Since installing Catalina yesterday, multiple crashes from userspace watchdog timeout

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.

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.

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.

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 :-(

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'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.

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."