Since installing Catalina yesterday, multiple crashes from userspace watchdog timeout

Monkeyman8,

Here is what worked FOR ME (DISCLAIMER: My research has shown that this in-place 10.15.5 downgrade works for some, but not for others, so this is a definite "your mileage may vary" situation. Please do a backup before attempting any of this, and do your own research. DO NOT try it simply because it seems to have worked for me. I am only sharing what worked for me on my 2019 Macbook Pro (15") that was previously running Catalina 10.15.6. And I strongly believe MY primary issue was Catalina 10.15.6 and virtualization software -- the combination was causing memory leaks, which led to kernel panics, watchdog timeouts, and such. And my research showed that downgrading to 10.15.5 would likely resolve THIS issue until Apple can officially put out an o/s fix.

Thanks to a suggestion in the VMWare Community forum, I downloaded a free utility called MDS:

https://twocanoes.com/products/mac/mac-deploy-stick/

Install it, and when it launches, there is a Tools section in left-hand panel that has option called "Download macOS". Choose that, and after a couple of minutes, it comes back with a MacOS build list (I think this tool simply connects to Apple's API for build distribution). I chose 10.15.5 (Build 19F2200), and then clicked Download button. It will give you a "Busy" spinning wheel at the bottom (but nothing else), so if you want to actually track progress, go to the MDS "Window" menu (at top) and choose "Show Log". This will open a dialog window that will show you real time progress in a running log file. It took a while for mine to download & assemble (maybe 2-2.5 hours, but I have slow internet), but the end result was that it created a "sparseimage" file under "Users/Shared/macos_10155" subfolder. The log will show you the exact location of your file.

Double-click this sparseimage file (Install_macOS_10.15.5-19F2200.sparseimage) and it should open up a window with 2 folders -- "Applications" and "Library". Open up "Applications", and there should be an app ("Install macOS Catalina.app"). Double-click that app, and you should get the nice/pretty Catalina installer window. Start the installer, and after a few minutes, it will reboot and do the actual downgrade/install (mine took about 30 minutes total to complete).

After the install completed and my Macbook Pro restarted, I noticed that my touchbar was NOT visible (uh oh... what did I mess up?!), but after doing a bit of research, it appears that this is not so uncommon. I reset the SMC (https://osxdaily.com/2019/01/14/how-reset-smc-macbook-air-pro-2018-later/), and my touchbar was back as always -- no issues whatsoever since.

Again, this worked FOR ME, and all of my apps and data remained intact (and I'm now happily running 10.15.5 with no kernel panics and/or reboots -- at least for now!).

I am getting this crash repeatedly. The computer freezes with spinning wheel, becomes unresponsive, and eventually restarts. Dialogues and reports refer to com.apple.WindowServer and watchdogd . This is happening on a late 2015 iMac 5k since upgrading to 10.15.6 (never happened before) and also just after checking Optimise Mac Storage in iCloud System Settings. A possible third culprit could be Adobe Creative Suite, I'm also noticing that Adobe Desktop Service is repeatedly hanging - 18 hangs while I could still interrogate before the last crash. Logging out of Creative Suite is so far making the iMac more responsive, but that is not practical as I need to work. I have 8 WindowServer Spin Reports in Console in the last 24hrs, many without me being near the machine

After 20+ hours on the phone with AppleCare tech support, they finally had me take my Mac into Simply Mac for a full diagnostic. I was able to replicate the kernel panic while they were running their diagnostic and the report came back as a RAM issue. I have 8gb (two 4gb sticks) of Apple standard and expanded with 32gb (two 16 gb sticks) of OWC DDR4, as specified by Apple specs to fit my Mac. Simply Mac said they have seen other cases where the Mac misbehaves with outside RAM that does not at least match the standard size left in the machine. They also said it could be a bad motherboard. The machine is still with them for further testing, trial and error, etc. They will try to take out the Apple stock so I can maintain 32gb of RAM and see if it stabilizes. They said it could take several days until they can give me a definitive answer on what path forward will be suitable for my machine. It seems to me that Apple has been trying to force the Apple Tax on everything and no one is buying their obscenely overpriced RAM. So, maybe, those who upgraded upfront get the less sensitive motherboards? I dunno, it just seems fishy. I upgraded the RAM on my 2011, the one I'm writing this on, and have never had a problem.

I doubt this was my problem. First, my 16" MBP has the RAM solder on by Apple. Second, Apple replaced my mother board and again with RAM soldered on I assume that means I got a whole different set of Apple provided RAM. This did not fix my problem in the slightest. Third, my problems mostly went away with the upgrade 10.15.6. The number and variety of machines on this thread indicates Apple clearly has a software quality issue and it amazes me that there are over 90 entries on this thread and no comment from Apple. I live 20 minutes from Apple HQ and I've offered to drive down and loan them my system and all hardware necessary to predictably reproduce the issue in seconds. ...... Crickets.

I should note that my machine is a 27" iMac (2019). Not sure how relatable my issue can be with an MBP. My issue has not been directly resolved either, so please do not take my previous comment as a possible solution. I hope this helps sort my part of the conversation.

I downgraded a MacMini after all the reported crashes from first official version of Castalina.

