Since installing Catalina yesterday, multiple crashes from userspace watchdog timeout

I had the same issue with Mojave.

It keeps happening with Catalina, and it is highly reproductible when I compile large packages in the make stage when I use the "-j" flag (that instructs make to parallelise the tasks).

The good thing with Catalina is that the activity monitor shows the GPU activity.

I formed the hunch this is a race condition between different applications that leverage the GPU concurrently, when I observed that while the UI was frozen (display, mouse, keyboard), the compilation was able to finish before the machine would reboot by itself (most probably a reboot triggered by the watchdog).

Two additional conjectures:

• We could avoid a number of reboots if we find a system preference that sets the infamous 140 seconds delay before watchdog reboots the machine.
• A software or firmware update from Apple is needed to fix the issue.

This issue has NOT been resolved. Tech support told me they were aware of the problem and would try to address it in the next build. (promises, promises...)

Suggested workarounds:

• Someone suggested leaving Terminal open. However, this did not work for me.
• Leave a movie running in QuickTime player (set it to loop). This does work for me. As long as it's running my MacBook is rock solid and won't give me a watchdog timeout error.

[My system: 2018 MacBook Pro w Touch Bar 2.9 GHz 6-core Intel Core i9 , 32 GB RAM and a Radeon Pro Vega 20. I use my MacBook in clamshell mode, driving 3 Dell 2408 monitors.]

Thanks for that info. I already have that checked. What about the rest of the options?

• Turn display off after... X mins/hrs
• Put hard disks to sleep
• Wake for Wifi
• Enable Power Nap

Do you have an option to toggle "Automatic graphics switching"? I have mine selected but have been thinking to deselect that in case this is all about a graphics issue.

Am on 10.15.3, and the following has been the case on 10.15; 10.15.1; 10.15.2. I can stop the crashing in two ways.

1. Set screen saver source to Catalina, it crashes. Enable in energy saver "Prevent computer from sleeping automatically when the display is off" crashes stop
2. Change screen saver source to Landscapes and no crash

I have tried the terminal trick and makes no difference.

It is looking very much like it is a GPU, screen resolution, memory issue.

For reference I am on a Mac mini 2018 with 2 x LG 27" screens connected via Thunderbolt.

Did you guys experiencing problems with external monitors, tried one of the following?

• Leave a QuickTime Player.app playing a movie on screen
• Open a terminal.app window and leave it somewhere on screen

God knows why, but it solved everyone's problems here at my work.

Good day people,

This post should be considered by people who can keep a sane machine with an SSH connection on the emotional machine (that reboots without notice).

Observations

------------------

Shortly after boot, WindowServer is visible in the process list

ps -ef | grep -i window

   88   213    1   0  2:30PM ??      0:06.04 /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/SkyLight.framework/Resources/WindowServer -daemon

and shows up in launchctl as well:

sudo launchctl list | grep -i window

213 0 com.apple.WindowServer

However, as the screen is frozen, WindowServer is not to be seen anymore in the process list, and has status "-6" in launchctl.

Suggestions

-----------------

1. For the people inclined to maintain an SSH connection on your emotional machine (mine is a MacPro 2013), could you please confirm you observe the same thing before freeze, and during freeze.
2. I have attempted to restart WindowServer with launchctl but to no avail. Anyone had success trying that?
3. I have attempted to restart WindowServer without "-daemon" argument, and it failed indeed. Now I know better I'll try when it freezes again. (I will create a little shell script to do that for me...). Please report your attempts / failures / success in doing so.

Looking forward to get confirmations and counter examples !!

We need to find a work around that will allow our long winded processes to complete without being reset in mid air by a pesky bug in the OS or a GPU driver.

This has been my CATALINA experience so far, in case it helps:

1. I was happy with my late 2013 macbook in Mojave: every thing worked perfect no hangs nor panics in many months.
2. Updated to catalina 10-15-0 -> started experiencing 2 types of panics:
   1. Sleep panics (OK, this was easy to deal with playing with configuration as I recommended in my last message).
   2. Sleep unrelated panics, more frequent when an external display was connected. Usually at least twice a day and usually with a kernel userspace watchdog message.
3. Updated to 10.15.1 -> Everything stayed "more or less" the same.
4. Updated to 10.15.2 -> Everything stayed "more or less" the same.
5. Updated to 10.15.3 -> Disaster -> At least 2-3 panics PER HOUR. 2-3 Fresh installs: same result. Computer to premium external service -> They do not detect nothing: they make stress tests and find nothing.
6. Went back to MOJAVE to keep productive -> SAME THING HAPPENING (then I was just absolutely lost). I decided to buy a new computer (16" macbook pro, I9).
7. New computer with 10.15.3 working fine.
8. Old computer again at technical service, fresh install catalina 10.15.3, my wife starts using it and she "only" experiences panics every once in a while (she just surfs the web, videoconferences and watch films)
9. I updated to 10.15.4
   1. New computer again experiencing sleep panics -> I reset SMC/VRAM and made the conf adjustments mentioned in my last post and they stopped happening. I start experiencing sleep-unrelated panics, but just occasionally (around 3 since I updated to 10.15.4)
   2. Old computer still suffering same panics but a bit more frequently

I really hope Apple can solve this situation and give us a really robust 10-15-5 to all of us so we can recover the feeling of robustness we used to have since Snow Leopard (my first MacOS) to Mojave.

