Bugs with video in Sequoia

[eighthkeepa]

Hello,

I’ve been experiencing some strange and annoying bugs on Sequoia after upgrading from Ventura.

First, here’s my PC configuration:

• Intel Core i7-10700K
• Radeon RX 5600 XT
• 32GB RAM Crucial Ballistix
• Gigabyte Z490 Vision G motherboard
• Fenvi T919 Wi-Fi/Bluetooth PCIe card

It’s pretty similar to yours, except for the CPU and GPU.

I’ve been using your EFI config for two, maybe two and a half years now—basically since Catalina. It’s been working fine for the most part, but with Sequoia, I’ve run into some strange and frustrating issues.

The Bugs:

1. Random system freezes and app crashes
   These were happening initially, but it seems like enabling SIP has resolved them—for now, at least.

2. Video playback freezing
   This one is still driving me crazy. It doesn’t matter where or what video I’m trying to play—it could be a YouTube video in a browser or a video file in messengers like Telegram. The entire UI freezes for a couple of seconds and then goes back to normal. Then it freezes again. I've tried that in Chrome and Safari. The symptoms are similar.

During the freeze, I can still move the mouse, but nothing else responds and relaunching the System UI server doesn’t help.

Oddly enough, graphics performance is fine otherwise—I can play games without any freezing, even if I’ve just experienced the video playback bug beforehand.

Similar Issue in Catalina:
I had (and still have) a similar problem in Catalina, where I’d get random audio freezes in REAPER, but only in REAPER—not in other DAWs. That started happening after a minor system update.
I “fixed” it at the time by doing a fresh install of Ventura on a separate drive.

Now I’m considering rolling back to Ventura with a fresh install or doing a fresh install of Sequoia.
Any thoughts or advice on what might be causing this behavior would be great.

P.S: I can provide an EFI folder or any screenshots of my config but there are just some minor differences compared to yours.
P. P.S: Sorry for posting that in another repo yesterday. My bad. I just got lost in github pages =D

[5T33Z0]

I suggest you don't use the latest EFI releasse which was generated with OpCore Simplify. Instead, use the previous release from September 2024 and see if the issues remain.

In the time I've used the latest version, I haven't experienced any of the issue you are reporting.

For using this EFI in Catalina, you also need to adjust some things in the config. It's documented in the repo as well.

[eighthkeepa]

Okay, I’ll try rolling back to a previous EFI version from your repo. I’ll report back in 24 hours or 1-2 days since I need to observe how the system behaves over longer uptimes.

For now, I can say that these bugs seem to occur after the second "nap." By that, I mean when the monitor goes off after 20 minutes and the system idles. I don’t have sleep mode enabled on this machine since it’s a stationary PC.

Interestingly, these issues don’t happen after a fresh reboot or system start—only after the system has been "napping."

Oh, and I don’t need to modify the EFI for Catalina since I have it on a separate drive with the old EFI configuration. Everything there works great, except for that bug in REAPER, which I couldn’t resolve.

[eighthkeepa]

A small update on this.
I haven’t managed to replace the EFI yet, but I remembered to use the System Events console to dig into the issue.

Yesterday, I had no freezes with the current EFI. The only thing I did was run an OnyX cleanup, which probably has nothing to do with the freezing problem—so I’ll chalk it up to a minor miracle.

Turns out, it’s a problem with the GPU. I checked what happens when I open a video in Telegram, and it freezes. Here are two screenshots of system events showing the errors that occur when I play a video in Telegram and Safari.

Video in Telegram:

Video in Safari:

What concerns me the most is that GPURestart errors. That doesn’t seem like a good sign.
I’m guessing it might be related to energy efficiency somehow, but I’m not sure. Oddly enough, if I try playing video games, there are no such problems—this only happens with video playback and only after the second or third "display off" event.

I’ll finally try downgrading OpenCore and EFI to the version from your repo in September 2024.

P.S: I've downgraded OC and EFI to previous version. Updated CPUFriendDataProvider with higher lowest frequency, disabled RestrictEvents since it was never enabled in my Ventura installation and disabled AMFIPass.
Ill see if there'll be any video errors.

[5T33Z0]

I think you GPU isssue is unrelated to my EFI/Config. Because I use a Saphire Radeon RX580, everything graphics-related is handled by Whatevergreen – my config does not inject any Device Properties for the GPU. So, I think you have to do some research to fix this issue or generate your own EFI. I think there are some Radeon GPUs by some vendors that macOS doesn't like.

Also, ensure that the iGPU is enabled (and NOT set to Automatic in BIOS. Because the iGPU is used in macOS for computational tasks.

[eighthkeepa]

Okay, so I’ve been using the updated/downgraded OpenCore config for the last four days, and I gotta say—it’s been working great.

What I did and what I have now:

1. I’m using OC 103-2024-11-20, which is from your latest config, I presume.
2. Downgraded kexts to the versions from your config dated September 29, 2024.
3. Disabled RestrictEvents and AFMIPass kexts
4. Commented out OCLP-Settings and revpatch in NVRAM/Add > 4D1FDA02-38C7-4A6A-9CC6-4BCCA8B30102 by adding a #. These entries were commented in my previous OC config, so I decided to keep them commented here too.
5. Replaced all ACPI contents to match your September 29, 2024 config.
6. Enabled CPUFriend kext and reconfigured CPUFriendDataProvider, so the lowest possible CPU frequency is now 1300MHz.
7. Fully enabled SIP. I don’t know if I can upgrade the system via System Updates. 15.3 can be downloaded via AnyMacOS, but it doesn’t appear in System Updates. That’s fine since I’m not planning to upgrade in the next six months or so, but it’s still interesting.

Regarding Wi-Fi: I’ve decided to leave it disabled since there’s no way to activate it via a kext or so. Right now I'm using Intel I225-V enabled via a kext, which works great. I previously tried flashing my Ethernet controller with custom firmware but ran into system crashes or bugs—I can’t remember the exact details, but I ended up reverting the firmware to stock.
The only Apple Continuity feature I really needed was AirDrop, but I can live without it since LocalSend is a decent replacement - it can send files to devices on the local network, whether they’re connected via Wi-Fi or cable, as long as they’re on the same router.

For now, I’m happy with this setup and don’t plan to patch the kernel or mess with unsupported hardware further. Everything important is working, and it’s stable.

I’m not sure if I should close this issue right now or test the system further for another week or so. Let me know what you think. If you think it should be closed—alright then! It’s great to kinda solve the problem anyway.

P.S: OpCore Simplify sounds like an amazing tool for generating configs. Too bad that hardware info could be collected only on Windows.