Since installing Catalina yesterday, multiple crashes from userspace watchdog timeout

I solved! it was enough to start the PC and press cmd+R and keep it pressed until a screen appears to reinstall the operating system. I chose to reinstall it, and it was the correct choice, I have not lost any data, simply reinstalled the OS from the beginning. After 45 minutes the OS is back to 100% operational, it restarts and shuts down regularly, I don't tell you how happy I feel! try it too. i follow this instruction:

<< (Restart, while holding Command-R)

If you can, run Disk Utility, and try a Repair Disk.

If that completes with no problems found, Quit Disk Utility, which will return you to the recovery menu.

Then, you will likely want to Reinstall OS X. It will use your internet

connection to download the system, then will continue with the

reinstall. You won't lose your own files and apps, but the reinstall

will simply reinstall the system in place.

Assuming your boot drive is still good, that should fix your kernel panic issue. >>

Link: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/panic-cpu-2-caller-error.1961380/

WindowServer kernel panic appears to be mitigated by preventing Catalina from idling the external devices. I found that even if I disabled all power nap/sleep, etc and have the laptop plugged in this issue will always occur after stepping away from the computer & happens just as the external monitors switch to low-power /idle mode. I tried different brands of monitors (BenQ, Asus, Dell) and all of them result in a kernel panic when MacOS sends a signal that the computer is idle and they switch to low-power mode.

By opening Terminal.app & running the following command I'm able to prevent the system from idling and causing a kernel panic:

caffeinate -u -d

"-u" tells the system to act like there is an active user & "-d" also prevents displays from sleeping. You can still activate your screensaver when you step away by setting up hot corners.

At least this can buy some time until a fix is made available by Apple or you can back it up & send in for support.

POTENTIAL SOLUTION

After it getting so bad that last night I had a whole 14 minutes in between kernel panics, I did some more online research this morning and found a bunch of threads of various forums claiming issues with Google Drive File Stream, which I have installed (along with VMware Fusion, Virtualbox etc that have been mentioned in this thread).

The solution that has worked for thus far since implementing it this morning has been to go into System Preferences, Spotlight, Privacy and add any GDFS roots as exclusions from the locations Spotlight should index.

I’m not sure whether this is something to do with GDFS files not actually being present on the system and the copy on write functionality of APFS which Catalina requires failing to index them properly and somehow causing watchdog to crap itself, but regardless, so far it has apparently solved the issue.

If this is indeed the case then it's plausible similar solutions like Dropbox's Smart Sync may also need excluding (I don't have Smart Sync switched on mine so can't confirm).

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/251140242

Is is because of this adapter:

USB-C Digital AV Multiport Adapter. If it’s plugged in the Mac’s port, regardless if the external monitor or UHD TV is on or off, it just goes into a standby mode when the Mac is idle for 5-7 minutes. The system is trying to recover but after 5 Spin crashes, kernel will go into panic. It is deceiving because it can crash at any app you lastly used before Mac went into idle. If a video or movie is played or the computer is used constantly, then there’s no crashes, because the adapter cannot idle.

This video adapter became all the sudden obsolete after Catalina update.

I had a chat with an Apple Support specialist early this week. He was very helpful, courteous, a professional in his field; as always, including the Genius personnel at the Apple Store when I had questions regarding several issue(s) with my Macs.

Long story short: the Apple specialist covered all the basic pre-macOS Catalina install procedures, including post Catalina troubleshooting basic procedures. Such as:

Pre-macOS Catalina install (upgrade) procedure:

1. Making sure the boot HDD or SSD is free of errors; boot procedure regarding using Disk Utility, Check / Repair ==> About macOS Recovery https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201314; if ok, next procedure

2. Uninstall all third party apps that didn’t have an option to update / upgrade in order to be operational on macOS Catalina. Note, these are actually 64 bit applications that eventually do not have the latest (necessary) updates to run trouble free in macOS Catalina.

After Catalina Install - basic troubleshooting procedures:

1. How to reset the System Management Controller (SMC) on your Mac: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201295; if not ok, next procedure

2. Follow instructions on how to Reset NVRAM or PRAM on your Mac: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204063; if still not ok, next procedure

3. Repeat Disk Utility, Check / Repair procedure (link above) to make sure the HDD or SSD data is still pristine.

4. If all of the above don’t clear the issue(s) ==> Create a New Administrator account to check if the issue is encountered in that new account. How to test an issue in another user account on your Mac: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204443

Note, I have created a new admin account and the Kernel panic and crashes went away. Also, you may want to use an application that points out the issues, like EtreCheck for example, and get to know what causing Kernel panics and crashes, including beachball spin errors and crashes. Work from that app generated report to get information on available updates or upgrades on the apps in question. If no further updates or upgrades are available, see if the app can be removed by means of conventional uninstall option. If that is not available, search for manual alternatives to remove the app and any orphan files left behind from an incomplete, (rather partial) uninstallation(s); (Note, "Cleaner" like apps might not work 100% in new macOS Catalina; most importantly, not recommended).