My main complain, is that I am pretty sure Apple has triaged this problem, and knows at least a few "recipes" that we can use to have a minimum productivity and minimise these panics. It would be very welcome if they share some with us while they solve the problem. We all understand that bugs happen, and we all know they are doing their best, but please, do help us to config our systems to make them as reliable as possible while they solve these issues.

Similar experience here. I run four machines;

• Macbook (On Catalina and behaving itself)
• Macbook Pro (Still on Mojave and still behaving itself)
• Mac Mini (Still on Mojave and still behaving itself. Although HD running very very slow for some reason I've not determined yet)

unfortunately my main workhorse is

• Mac Pro (iBin) which was upgraded to Catalina last year

The Mac Pro also initially saw the reluctance to come out of sleep. As you say, stop it sleeping and problem avoided. Now I just see the Windows Server / Display hanging issue. Which dropped to a couple of times a day and now seems to becoming more frequent with the latest updates.

It doesn't appear to be CPU load related (For example I can run video encodes in Handbrake no problem). Similarly moving large files across a GB network hasn't caused an issue.

I'd love to see something back from Apple on this. Anything. As you say bugs happen. Happy to test solutions / participate in tracking the issue down and discovering the poisoned recipe.

I've swapped screens, USB devices, clean reinstall ... starting to run out of possibilities to fiddle with.

Thought for a moment I'd spotted a pattern trying to work this morning (As per previous message, mail/safari/excel all day so far). As I'd experienced crashing at 35-45 mins consistently. However as I type this I reach 60 mins uptime. So another theory gone.

I could really do with a hardware upgrade but with people reporting similar issues on new kit there's no way I can throw £/$/€6k + without some confidence it'll work.

I'll repeat the only 2 workarounds I found (2018 MacBook using 3 monitors in clamshell mode):

• Leave a QuickTIme movie looping continuously in the background.
• Use an eGPU (Ever since I hooked one up the issue was solved.)

Good luck

On eGPUs: I got the OWC with a Radeon RX 5700 xt. It's speeded up things quite a bit. The Sonnets are also good.

• https://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/HELIOSFX650/
• https://www.sonnettech.com/product/egfx-breakaway-box.html

No fix but I have a workaround that works for my 16" MBP connected to an external display in clamshell mode:

1. Set your display to never sleep whilst on Power Adaptor, in Energy Saver settings (drag the bar all the way to the right) and this will also turn on "Prevent computer from sleeping...".
2. Ensure you have your favourite screen saver automatically come on after x minutes to protect your display (I also made a hot corner for when I leave the room)
3. Before I go to bed, I simply turn off my USB-C monitor, which effectively is like physically unplugging it from the laptop, and I leave it.
4. I come back to it in the morning or anytime later, and the first thing I do is switch on the monitor fully, then wiggle my mouse or tap my keyboard to wake the Mac.

The above works for my workflow, which is typical computer usage during the day.

So far the above has worked every time for me and its become my workaround. You can also simply leave the Mac connected to an external display but open as a second screen, which works fine.

The above is for a 16" MBP, hope it helps someone until there's a fix.

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

1. booted in safe mode
2. reset the the SMC
3. cleared the pram
4. reinstalled the os
5. reformatted the hard drive and resinstalled the os
6. gotten a logic board swap.

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.

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.

I think the fix has to come from the ones who makes the operating system. Not going to mention any names. :)

In Activity Monitor, I've been keeping an eye on the memory usage. Upon reboot, the Wired Memory is at about 2.6GB. Over the course of several hours as I use the machine, it has climbed to 9.6GB (and still climbing). I have tried disabling Spotlight, and several of the other suggestions in this thread, but unfortunately nothing has stopped this from happening.

In all honesty, it hasn't crashed yet today, but I have been spending a lot of time trying to stop this Wired Memory increase, which has included several reboots. So I'm not quite sure what will happen when that number reaches above the available memory, but my guess would be a crash as we've been seeing.

Would be curious to see what other people are seeing in the Wired Memory in Activity Monitor...