Since installing Catalina yesterday, multiple crashes from userspace watchdog timeout

I see a correlation. The only time my machine crashes is when I leave the external monitor plugged in and I've seen both of the errors in the crash report. Likely means that there's something else as the root cause and these are just downstream errors.

I have been facing these WindowServer crashes for some time now, it's very frustrating that Apple doesn't even acknowledge this issue since we payed thousands of dollars for our machines (mbp 16' is only 3 months old)

[Edited by Moderator]

On my 2018 MBP 15", even the caffeinate solution didn't always keep my machine from crashing when multiple monitors were plugged in. Then I remembered a similar problem I was having last year with my 2013 MBP 15" randomly crashing, and the solution I found to fix it from crashing: https://outluch.wixsite.com/rmbp-crash

That solution worked beautifully on the 2013 MBP 15".

I'm trying that solution out now on 2018 MBP 15" and will let this thread know if it works.

Hi Noah,

Besides running 'caffeinate -u -d' in an iconified Terminal window, I have my EnergySaver sysprefs set to prevent sleeping when the display is off. In Desktop sysprefs I have my screensaver configured to start after 30 minutes. I'm not sure if either of those sysprefs is critical (especially the latter), but you can experiment. Maybe make sure caffeinate is still running (via ps) before you walk away? I also power off my external monitor (but do not disconnect it). I can't think of anything else that I did to work around this problem.

This problem does seem to vary in its severity with regard to different systems. It looked like the original reports were all related to dual-monitor configs like yours, so those may be the worst-affected. My single-monitor setup worked just fine until the latest 10.15.5 update. This problem has been around for way too long now and seems to be worsening (at least by my own experience). Apple ought to be embarrassed by this mess, especially as the crash is so readily reproducible, but that would seem to not be the case.

anony m ouse wrote:

1. I have a MBP 16. I can reliably reproduce this crash like clock work in seconds.

...

All I have to do is setup a hot corner to sleep my mac and then go to that hot corner (or I can just wait for it to sleep based on a time out)

My MBP16 is connected to a CalDigit TS3+ dock exactly like the one apple sells in it's store. It has the Apple Magic Wireless Keyboard with Numeric Keypad attached as well as a Microsoft blue tooth mouse. It's connected to ethernet and a Dell 3008WFP monitor via DisplayPort. In this configuration it crashes every time the computer goes to sleep.

If you unplug everything, disconnect from your Bluetooth devices, can you still reproduce it by hitting the sleep hot corner?

I'm am just asking for experimental data.

If it is not reproducible when you remove everything, would you try adding in a single item and repeat the experiment, add another item, test, etc...

It might be interesting to identify a component that seems to trigger the event.

Obviously if it is reproducible with nothing connected and not Bluetooth devices, that says it is all macOS software (well I think it is all macOS software, but I'm interested in identifying any triggers; and it seems there are people that can have this happen, with no external devices, but this panic is defying user generated solutions).

I know a lot of people are seeing this relating to when a machine sleeps, but I'm seeing this on the iBin Cylinder during normal operation. I've even seen it whilst trying to hit the "yes report" button immediately after the reboot of a previous crash. Now running "latest" release on a single DP connect 4k screen and on latest update seeing enough reboots to make machine unusable.

It happens. Every. Single. Time.

It can be reproduced with nothing but the docking station connected to the display. No ethernet, no keyboard, no mouse. It does seem to be dependent on the display lid being closed when the display goes to sleep. It takes a little more time this way since you have to wait the 60 seconds for no activity, where as with just the bluetooth mouse connected you can go to a hot corner and cause the display to sleep immediately.

I live in Menlo Park very close to Apple HQ and I would be very happy to drive down and demonstrate the problem live for

Apple engineers and loan them the setup if they cared to fix it. I doubt I'll be taken up on this.

anony m ouse wrote:

It happens. Every. Single. Time.

...

I live in Menlo Park very close to Apple HQ and I would be very happy to drive down and demonstrate the problem live for Apple engineers and loan them the setup if they cared to fix it. I doubt I'll be taken up on this.

Except I'm not sure anyone is there. There was a John Gruber WWDC interview with Craig Federighi and Greg Joswiak where Craig and Jaws were in Apple HQ and you could see into the windows of other floors. You rarely saw anyone moving around. If there were really people at HQ, you would have seen a lot more people moving around through the windows, and around the out door spaces visible behind Craig and Jaws.