In My case, I found some some launch agents like I.e. “com.paragon-software.ntfs.notification-agent” by Paragon Software GmbH, and “org.macosforge.xquartz.startx” ==> Install date Xquartz is 2016-10-26 02:57:09. So, Xquartz has to go since is outdated - I week before I thought it was removed, but… I have no explanation on how it got back.

Hope this helped. Regards.

I'm on macOS 10.15 (19A602), I believe a second patch is currently rolling out which I haven't seen pushed to my machine yet. I'm on a CalDigit with 2 external 4k monitors also. I've had the same idle crashes as well as a few in use crashes where the mouse cursor will still move but everything is essentially locked and I have to power cycle. I started digging in down the 32bit app rabbit whole. AWS workdocs app was showing up in the crash report. I pulled down a fresh install of that from Amazon, and also I still had caffeine running which is 32bit. I had some old Epson scan software (32bit) that wasn't running but still sitting in applications folder. After removing caffeine and 32 epson software and downloading new instance of AWS app, I've been stable for 2 days now (I cringe even saying that but hope it persists). I'm not sure which of these helped but I'd venture to guess it was 32bit caffeine app that is clearly no longer supported on Catalina. Hope that helps.

So at least for me after focusing on this problem I think I have it solved. It felt like it was the old Logitech Controller ( both the LCC and the Logitech Options). My process was looking for all 32 bit applications and removed them ( even the ones in the /Library) Catalina doesn't let you run 32bit applications anymore by launching them but somehow the Logitech Options was able to start - maybe because it was in the boot sequence. Either way that was one that I removed and one that was actually running. I was able to have my laptop sit overnight with no reboot, have it sit just not for an hour with no reboot ( and not putting it to sleep). I know I saw others say you don't have 32 bit apps, but if you check in applications under system information and click on each app - some of these don't show in legacy section you have to look at the Kind field in the info on the application. 32/64bit apps are ok, its just when they say 32bit only.

First, I recommend clearing SMC/VRAM after each update. As they are messing with drivers (probably) this needs to be done. After this is done, there were some "panics" left, but I could avoid "most" of them (now it is about "just" one every 2-3 days) by modifying some configuration settings:

1) In "energy saver", I disabled "enable power nap while..." (both in 'battery' and in 'power adapter') and "prevent computer from sleeping automatically when he display is off"

2) In "notifications", I disabled 'allow alls from everyone' and 'allow repeated calls' under "When do not disturb is on"

(2) is because I found that do not disturb was activated when the display is sleeping and in that case, receiving, e.g. a mail or whatsapp notification, usually produced a panic.

I agree that catalina is SERIOUSLY compromised: I bought a new computer thinking that my old good pal, a macbook pro from late 2013 was the cause of so many panics, to see that my new macbook pro experiences just the same problems. However, this configuration seems to be "good enough" to at least be productive.

My hypotheses is that the problem is really deep and it has to do with memory buffers affecting at least hard disks and video memory, so extensive use of disk transfers (e.g. photos uploads, time-machine long backups) and memory transfers (e.g. handling many different desktops in multi-display configurations, long - >100GB - Word documents) fails to reset some watchdog. Hope they solve everything soon.

MDS is Apples Spotlight service which indexes stored content to make your searches faster.  A few Apple Support threads reveal when the spotlight index is corrupt the the device can freeze and reboot more often if plugged into power and even more often if you have an external monitor since MDS appears involved with putting monitors to sleep. This also fit for users observing their fans speed up during the freeze before reboot due to the built up heat from the i/o disk activity with the corrupt metadata.

If you have time please try turning off the Spotlight Indexing for your main drive and any additional drives including the Drobo drive someone mentioned having earlier in this thread. Also disable Spotlight indexing for your USB storage sticks you might have connected during these crashes. After you disable the Spotlight indexing then any corrupt metadata (potentially causing your freezing and hanging) will be gone. You can run without Spotlight indexing but your disk searches would be slow so feel free to turn Spotlight Indexing back on which will rebuild the metadata by indexing content on every storage device you connect.

The steps are really easy to disable and then enable Spotlight indexing. They are listed in this short Apple Support document on how to rebuild your Spotlight index https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201716

If you have three minutes then rebuild your Spotlight index.

This appears to have worked for me.

