Since installing Catalina yesterday, multiple crashes from userspace watchdog timeout

Just curious if you or anyone here are using a USB 3 hub in conjunction with getting this Kernel Panic?

I'm still baffled by this problem. It seems pretty widespread, but if it really was a problem on all Catalina installations in the world I think we'd hear even more about it. For example I don't see these ”watchdog timeout” Kernel Panics on my work computer (13" MacBook Pro from 2018) with Catalina.

star-affinity,

FWIW, I have encountered the watchdog timeouts sitting/working in my car with NO attached peripherals of any kind (Macbook Pro 2019, Catalina 10.15.5/6).

I did initially think that this might be tied to something like that (external monitors, docking station, etc.), but it now seems (at least to me) to be certain applications (VMWare Fusion, Virtualbox, Docker, Microsoft Teams, etc.) that trigger memory leaks in the o/s , and those leaks, in turn, cause kernel panics and these watchdog timeouts (and other such fun).

My experience this past week (after downgrading to 10.15.5) is that 10.15.5 *does* appear to be somewhat more stable than 10.15.6. But I use the term "stable" very loosely here... :)

Well having previously said that 10.15.6 appeared stable, I've been trying to do some heavy duty video/photo editing today and have spent more time rebooting and restarting than I have editing. Mixture of watchdog timeouts on the WindowsServer, some new AMD kernel crashes and a few just simply hangs and never restarts without assistance.

So just reluctantly hit go on Big Sur upgrade. I don't like using beta for a workhorse machine but the horse is lame :-(

A fix for the virtualization crashes is out:

macOS Catalina 10.15.6 supplemental update includes bug fixes for your Mac.

- Fixes a stability issue that could occur when running virtualization apps

- Resolves an issue where an iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, 2020) may appear washed out after waking from sleep

Not sure if it will do anything about these ”watchdog timeout” crashes. Hopefully…

Thanks for that info, star-affinity! Praying that this gives us all some long-overdue relief!!

I am hoping that the scope of this fix MAYBE goes beyond virtualization-related issues (alone), because I have had 2 recent watchdog crashes (in the past few days) and had NO virtualization software running at the time.

Regardless, I'm going into this with a glass-half-full mindset... :)

I'm afraid my initial tests are not looking too good. I have an Ubuntu VM running in VirtualBox. I had previously reduced the memory allocated to the VM, as I read somewhere that that will slow down the problem, which it did.

I just did the update, and reverted my settings so that the VM was given 50% of my system memory. And I resumed normal operation. As I watched Activity Monitor, I was disappointed to see the Memory Pressure steadily rise, until after about 45 minutes of operation, it was approaching 70%. This is basically the same as before the update.

Hopefully others will have better results, since this problem does appear to have very different circumstances for different people. But since the release notes specifically mentioned virtual environments, I was really hoping this would help me. It appears so far that it does not.

But it doesn't crash at least?

I mean how memory management is handeld by VirtualBox and macOS is one thing – and it can always be improved upon I guess – but at least we should't get a Kernel Panic, I think.

@ktalley1015

Yes, the two problems with virtualization and this ”watchdog timeout” problem isn't necessarily related, but there often are many fixes and changes in the macOS updates that aren't listed in the release notes, so we can always hope. :)

10.15.6 with Supplemental Upgrade just crashed on me 10 minutes ago (upgrade was installed around 6pm CST yesterday). Fans started blowing loudly, and 2-3 minutes later it shut itself down. I did have both Teams and VMWare Fusion running at the time of crash.

My half-full glass of optimism is now half-empty (and draining quickly!)

(FWIW, my older MBPro 2015 running the BS/11 beta has had no issues -- Teams and Fusion both running 24/7...)

My MBP 2019 16" w/external monitor has been crashing while sleeping much more frequently since 10.15.6. It had been crashing a few months ago and seemed to be behaving better until recently. I also have Fusion VMs running 24/7. Hope the supplemental update will help.

I started using gfx.io and trying to keep it on my integrated graphics for the macbook 16 inch (vs. using the graphics card) and that has helped. I wonder if that plays into the problem for some people here. Others, I know, are using computers without gpu's.

I have a 16 inch macbook with a Radeon Graphics Card. I've been using an application to ensure that the computer doesn't switch to the Radeon (and uses the integrated graphics card instead) and I haven't had any crashes. Fwiw you might want to try that.

I've read through this thread that appears to have started last October. I am a bit amazed a year will be upon us soon and this problem is not resolved. I'm using a MacPro (2013) with 96G of RAM, not running any virtual machines, and today my machine has crashed nonstop. It will crash prior to sleeping, or even while sleeping. With my MacBook Air, it crashes CONSISTENTLY while sleeping. Both of them have Catalina. None of these problems started until I installed that OS.

What I haven't done is upgrade my other MacPro (2013) with 96G of RAM, nor my daily use MacBook Pro. Both of them are running Mojave, and it looks as though I will keep them both there for now. Interestingly enough, those two machines are running VM (MacPro 1, MBP 2). Not one single crash for any reason.

