Since installing Catalina yesterday, multiple crashes from userspace watchdog timeout

Yes, it seems to me the problem is solved too. I haven't been able to spot the error for days.

Also I have helped myself before with QuickTime and terminal window. Doesn't seem to be necessary anymore.

Mein System:

iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, Late 2015)

4 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7

16 GB 1867 Mhz DDR3

AMD Radeeon R9 M395 2 GB

Second Monitor - Erazer 32 Zoll UHD per HDMI

I am getting the same crashing since I updated to catalina 10.15.4.

I never had an issue before with the previous catalina version.

Incredible you cannot downgrade to last installed version. This happens so often ( a version update messes up the computer), since forever it seems, every other time they release an update..., you'd think the option to downgrade to the previous version would be something that would be available already!!!!

"...Incredible you cannot downgrade to last installed version...."

Of course you can if you follow the advice of taking three backups on two different methods. Upgrade, then test, then decide to either carry on or roll back.

"follow the advice of taking three backups on two different methods.

Upgrade, then test, then decide to either carry on or roll back. "

Sorry, don't really understand...

I know there's a way, its just not very easy to do at all.

Is there a way to install the previous version of catalina?

I was having the issue with my MacBook Pro 15’ 2019. Never used any external monitor.

The problem stopped when I switched to a MacBook Pro 16’.

Since 10.15.4 it happens now on my MacBook Pro 16’ for the first time, and impossible to understand what is causing it at the moment.

When I read the other reports, I find it very strange that my crashes are removed since 10.15.4. I haven't had a crash for 3-4 days of continuous use. With 10.15.3 I had at least 3 crashes a day.

iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, Late 2015)

4 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7

16 GB 1867 Mhz DDR3

AMD Radeeon R9 M395 2 GB

Second Monitor - Erazer 32 Zoll UHD per HDMI

Same here.

I experienced lots of weird problems with my old macbook 15" with crashes every hour after I updated to 10.15.3 (combination of different things, there was the sleep issue, but also some other kernel panics (always "kernel userspace timeouts" but then different messages, sometimes talking about gpu, sometimes about disk), sometimes, just using Safari without any device plugged, however I did experience that when using extensive use of memory (working on big word documents), hard disk (time machine backups) and external displays (maybe linked to the "memory" issue), the probability of kernel panics was MUCH higher).

It was so terrible that I bought a new macbook pro 16" in February. Everything was fine UNTIL I updated to 10.15.4. From that moment on there was back the sleep panic. I tried different things, and it is 3-days now that I have not experienced new crashes. What I did and so far is working is changing the configuration of Notifications in System Preferences, in particular I TURNED ON "DO NOT DISTURB" in the checkboxes "When the display is sleeping", "When the screen is locked" and "When mirroring to TVs and projectors". Not sure if checking all 3 checkboxes is necessary, may be it will be enough to check the one about "when display is sleeping", but for now I want just a few days of productivity before further testing :)

Please, let me know if this also works in your case.

Thank you for posting this.Yesterday I tried changing my notifications settings as you outlined and it seems (24 hours later) to have worked.

I was having a kernel panic every day, but not while I was using the computer. I'd come back and find it completely powered off and turning it on would give me the "your computer crashed, send report" dialog.

I do have an external monitor connected, but it connects via Luna Display, not a hardwired connection. I have 2 non-apple KEXTs loaded (SoftRaid for my disk array, and a VPN one for connecting to work.)

Last night, after making your changes, I left my monitor connected, and my VPN running, and no crash today. Fingers-crossed this is the solution.

The error persists for me even after the latest upgrade to 10.15.4.

Just had a WindowServer restart a few minutes back.

Process:               WindowServer [261]
Path:                  /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/SkyLight.framework/Versions/A/Resources/WindowServer
Identifier:            WindowServer
Version:               600.00 (450.9)
Code Type:             X86-64 (Native)
Parent Process:        launchd [1]
Responsible:           WindowServer [261]
User ID:               88

Date/Time:             2020-04-05 09:14:41.906 +0200
OS Version:            Mac OS X 10.15.4 (19E266)
Report Version:        12
Bridge OS Version:     4.4 (17P4263)
Anonymous UUID:        85F304B0-7767-815B-1A50-0BD16BE47037

Sleep/Wake UUID:       CCC33AD5-A754-450C-BB3F-05417516DA73

Time Awake Since Boot: 33000 seconds
Time Since Wake:       210 seconds

System Integrity Protection: enabled

Crashed Thread:        0  Dispatch queue: com.apple.main-thread

Exception Type:        EXC_CRASH (SIGKILL)
Exception Codes:       0x0000000000000000, 0x0000000000000000
Exception Note:        EXC_CORPSE_NOTIFY

Termination Reason:    WATCHDOG, [0x1] monitoring timed out for service
Termination Details:   WATCHDOG, checkin with service: WindowServer returned not alive with context:
unresponsive dispatch queue(s): com.apple.WindowServer.HIDEvents unresponsive work processor(s): WindowServer main thread 
40 seconds since last successful checkin, 13 total successsful checkins since wake (0 induced crashes)

Can't fully agree with your rant. For the mobile devices Apple supports them longer than the rest of the industry. I have an iPad 2 (from 2012) at home that still has a value (but an old iOS) and the battery still works fine. iPad Air 2 from 2014 still works well and supports the latest iOS.

