Since installing Catalina yesterday, multiple crashes from userspace watchdog timeout

Since removing Google Drive File Stream, I haven't had a single lock. I worked the system hard today, doing tasks that could trigger 1 - 3 lockups easily. Not sure if that will help your situation, but give it a try.

I suspect Google Drive File Stream is trying to obtain a lock or using a semaphore and it works differently in Catalina (bug) to cause a lock when the app is also trying to do the same thing.

Quick update: tried the 'keep Terminal window open at all times' approach and did not work for me. I have now changed my power settings to never turn off display so computer never sleeps. Not the method that I prefer at all, but no more crashes.

Looks like for me it was the display link driver causing this problem. Can’t remember why I even installed it but after uninstalling it my Mac was not off this morning for the first time in a long time. Might be still too early to determine, idk.

Sorry, gotta deflate.

But this Catalina is a piece of crap!

I'm very sorry I installed Catalina.

I have besides the watchdog crashes which come up again and again also problems with copy&paste e.g. in Photoshop. I also have problems with Safari over two screens. And there is even more in the mail program.

It is the absolute horror, because these are partly serious errors. And it's just completely **** that nothing happens from Apple. We are really ready for Microsoft now. I don't see much difference anymore. I'm just so disappointed!

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

Interestingly I thought the same, but eventually I got a similar Kernel Panic upon wake despite having auto sleep after a certain time disabled and manually sleeping the computer. I took many sleeps and wakes over the course of several weeks, though so it definitely seems to help it happen more seldom at least.

No common denominator for me.

None of the workarounds offered have made any difference to my simple setup. Fresh install, one monitor, no sleep, terminal always open with never ending stuff running, and so on.

Without any change of configuration my machine started to beachball, freeze, and reboot several times a day after doing it once a day for several weeks.

WindowServer is the culprit. The logs say so. End of the story.

There may be several bugs there, and several aggravating triggers. Granted.

It's human to try and get rid of the triggers to be able to get anything done, but at some point it's pure masochism to try and fix the unfixable. Or a vocation may be? The path to sanity is a full reinstall of an older operating system that is known to work just fine. I don't care about the bells and whistles. I just want Mail, Safari, Xcode, the occasional Pages and Keynote, and more than that, I want long winded processes that make the CPUs get red-white and the fan blow like **** to run uninterrupted for several days or weeks until completion. Right now Catalina is a no-no for that kind of job, and yes it smells like Windows until 2003. I simply refused to work with Windows since, and my last taste of it last week made me recoil in horror.

At least we have known OSX versions that are rock solid like Windows has never been.

Use your Time Machine backups and go back in time!

First it will you get up and running again, as if you were waking up from a bad dream.

Second, Apple will get a set back in their sales forecasts, because new OS mean new machines out of the door while old OSes mean longer ownership.

There should be something we have in common – AMD (Radeon) graphics card perhaps? Or does it happen for anyone with Intel graphics only? I haben’t had the problen on my work computer with Intel only GPU.

I'm up todate on the beta release and running 10.15.3 Beta (19D62e), still having issues. But disabling power management has stopped the crashes and kept the system up. Currently managed 8 days.

Ohh and keeping terminal open does nothing for me either.

Hi bathnm

Can you kindly give the exact steps you are using to disable power management? Thanks!

Also, I've got the new 2019 MBP 16 with the following graphics:

AMD Radeon Pro 5500M 8 GB

Intel UHD Graphics 630 1536 MB

Hi PM,

In Energy Saver I selected "Prevent computer from sleeping automatically when the display is off". A few have done this and reported it stops crashes. It seems the crashes are linked to power management and bringing the device out of sleep mode, or it going into sleep mode. This setting stops any sleep.

I'm trying to temper my excitement, but using the settings given by Xebrawerx above, I did not have a crash while my MBP 16 was connected to my external displays! This is the first time since I bought this computer in Nov 2019. Huzzah!

NB. I also turned off "Automatic graphics switching" for the first time before bed yesterday. So I will turn in back on now and see if it still keeps from crashing.

Too bad beta 2 of 10.15.3 still have the problem. Let’s hope for beta 3. I've been reporting all my problems about this to Apple and have opened a specific bug report about this problem that I've updated with logs continously.

I (I guess most of us) really want to be able to sleep and wake the computer reliably – both automatically after a certain time and manually. :-/

Update: Turned "Automatic graphics switching" back on and didn't touch anything else. Crashed again overnight. Turned it back off and no crashes all day yet today even when I walk away from computer and come back to it sleeping.

Really starting to compile more evidence it's all about GPU. I've got the new 2019 MBP 16 with the following graphics:

AMD Radeon Pro 5500M 8 GB

Intel UHD Graphics 630 1536 MB

Anybody else make sense of this? I'm guessing we all don't have the same graphics units...

Yes. Two LG displays. I never unplug them.

but when I do (for testing this issue) no crashes.

so problem for me seems to be combination of automatic graphic switching + external displays. Automatic graphic switching and no external displays is fine.

Have you tried to use 'Amphetamine' from the App Store to keep a screensaver forced on overnight? This works for me. Not ideal by any stretch, but at least I can keep my $5k iMac Pro ON overnight...