Since installing Catalina yesterday, multiple crashes from userspace watchdog timeout

3 pages before you stated SMC fixed the issue for you and not cables. 18 pages of comment wont generate with cable issue. Are you randomly adding comment for points? Do you even test more than a day as you fix for same problem seemed change page after page

Very sad to report kernel panic even with Automatic Graphic Switching turned off.

Woke up to this again:

panic(cpu 12 caller 0xffffff7f9419dad5): userspace watchdog timeout: no successful checkins from com.apple.WindowServer in 120 seconds

service: com.apple.logd, total successful checkins since wake (130 seconds ago): 14, last successful checkin: 0 seconds ago

service: com.apple.WindowServer, total successful checkins since wake (130 seconds ago): 2, last successful checkin: 120 seconds ago

Ugh

Will give Ampethamine a chance as suggested above. The app ;)

I have a Mac mini so no internal display, just two external LG displays. So nots are it is graphics switching.

In the early days, I believe changing the screen saver from source Catalina to Landscapes stop the crashes.... Maybe time to go back and see if that still works.

So a little more diagnosis on my one .... Mac Pro (iBin cylinder), 1xDisplayLink 4K, 1 x HDMI 1080p

I changed how I use the machine and have been running the 4k Screen on HDMI only (change of connector and single display). Using the the Mac Pro for programming/admin and video encoding work and pushing video replay to another machine.

I managed 4 days without a WindowsServer hang crash! (I was getting 1-2 an hour)

Streaming from a local rtsp source, and local files, a 1080 Video in VLC, and the machine hung within 30 minutes with the WindowsServer timeout. VLC thinks it was still playing in the background as audio was still playing until the watchdog kicked in. So as others have suggested it's only the WindowsServer that's hanging.

Interestingly video clips from websites inside Safari seem to have no affect.

I am now going to return to the original screen configuration (4k on DisplayLink and 1080p on HDMI) and try and keep off the video playback to see what happens.

Wondering if it's a graphics card overheating issue? Same error as everyone else is seeing but nothing to do with power saving. Are people running high load graphics on pretty screensavers?

Mark

Another crash today after simply unhooking my Macbook from its external monitors while in clamshell mode.

panic(cpu 2 caller 0xffffff7f83f9dad5): userspace watchdog timeout: no successful checkins from com.apple.WindowServer in 120 seconds
service returned not alive with context : is_alive_func returned unhealthy : WindowServer initialization not complete (post IOKitWaitQuiet)

Anyone know if Apple ever acknowledges these issues, or if we'll just have to wait to see that it is fixed in an OS X build?

If they don't, do we just continue to beat this dead horse and bump the thread while crossing our fingers?

DOL_Mark wrote:

Wondering if it's a graphics card overheating issue? Same error as everyone else is seeing but nothing to do with power saving. Are people running high load graphics on pretty screensavers?

Not an overheating issue. I use no screensaver and my GPU is idling 99% of the time.

benM3 wrote:

Anyone know if Apple ever acknowledges these issues, or if we'll just have to wait to see that it is fixed in an OS X build?

If they don't, do we just continue to beat this dead horse and bump the thread while crossing our fingers?

You are barking at the moon. I've been told by Apple that Apple does not look at these forums. Only way to make any progress is to ring them. A lot.

ProfessorScott wrote:

But I can emphatically state that when I started this thread, Apple indeed was monitoring and took action.

Pleasantly surprised to hear that, though absolutely not what apple support told me!