Apple has got to do a better job of addressing current issues instead of this crazy race to continue pushing out a new OS that further buries and complicates MAJOR issues we already face. I've been an Apple user since I was in 3rd grade. I no longer automatically upgrade anything anymore after several years ago encountering far too many issues with the OS. The amount of effort involved for recovery forever placed a pause button on my immediate upgrades.

I will continue to look to determine if any positive information comes up. Big Sur simply frightens me! If 10.15.6 is causing this much havoc in my life, I am not ready for it. I am already wondering whether the supplemental update will really make any difference. If it cures the current issue, I will be sure to post an update.

I've been following this thread since early April but this is my first post as I haven't felt that I had anything helpful to offer. Frankly I still don't but I wanted to share my experience and the path forward (hopefully) that I am going to try. I've been a Mac user since 1986 (with a brief break during the bad years post OS 7 until OS X and the switch to Intel). I've worked in IT in various capacities over the years (mostly help desk and sysadmin stuff) and I regularly use Mac, Linux, and Windows but I much prefer to live in the Mac world when possible. That said, the Catalina disaster that has beset us all has made me question that.

My affected machine is a late 2012 iMac with all the original apple ingredients--I haven't modified anything. I don't have external monitors on it and I do not have VM software installed. While this machine is getting old, it's always been rock-solid since day one. I ran Mojave on it until the end of December 2019 and never had a problem and typically only restarted the computer every couple months or so. Then at the end of 2012, I decided to upgrade to the new OS since it had been out a while. Typically, upgrading the OS with Apple has always been a good improvement: more stability, more features, quicker responsiveness... I've always been amazed how a new OS on apple always seems to make an older machine feel better as opposed to how those upgrades usually go in the Windows world. Initially, the Catalina upgrade seemed to be just that.

After a few months passed (mid-March), I deleted my bootable backup of my Mojave machine because my computer had run flawlessly in Catalina the whole time. Then on March 28, 2020 Apple pushed an update that effectively killed my computer. After that upgrade I would have constant kernel panics always due to the watchdogd counter hitting 0 without a checkin from the windows server. Sometimes my computer would have 10-20 kernel panics between pressing the power button and reaching the log-in screen. If I left it on all day, it would typically reboot 30-50 times a day! There was no way to even use the machine. Again, this was not caused by non-apple memory (it's all factory installed), or external monitors (I have none), or virtualization software (I'm not using it). Nor is it caused by any defective hardware--I've tested everything and it all checks out. Also, I should add, if I boot the computer into Linux it is completely stable and works great. In fact, that how I used my computer from March 28 until late June due to personal time constraints that prohibited me form working on the machine. This problem, it seems to me, is caused solely by Apple's negligence in their code. Problem is, as we all know, identifying the source of the problem from our end seems to be impossible.

So, since June, I gave up on Apple ever issuing a fix--they don't even seem willing to admit they created a problem. I wiped my computer and did a clean install of Mojave. It is stable for the most part but not at all as it was pre-Catalina. It runs okay about 70% of the time but often becomes completely unresponsive for a while requiring me to wait or even walk away until it comes back to life. It never kernel panics though so the endless reboot loops are gone which is at least a small, though somewhat pyrrhic, victory. The fact that this instability has carried back to Mojave even though I did a clean install leads me to believe that they altered code in the EFI that has caused this problem. That also would explain why none of us can find an actual cause let alone solution.

Sorry this was so long. The length is reflective of my level of frustration with Apple. Remember when we all thought Vista was the worst OS upgrade ever? Vista is dead. Long live Catalina, destroyer of Macs!

[Edited by Moderator]

Well, Apple edited my post because apparently discussing possible workarounds violates their EULA here. My level of disgust with Apple has now reached 11! If they aren't going to fix the problem then they need to let us discuss ALL possible options even if they aren't "apple-certified."

I feel your pain. For myself its been 15 months waiting for a fix that the last supplementary update to Mojave bought. After spending weeks doing my own debugging and getting down to nighshift causing constant kernel resolution switches when an external monitor was connected to being informed by Apple that it was fixed in Catalina....to have Catalina then kill my MBP (still in warranty) when it was installed I then decided that no more would I update until all of this silliness was resolved. I'm still sitting on 10.15.1. External monitor resolution is incorrectly identified by the OS whener I switch a display. It Kernel Panics about once a month but this all seems so much better than what the following experiences of Catalina seems to have bought to the community. Like yourself, I've given up that these issues will be resolved by Apple in the life span of my Mac. In fact, the such poor customer experience and the unwillingness to resolve the issue has forced me to look at alternative hardware for my machine for the first time in probably 2 decades. While I will be sorry to leave MAC OS its becoming an essential part of needing to work and an unreliable and inconsistent OS that can randomly crash and/or have an upgrade kill the machine is not what I need to work with. There are reports on the threads relating to external monitors that the firmware upgrades result in previous versions of the OS no longer correctly functioning. This is repeated many times over and I have had the exact same experience. As Apple do not permit you to restore the firmware that matches the OS when you roll back you get left with mismatched OS and firmware and problems then still persist. Simply appears that the OS and hardware match is an issue. So, like yourself, it does appear that 15 months of inability to provide a fully working and stable MAC and hardware combination is forcing me to look at a solution that can. Sad state of affairs but at least with Vista you could always go backwards.