You could try contacting Apple Support with your reproducer, and offer to visit an Apple facility in the area to demo.

If you get a free Apple Developer account, you can file bugs, which is a lot closer to the engineers than this forum, feedback or even Apple Support. https://developer.apple.com

So my timeline is this:

Got MBP 16' in March with graphics options:

AMD Radeon Pro 5500M 4 GB

Intel UHD Graphics 630 1536 MB

Up until 10.15.5 came out, I had zero problems/crashes and I always have the laptop closed and an external display connected with an official Apple A/V adapter using HDMI. As soon as I installed 10.15.5 the panics started happening.

Reason:           (1 monitored services unresponsive): checkin with service: WindowServer returned not alive with context: unresponsive work processor(s): WindowServer main thread  40 seconds since last successful checkin

Literally after the update ended, I didn't touch the laptop for some time, the external monitor went to sleep and the laptop panic'ed and rebooted. I installed apps like Caffeine to prevent the external monitor from going to sleep and managed to continue working.

Some days after this the crashes started happening even when the monitor was not going to sleep. Usually when using apps that put some strain on the video such as video conferencing apps. These crashes started to become more frequent. The display froze, for about 2 minutes, the laptop started getting very warm and the fans would not go faster, then after 2 minutes the fans go into turbo mode for about 1 second and the laptop reboots.

After this I reverted to 10.15.4 and reset SMC, etc, and the panics when the display goes to sleep are gone, but the crashes when I'm using the computer continue. I tried ditching the adapter and using a usb-c displayport cable but the problem remained.

As a final test, I unplugged everything from the laptop and disabled "automatic graphics switching" to force the AMD to be used even with no external display. Sure enough, I was able to reproduce the issue. So it seems not related to an external display, but the AMD card itself (which is always used when an external display is connected).

Sad times.

I believe I am in a very similar situation. I have resorted to leaving the laptop open and setting the laptop and the external display to mirror each other. As long as I don’t use the clamshell mode I don’t get the crashes. I just open the laptop a few inches.

Madsalmartron wrote:

...

As a final test, I unplugged everything from the laptop and disabled "automatic graphics switching" to force the AMD to be used even with no external display. Sure enough, I was able to reproduce the issue. So it seems not related to an external display, but the AMD card itself (which is always used when an external display is connected).

There are users that have the watchdog timeout issue on 13" Macbook Pros which ONLY have the integrated intel graphics.

Different people are finding crutches to survive this, but so far, I have not found a single situation where there is one common item that explains or fixes this.

I'm basically convinced this is a bad macOS kernel issue. Apple has been very good over the years about providing a stable kernel when there are no 3rd party kernel extensions, and no broken external devices attached. But there are users that have not external devices, and no kernel extensions experiencing this issue. It seems the configuration, 3rd party software, external devices, type of Mac, etc... does not matter.

"There are users that have the watchdog timeout issue on 13" Macbook Pros which ONLY have the integrated intel graphics."

I have a MBP 13" from 2018 at work and there I rarely see those crashes – I think I've had one or two in conjunction with sleep – and I put the computer in clamshell mode and sleep and wake it several times a week. I see this watchdog kernel panic every now and then when waking from sleep on my (non supported) Mac Pro from 2010 with RX 5700 XT grapics ever since I installed Catalina which I did at version 10.15.2. I can't recall ever having it happen during use, though.

For my 2018 MBP 15" running 10.15.5 with AMD graphics Radeon Pro Vega 20 4GB:

After switching my two monitors from a USB-C to Dual displayport adaptor last night to two individual USB-C to displayport cables, I've yet to have a crash today. And I am not running caffeinate.

And it crashed this morning not too long after starting up Microsoft Teams, which is the dominant time during which my MBP normally crashed for this problem. I've now turned re-unchecked "Enable Power Nap" and "Prevent computer from sleeping automatically when the display is off" to see if that helps. Might not know until Monday since I'm done with Teams meetings for today...

Well, I finally decided to bring in my few months old 16” Macbook Pro at Apple Service to let it check. The technician said it would most probably be a hardware problem, although I am not sure to believe that. I will keep you updated.