My 16” 2019 MacBook was experiencing constant crashes with 10.15.5 with the error: panic(cpu 6 caller 0xffffff7f8879cad5): userspace watchdog timeout: no successful checkins from com.apple.WindowServer in 140 seconds. This occurred when the Mac went to sleep with an external monitor attached using clamshell mode. I updated to 10.15.6, but decided not to restore from a TimeMachine backup. I did a clean install, then reloaded files and programs. I use Dropbox do it wasn’t too big a deal.

I have now been running for 3 days without incident / crashes. I am back to using clamshell mode again.

For those still having trouble even after trying 10.15.6, you may want to do a TimeMachine backup of your current setup, then do a clean / new install (command-option-R). Don’t restore from backup, and try things out for a day or so. If things look better you can always using Migration Assistant to pick and choose what you want to restore. That may help you diagnose the problem. You can always restore back from the Time Machine backup if the clean install doesn’t help.

Monkeyman8,

Here is what worked FOR ME (DISCLAIMER: My research has shown that this in-place 10.15.5 downgrade works for some, but not for others, so this is a definite "your mileage may vary" situation. Please do a backup before attempting any of this, and do your own research. DO NOT try it simply because it seems to have worked for me. I am only sharing what worked for me on my 2019 Macbook Pro (15") that was previously running Catalina 10.15.6. And I strongly believe MY primary issue was Catalina 10.15.6 and virtualization software -- the combination was causing memory leaks, which led to kernel panics, watchdog timeouts, and such. And my research showed that downgrading to 10.15.5 would likely resolve THIS issue until Apple can officially put out an o/s fix.

Thanks to a suggestion in the VMWare Community forum, I downloaded a free utility called MDS:

https://twocanoes.com/products/mac/mac-deploy-stick/

Install it, and when it launches, there is a Tools section in left-hand panel that has option called "Download macOS". Choose that, and after a couple of minutes, it comes back with a MacOS build list (I think this tool simply connects to Apple's API for build distribution). I chose 10.15.5 (Build 19F2200), and then clicked Download button. It will give you a "Busy" spinning wheel at the bottom (but nothing else), so if you want to actually track progress, go to the MDS "Window" menu (at top) and choose "Show Log". This will open a dialog window that will show you real time progress in a running log file. It took a while for mine to download & assemble (maybe 2-2.5 hours, but I have slow internet), but the end result was that it created a "sparseimage" file under "Users/Shared/macos_10155" subfolder. The log will show you the exact location of your file.

Double-click this sparseimage file (Install_macOS_10.15.5-19F2200.sparseimage) and it should open up a window with 2 folders -- "Applications" and "Library". Open up "Applications", and there should be an app ("Install macOS Catalina.app"). Double-click that app, and you should get the nice/pretty Catalina installer window. Start the installer, and after a few minutes, it will reboot and do the actual downgrade/install (mine took about 30 minutes total to complete).

After the install completed and my Macbook Pro restarted, I noticed that my touchbar was NOT visible (uh oh... what did I mess up?!), but after doing a bit of research, it appears that this is not so uncommon. I reset the SMC (https://osxdaily.com/2019/01/14/how-reset-smc-macbook-air-pro-2018-later/), and my touchbar was back as always -- no issues whatsoever since.

Again, this worked FOR ME, and all of my apps and data remained intact (and I'm now happily running 10.15.5 with no kernel panics and/or reboots -- at least for now!).

After 20+ hours on the phone with AppleCare tech support, they finally had me take my Mac into Simply Mac for a full diagnostic. I was able to replicate the kernel panic while they were running their diagnostic and the report came back as a RAM issue. I have 8gb (two 4gb sticks) of Apple standard and expanded with 32gb (two 16 gb sticks) of OWC DDR4, as specified by Apple specs to fit my Mac. Simply Mac said they have seen other cases where the Mac misbehaves with outside RAM that does not at least match the standard size left in the machine. They also said it could be a bad motherboard. The machine is still with them for further testing, trial and error, etc. They will try to take out the Apple stock so I can maintain 32gb of RAM and see if it stabilizes. They said it could take several days until they can give me a definitive answer on what path forward will be suitable for my machine. It seems to me that Apple has been trying to force the Apple Tax on everything and no one is buying their obscenely overpriced RAM. So, maybe, those who upgraded upfront get the less sensitive motherboards? I dunno, it just seems fishy. I upgraded the RAM on my 2011, the one I'm writing this on, and have never had a problem.

I was having this since November of last year and constantly reporting this. I escalated to the point they replaced my logic board. Nothing helped. Finally they came out with a system update and that has fixed it for me. I'm now running the latest catalina and I don't have the problem any longer.

Christopher

It was fixed with a supplemental update to 10.15.6 which was available to everyone who had the original 10.5.6 update that contained the bug; everyone downloading 10.15.6 after that supplemental update was released downloaded a new build containing the bug fix. So, naturally, 10.15.7 contains the fix as well.