I can report that performance has increased back to previous levels, after downgrading and clean installing

of Mojave - but the crashes when displays time-out over night and resulting kernel crashes remain

even in Mojave - but where never present prior update (Mojave->Catalina->Mojave).

Which leads to speculate that either a GPU driver, EFI firmware, does not get downgraded with the OS

and therefore is the most likely root of the cause for the kernel panics / timeouts.

BTW, the issue with 10.15.6 is not just with virtualization software.

I wasn't running VMware Fusion at all today, but during a FaceTime call my MBP froze up in the usual way and crashed. This also happens frequently the MS Teams. So in addition to virtualization, it would seem that video conferencing software is also implicated.

After 4 days of crash-free operation, my MBPro *did* crash during the night, and when I restarted the next morning, it was the watchdog timeout crash report. And I did have VMWare Fusion running at the time of crash (although I am 90% certain that it was only the management app, not an actual VM running, so that really should not have triggered any memory leaks). So while 10.15.5 downgrade does appear to improve things, it definitely is not a "silver bullet" to make all of the issues go away completely. Definitely interested in hearing more "Big Sur" reports over the coming days, but the last thing I want to consider is jumping into another quick upgrade only to run into more/different unexpected issues. At this point, if I can work 3-4 days between crashes, I can live with it (and how sad it is to even have to say that with an Apple product...). But definitely better than daily crashes!

Well, that is sad to hear (peter_watt)...

And, to spread even more sadness, my fan kicked into high gear and I got the spinning wheel of death literally 10 minutes after I posted my previous message. So I am now thinking that any perceived 10.15.5 success was the "placebo" effect... :(

Since I still have my older (company-issued) 2015 Macbook Pro (running 10.15.5), perhaps I should try the Big Sur beta on that and see how it performs for myself...

Not sad, just agreed practice. Public betas are still unfinished and developer betas even rougher. Beta testers agree not to publish any results of comments outside the feedback assistant app.

If they only test their own pet worry (like this) and nothing else then real bugs may be missed . There is a responsibility associated with the privileged of access to early versions of new software to actually test your typical workflow.l and report back to developers, not here or MacRumors.

Well, perhaps the "sad" thing is more accurately that users (of laptops costing major $$) have to resort to public betas to attempt to address business-critical issues in currently-released operating systems. I have been around computers and software (as a developer) for over 35 years now, and certainly don't expect perfection (even in operating systems). But I do expect a company with Apple's reputation to address (in a timely fashion) a MAJOR issue with their operating system, once reported. And from what people have shared here, the response has pretty much been "crickets" (or some attempt at blaming defective hardware -- which obviously could be possible, but I don't think it is the root cause for the majority of us). So, Peter, while I understand what you are saying IN THEORY, the fact is that we have been driven to this point (of needing to discuss/share our "pet issue" as it relates to a public beta) by an unresponsive vendor. This is NOT a "nuisance" issue, but something that has greatly impacted my ability to be productive in my job/career.

My perspective is likely different from most people here in this forum. I have used only Windows and Linux computers since my computer "beginning" (unless you include my Commodore VIC-20 and Atari ST days), but was strongly encouraged in a recent job change (2 years ago) to move over to a Macbook Pro as my daily driver. Even though I knew it would be a huge adjustment for me (& my old habits) in many ways, I was still expecting a little taste of computer "utopia" (from what I had heard over the years). Sadly, it has been nothing short of a major disappointment, and I would actually WELCOME a good $500-$600 Windows 10 laptop (so how crazy is that?).

Does anyone have consistent issues with Zoom? It sounds like people have issues on MSFT teams. fyi i'm using a 2019 MBP with the upgraded internal graphics card and it's unusable with Zoom. There's a crash every time.

Well said, ktalley1015, and sorry to hear your problems have recurred. Apple's failure to fix such a serious bug over such a long period is pathetically inexcusable. Maybe they should divert the resources which they expend on deleting posts about public betas into actual engineering work. Like you, I am a long-time developer (Solaris/Irix/Linux/Mac) and I have never seen a bug this serious go unpatched in a commercial Unix release for this length of time.

@Monkeyman8 i use teams everyday and you can watch the memory use increase continously over the period of days. I once let it reach 6G of ram. You restart it and it returns to about 780M. I've remained on 10.15.1 because i could see the issues unfolding with Catalina and also initially identified that the kernel panics where related to firmware updates. My Mac does panic every few days and to ensure i can reliably (almost) make it through a day without loosing everything I need to shut it down every single night. I've spent 12 months looking for a solution but have resolved to the point this is the reliability level of Apple MACOS. My windows machine has not been rebooted in 2 months but my Mac has to be every day to assure my work products last through the OS instability. Microsoft Surface is looking like my next mobile device due to the reluctance of Apple to correct Catalina.

We share a similar life experience including the VIC20 and countless Linux distros.

By all means try the public betas. Feed back results to the developers or not - your choice. Just not in public as per NDA. All we get is "tried the beta, no difference" or "tried the beta and it fixed it" both in the same thread. Useless comments.

If you upgraded from Mojave you had every chance to revert back with Time Machine. If it came with Catalina and had these problems I would have kicked up a fuss and got my money back

I wouldn't go back to windoze for all the phones in China.