:-(((((((

panic(cpu 2 caller 0xffffff7f8e83fad5): userspace watchdog timeout: no successful checkins from com.apple.WindowServer in 120 seconds

service: com.apple.logd, total successful checkins since wake (46310 seconds ago): 4628, last successful checkin: 0 seconds ago

service: com.apple.WindowServer, total successful checkins since wake (46310 seconds ago): 4620, last successful checkin: 120 seconds ago

Backtrace (CPU 2), Frame : Return Address

0xffffff81f2ebb820 : 0xffffff800d73bb1b

0xffffff81f2ebb870 : 0xffffff800d8733e5

0xffffff81f2ebb8b0 : 0xffffff800d864e5e

0xffffff81f2ebb900 : 0xffffff800d6e2a40

0xffffff81f2ebb920 : 0xffffff800d73b207

0xffffff81f2ebba20 : 0xffffff800d73b5eb

0xffffff81f2ebba70 : 0xffffff800ded2575

0xffffff81f2ebbae0 : 0xffffff7f8e83fad5

0xffffff81f2ebbaf0 : 0xffffff7f8e83f7e6

0xffffff81f2ebbb10 : 0xffffff800de66fcb

0xffffff81f2ebbb60 : 0xffffff800de70083

0xffffff81f2ebbca0 : 0xffffff800d822c22

0xffffff81f2ebbdb0 : 0xffffff800d741998

0xffffff81f2ebbe10 : 0xffffff800d718625

0xffffff81f2ebbe70 : 0xffffff800d72f0d5

0xffffff81f2ebbf00 : 0xffffff800d84b485

0xffffff81f2ebbfa0 : 0xffffff800d6e3226

Kernel Extensions in backtrace:

com.apple.driver.watchdog(1.0)[EFAA17B9-A62C-30B7-9602-0BB5282EDDD6]@0xffffff7f8e83e000->0xffffff7f8e846fff

Issue continuing for me even after installing 10.15.3

Interestingly tho, it only occurs when logged into to my user account. Since day one it has never crashed my gf's user account on the same machine.

We are both admins, tho I believe her account is the original and mind was created after.

iMac 5k 2017, base model 1tb fusion.

The exact problem is happening to me constantly. I have a MBP 16" (AMD Radeon Pro 5500M 8 GB, Intel UHD Graphics 630 1536 MB) with MacOS Catalina. At work I connect it directly (no dock) to two 4K 27" LG monitors and whenever the Mac goes to sleep it crashes! Now at home I only have one 4K 27" monitor and it hasn't yet crashed, so I am assuming that this may be related to connecting to two monitors. Also it definitely is the video driver's problem or maybe even the graphic card itself.

I have an MBP 2018 13“ and it is even happening to me without being connected to a display. Most of the time it happens when I change the virtual desktop swiping left or right. WindowServer freezes, recovers, if I stay on the same screen it seems to work, moving to the next screen freezes again. This happens for about 2-3min until WindowServer gets killed and I find myself on the Login Screen.

Crash reports and Stack trace looks exactly the same as with the here reported issues.

tried everything, nothing worked, even updating to the just released OSX update had no effect

Open a video in Quicktime player and set it to loop. As long as it's running, I've experienced no watchdog timeout: no successful checkin demo com.apple.WindowServer" errors. YMMV

Jim @ ttop wrote:

I had two long phone sessions with Apple Care. They acknowledged the issue and relayed they'd try to have this addressed in the next incremental upgrade. In the meantime, I did find a workaround to stop the crashes (as first mentioned by a previous poster in this thread):

Open a video in Quicktime player and set it to loop. As long as it's running, I've experienced no watchdog timeout: no successful checkin demo com.apple.WindowServer" errors. YMMV

We've had nothing but troubles, a team of various MBP users with external 4k monitors via TB hub.

ABOVE SOLUTION WORKS.

Would it be possible to share those crash logs so I can attach them to a bug report I have open with Apple? There shouldn’t be any personal info in them, just the model name of the computer.

Or we can wait to see what the 10.15.4 betas will bring...

For those of you who are experiencing this issue and using a CalDigit TS3 plus hub there are good news. Last January 6th 2020 CalDigit released a firmware update for this device that seems to fix the issue on my MacBook Pro 15" with Radeon Pro Vega 20 + 2 external monitors under macOS 10.15.3. Since then I haven't experienced more reboots when the screensaver was on.

This is the link to the update:

https://www.caldigit.com/updating-the-ts3-plus-firmware-via-macos-10-15/