was when someone wanted to create a new user and start fresh due to apple junk like Notes, stickies etc because they had tons of notes now that you can drag long videos in notes including movies, this one person had notes both in her iCloud and on My Mac (offline), to figure this out I had to refer to a time machine or CCC back up, locating them and other things in the user/container and user/group/container I would remove the fresh folders on the desktop and copy the older ones into the new user and all worked fine, just had to wait a while for the cloud versions to sync if files where big..

This is the Catalina BS ppl need to know about, im not trying to find a complete work around ilok type apps, I had a eventide H9000 type audio unit which was working side by side ilok with eventide black hole running and no issues at all, until I tried a nice juicy K of Plugin Alliance., then I don't know what happened., I had to started over again with Catalina as issues started.

I stay install a fresh system, clone it, then add and clone as you go but I get the feeling some cracks act up weeks after they are installed or some adware is planted., im trying to come up with a complete solution so I can use some cracks with out issues.

 

so roll it back to Mojave. Last time I had to start with High Sierra and then update because I managed to lock myself out of the apple store.
It's easy to forget a stored app password when you only really reboot your computer to complete program installations.

 

will all the nice SSL native cracks work in Mojave?
and what about
Pro tools crack?
Waves Cracks?
Plugin Alliance mega cracks?
SofTube plugs ins (Marshalls tube pres etc) cracked?

 

I have yet to see any current scene released plugin for Mac which does not run on Mojave, that will run on Catalina or Big Sur. (It's really the opposite!) I run Logic not PT so no AAX, but any specific others you have concerns about; send me a link via DM and I will confirm correct installation and function. Waves is definitely working as of the Waves.Complete.v12.17.02.21-MAC release. I installed it yesterday without any problems.

overall, if they work on Mac at all, they work in Mojave. You can use JBridge or 32lives for old 32bit stuff, but in general I do not.

 

Last edited: Feb 18, 2021

Maybe i can run catalina using parallels desktop lol cause i use apple notes allot now, folders and unlimited subfolders makes it perfect for mind planning ideas with decent size photos and videos.

i also use logic but like to get a hold of pro tools as well, im now running a 30 day ultimate demo (crap still uses the net)..maybe i can apply for a demo every month with different ilok and gmail lol

i own the essential os stuff, little snitch, carbon copy cloner, a vpn, maybe i should buy 32lives and switch to majove (any suggestions appreciated)

So you say majove and all my current plugs like ssl native etc will run fine..wow!
But majove does semm a bit slow compared to catalina no?

Here is what i like to set up, can you please tell me if i can ever get any of these apps running on majove?

DAW
Logic pro (latest)
Pro tools

PLUGINS
Plugin alliance mega with lindel etc (i found lindel on a russian site bit not tested it yet)
Waves 12 everything possible
Softube marshall amps and any of their mastering software.
Melodyne full,
Ik multimedia amplitube
Ni instruments komplete
Eventide complete exology, i have the blackhole and its amazing,
SSL native bundle (i own the ssl2+ vocal and drum strip, as well as the essentials no on sale $50)
Lexicon reverbs
Relab lexicon verb
Fabfilter all
Valhala all
Ozone all
Focusrite red suite, blue suite, liquid mix etc


Some vstis
Arturia complete
Korg legacy collection
Xfer serum
Uhe diva
Omnisphere, got the banks sitting around, almost a tb
Any 303, 808, 909
Waldorf
Moog
Ni komplete
Dune 3

Legacy synths (maybe with 32 lives)
ReFX vanguard,nexus,
M-tron

I can go on

 

everything on your list that I know of scene releases, I can run. On Audionews, there is an "uncracked list" that they keep kinda current. You can't even request those items because it is a waste of everyones time. Like Nexus2/3 for Mac.

I left Catalina on my 2017 MacBookPro just as long as it took me to figure out how to roll it back to Mojave. I can't say anything about it being faster. Faster at what? lol.

I have a 61 key Virus TI2. my favorite synth. it works over USB for Audio and Midi. With the synth plugin linked directly to the hardware synth. When Access posted that they would not be making a Catalina compatible version of the plugin, I immediately started working on getting rid of it. Many people have actually sold Virus synths because of it! Resale on them is down quite a bit. But that is people just being stupid.

anyway, if you look on https://upawg.ca. that is a database of everything scene released. aside from any groups internal releases. If it is on that list, almost everything will work. some installs can be tricky with permissions reset or BatChmod. Another helpful utility is Wineskin Winery. A lot of the R2R releases use a key gen method they say to use on Windows. But if you run Winery, it basically creates a wrapper for the EXE file inside a WINE emulation sort of scenario. Some installs are trickier than others, but if they are on that list they work or they would get nuked.

The Roland drum machines are in the Roland Cloud releases, so you have to install their fkn manager application. But they work. I don't have installed anymore, it was annoying.

Of your list, most of the ones I have not seen are the higher end dynamics fx plugins. ssl, eventide, lexicon. nothing current for Mac, anyway. And Waldorf, Moog, and your Legacy synth list. Aside from those, I think you are good, all should be easy to find.

 

interesting