The smaller phone batteries gets worn out quicker, but that isn't something specific to Apple products. The batteries in the iPhones and iPads has never been user serviceable, but it's not a too big cost to let Apple or a service provider do it. It's also safer since the batteries in those devices is really crammed in there – accidentally puncturing a lithium battery isn't a good thing. :-/

True that Apple moves on pretty quickly when it comes to support for operating systems on the computers, but at the same time I can understand it – focus on technological progress. Being able to run Catalina on a MacBook Pro from 2012 (eight years old) I don't think is bad. The older computers you have could be used for Windows or Linux – they aren't useless. :) And I have a Mac Pro from 2010 which I still think is great. It also runs Catalina (although not supported).

Do agree software should in some cases be more stable since Apple are behind both the hardware and the software… But I do think bugs like the one in this thread will get fixed. 10.15.5 is in beta. Let's see what it brings.

Can also add I've been having stability issues in Windows 10 with my AMD graphics card, so it's not always that the grass is greener in the other side…

Agree about the 8 year old macbook pro.

I never had a windows laptop last more than 2 or 3 years anyway let alone run latest windows after 8 years.

The only mbp I broke was by running windows 7 in bootcamp and fried the GPU. Cant blame Apple for that. Even then I sold the carcase for more than many windows laptops can be bought for.

Many Samsung phones now have glued up bodies.

Apart from the T2 chips problem which now has an Apple Support article on refreshing, many many problems were caused by no longer supported peripherals or software not updated by the third party developers.

This has been an unfortunate period and Apple will come out of it stronger and more cautious I am confident.

So 36 Hours after the upgrade from 10.15.3 to 10.15.4 and struggling to make the Mac Pro (iBin) useful again. I was getting a crash every day or so with 10.1.5.3. Seen three since upgrading yesterday. Which is still better than the every hour I was seeing after initial Catalina upgrade!

Problem isn't only when in power save etc which other users are reporting. I always have something running and the machine never sleeps. Normally video rendering jobs, so even if screen is asleep disk/cpu/network/etc are all very much awake.

Given that 10.15.4 is the recent update I think I'm going to go try the Beta of 10.15.5 as we probably have another month or so before the next release.

Having spent half a day trying to work on the Mac Pro interactively all day since the 10.15.4 upgrade yesterday ... I can definitely say it's unhappy ... where on 10.15.3 I was seeing a hang every day or so, seen several in the last half a day. Nothing exciting running, mail, web, telegram (chat), and video render going on in background.

Still appears to be com.apple.WindowServer hanging

panic(cpu 2 caller 0xffffff7f952f9ad5): userspace watchdog timeout: no successful checkins from com.apple.WindowServer in 120 seconds

service: com.apple.logd, total successful checkins since load (1490 seconds ago): 150, last successful checkin: 0 seconds ago

service: com.apple.WindowServer, total successful checkins since load (1460 seconds ago): 134, last successful checkin: 120 seconds ago

Backtrace (CPU 2), Frame : Return Address

0xffffff8dc881b720 : 0xffffff80147215cd

0xffffff8dc881b770 : 0xffffff801485a3c5

0xffffff8dc881b7b0 : 0xffffff801484bf7e

0xffffff8dc881b800 : 0xffffff80146c7a40

0xffffff8dc881b820 : 0xffffff8014720c97

0xffffff8dc881b920 : 0xffffff8014721087

0xffffff8dc881b970 : 0xffffff8014ec2ce8

0xffffff8dc881b9e0 : 0xffffff7f952f9ad5

0xffffff8dc881b9f0 : 0xffffff7f952f97fa

0xffffff8dc881ba10 : 0xffffff8014e54f3e

0xffffff8dc881ba60 : 0xffffff7f952f8cfe

0xffffff8dc881bb60 : 0xffffff8014e5e163

0xffffff8dc881bca0 : 0xffffff8014809bb2

0xffffff8dc881bdb0 : 0xffffff8014727328

0xffffff8dc881be10 : 0xffffff80146fdcc5

0xffffff8dc881be70 : 0xffffff8014714aa2

0xffffff8dc881bf00 : 0xffffff8014832605

0xffffff8dc881bfa0 : 0xffffff80146c8226

Kernel Extensions in backtrace:

com.apple.driver.watchdog(1.0)[99A75EFF-7734-31A0-80BF-FF8288E30D9B]@0xffffff7f952f8000->0xffffff7f95300fff

BSD process name corresponding to current thread: watchdogd

Mac OS version:

19E266

"...I'm going to go try the Beta of 10.15.5 as we probably have another month or so before the next release...."

Fine, but use the Feedback Assistant for test results as per your NDA, not this or any other public forum, as beta versions equate neither to previous nor subsequent full releases.

If 10.15.5 beta was identical to final 10.15.5 then there would be no point in testing it.

This isn't related just to external monitors.

I eliminated external monitors, booted into safe mode, and with a USB drive connected tried to back up some files to it. In about 20 minutes another kernel panic with the "userspace watchdog timeout: no successful checkins from com.apple.logd in 120 seconds" message in the logs after a spontaneous reboot.

My next test is letting the screensaver disabled and forcing the computer not to sleep while the backup runs (for tens of hours, since I'm backing up 40K photos from the Photos.Library/Originals directory).

I'll post results here.