MacOS – MacBookPro 2011 GPU failure. Csrutil command will not work at all

macbook promacosterminal

I am having the GPU failure issue and I'm trying to disable some kexts however i'm constantly told operation permitted.

I am following Lizardtrons video on Youtube where it seems atleast 2.2K people have had success however I'm stuck.

I have installed Dosdudes software to automatically delete the kexts for me however it still says SIP is enabled.

I am running MacOS Sierra 10.12.6. I can add more info if needed.

I cannot for the life of me disable csrutil in terminal, safe mode or recovery mode. It says the command is not found. It is as if computer does not know the command.

However when I type in 'csrutil status' in terminal on the desktop it actually says SIP enabled.

So its recognising it on the desktop terminal but not on safe mode(cmd S) and Recovery mode (cmd R).

I have also tried internet recovery to newest install newest OS however it only promts me to install OX Lion.

I installed El Capitan onto an external HD to see if I could boot a new OS from that but when holding option key prior to boot, the only HD that comes up is the internal drive and not the external boot drive.

I am running MacOS Sierra 10.12.6

All i need to do is 'csrutil disable' so operations can be permitted.

I've been at it for 3 days now and I really don't want to give up as I've got a week off work and decided to dig this out of its death!

Any help is greatly appricieated. I am not 100% tech savy however I can adapt fast with instructions etc??

Also sorry if the question is all over the place.

Best Answer

Just incase anyone had this same issue.

I had to use a new external HD (backed up everything onto it) and booted with that using option button.

Then erased the internal disk using disk utility and it then allowed me to do a fresh MacOS which then updated the recover software to 10.12.6 Sierra.

Which then therefore allowed me to disable csrutil in Recovery mode.

Related Solutions

Terminal – Resolving ‘csrutil: command not found’ Issue in macOS

The netboot image loaded by booting to Internet Recovery Mode apparently doesn't contain the executable csrutil.

The OS X Base System loaded while booting to Recovery Mode should contain it though. By pressing cmdR a 2-step procedure is initiated: First the Mac is booted to Recovery HD and then after expanding BaseSystem.dmg to "OS X Base System" (which is the name of the mounted BaseSystem.dmg). If you see an animated globe after pressing cmdR your Mac probably doesn't have a Recovery HD.

Check the system version (or product version) of the Recovery HD/Base System:

To check the system version (1 in the screenshot below), boot to your main volume and enter the following in Terminal:

diskutil list #to get the disk identifier of your Recovery HD; usually it's disk0s3 with a size of ~650 MB
diskutil mount disk0s3
cat /Volumes/Recovery\ HD/com.apple.recovery.boot/SystemVersion.plist | grep -A 2 ProductVersion

Additionally you may mount BaseSystem.dmg and check the system version (2 in the screenshot below) there also:

open /Volumes/Recovery\ HD/com.apple.recovery.boot/BaseSystem.dmg
cat /Volumes/OS\ X\ Base\ System/System/Library/CoreServices/SystemVersion.plist | grep -A 2 ProductVersion

Download and reinstall the latest OS X El Capitan full installer if the system version of the base system is 10.10.x or lower.

Disable SIP in MacOS – Without Recovery Mode for Mac Pro GPU

Edit: to answer your actual question, you can't do it from anywhere except Recovery Mode, so anything you do must be done from there.

Tested on a similar 4,1 upgraded to 5,1 [but I have a flashed graphics card so I could see what I was doing]

Reboot & at the chimes hold Cmd ⌘ R for about 10s.
Wait until you get to Recovery Mode, which for me took approx 45s from the chimes [I'm on SSD but I think it may have chosen a Recovery on another HD to actually boot from] Give it a minute or so just to be safe.

Fn Ctrl ⌃ F2 will switch focus to the menu bar, specifically the Apple logo, top left.

It appears that whatever you have set in System Prefs > Keyboard for "Use all F1, F2 keys as standard function keys" that this option is disabled in Recovery, so even though just Ctrl ⌃ F2 works for me in a running OS, in Recovery I needed the added Fn key.

From there, you can navigate using the arrow keys

Pic from https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/254167/85275

From that you can see that Terminal is 4 to the right, then 4 down.
It's 4 not 3 because the first down arrow opens the menu.

Hit Enter & Terminal will launch.
Type csrutil disable & hit Enter
Type reboot & hit Enter.

If it reboots, you got it right - otherwise you'll have to have another guess.

BTW, golden rule, as you have discovered, is keep your crappy old stock Apple card somewhere safe, for occasions such as this ;-)

Additional note: Fn Ctrl ⌃ F2 is a toggle. First will select the menu bar, second will deselect, so make sure to only do it once.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Terminal – Resolving ‘csrutil: command not found’ Issue in macOS

Disable SIP in MacOS – Without Recovery Mode for Mac Pro GPU

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