Since installing Catalina yesterday, multiple crashes from userspace watchdog timeout

Coming up to 12 months since original post. 35 pages here and lots more in other threads. Still no fix from Apple. I agree it looks EFI related. As Apple offer no way of installing EFI aligned with the MACOS that your installing any use of a new release of the OS changes the EFI. If there is a EFI problem there is never a way to return to stability. Simply even trying a new OS on an external drive results in your MAC firmware being upgraded. If that firmware is faulty then your existing previous system becomes unstable. This is the reason I stopped updating my MAC. I'm glad I did after catalina killed the logic board. From that point onwards i thought this will not end well. 20 years on a MAC and I'm looking for alternatives as the result of the Apple/Catalina experience on providing customer service. The experience is simply so poor now that the premium price for the device is not worth the cost. Sad....but i see no end in sight. We can have cake on October 9 for the first birthday of this thread and the instability that was bought with Catalina.....35 pages on.

I'm perfectly agree with BradSP. Now my IMac doesn't restart, it just freeze, the mouse is the only thing that works.

I repeatedly shut down brutally every 15 minutes, completely unusable.

That's why I wait Big Sur, in case of the problem still appear I unfortunately will go away it and return to Microsoft system.....

This is my final solution for a 2019 27" iMac, which is what the original thread was about. I had all the problems the original poster had, including the kernel panics, restarts, etc. Initially, I had upgraded my RAM with two 16gb OWC sticks. I found out the OWC RAM had bad timing and switched it to Crucial. Three weeks now with no issues. Again, this solution is for my iMac, not for any Macbooks or the external monitor issues.

For those with access to the Apple Feedback Assistant (Beta/Devs) are you submitting reports? I have been since back in May and am slightly concerned that the "Recent Similar Reports" has dropped from around 10 to "none". Maybe this is just a sign that they're not getting collated at Apples end?

I'm submitting with;

Description: System freezes and rebooted by watchdog due to WindowServer

Area: System Crashes/Unexpected Reboot

Type: Application Crash

How Long: It varies

Kind: Unexpected reboot (Restarted because of a problem)

This doesn't fit the problem exactly but was the best fit I could find in the options for the WindowServer issue;

"panic(cpu 2 caller 0xffffff80103fba69): userspace watchdog timeout: no successful checkins from com.apple.WindowServer in 120 seconds"

I was having this since November of last year and constantly reporting this. I escalated to the point they replaced my logic board. Nothing helped. Finally they came out with a system update and that has fixed it for me. I'm now running the latest catalina and I don't have the problem any longer.

Christopher

Apple are not here to respond -> Which is why I was trying to encourage people to use the Feedback Assistant. Hopefully the more crash reports etc the more attention Apple will give.

Update 10.15.7 is available to all -> No update I've had solves the problem ... yet.

The vast majority now have no problems with crashes with 10.15.6-> onwards.

The feedback assistant, as you pointed out, is only available to users on the Beta program

Regular users should use apple.com/feedback site instead.

I haven't heard of anyone who had this ”watchdog timeout” related Kernel Panic before 10.15.6 say that it was fixed after installing 10.15.6 (or 10.15.7 for that matter).

But I guess you're right it can't be that many who see these crashes compared to how many has Catalina installed out there. At the same time there seems to be quite a few that do still. :(

It was fixed with a supplemental update to 10.15.6 which was available to everyone who had the original 10.5.6 update that contained the bug; everyone downloading 10.15.6 after that supplemental update was released downloaded a new build containing the bug fix. So, naturally, 10.15.7 contains the fix as well.

Well, people are still seeing it also after the 10.15.7 update.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/constant-kernel-panics-userspace-watchdog-timeout-no-successful-checkins-from-com-apple-windowserver.2222878/page-32?post=29039603#post-29039603

@danpalmer

Unfortunately definitely not the case. My Mac Pro (iBin cylinder) has been crashing with "watchdog timeout: no successful checkins from com.apple.WindowServer" all the way through Catalina and beyond. Some releases do it less frequently, some so frequently I couldn't even submit a crash report before it crashed again.

Avoiding working video editing/playing seems to help a bit on my system.

So after upgrading to the latest latest version on OSX a couple of hours ago.... It appears that system hang without watchdog catching it is the new normal for me at least :-(

3 Lockups in the last hour each one requiring a power removal reboot.

Only working on Email / Safari so far. Nothing stressful like video work which is what normally causes me issues.

I have not posted here in probably a month (or so). I basically put my 2019 Macbook Pro "on the shelf" until I could find time to deal with it. I had reloaded my 2015 MBP with Mojave (fresh install), and have been able to work on THAT laptop as my daily driver, so the urgency on the 2019 machine was not as great. I finally thought I would just try to also do a fresh install of Mojave on the 2019 one as well (after doing a backup of everything before shipping it back to home office). Long story short -- I ended up in a huge mess where I could not install ANYTHING (even over internet recovery). Apparently, I (or this possessed machine itself) somehow hosed the hard drive and the internal recovery to a point of no return. So the home office IT folks recommended just taking it to Apple store to have them fix or replace it (since it was under warranty). BUT... Apple stores here in Nashville area are not yet open, so I ended up taking to Simply Mac. They were finally able to install Mojave, and told me to take it home and see how it acted/performed -- if the watchdog and/or kernel panic issues remained (After fresh install) they would re-diagnose under the same warranty ticket.

SO... I have had the laptop back (running fresh Mojave install) for about 8 days now, and all I can say is "NOTHING". No crashes, no panics, almost zero fan noise. NOTHING. I even spent a whole day doing video capture of some old home movies (which did stress the CPU quite a bit, and the fan did occasionally fire up), but it behaved like a champ. Based on this (at least in MY situation), neither Catalina updates/fixes or the latest beta (of BS) helped my issues. But a fresh install of Mojave DID -- at least for these past 8-9 days. I was almost to the point where I was certain there MUST be some hardware issue at play (CPU, memory, mainboard, etc.), but I may end up being proven wrong. I plan (next week) to re-install all of my development tools and try using the 2019 MBP as my daily machine again -- that will be the true test. If all goes well for a few weeks, then my 2019 MBP may simply be married to Mojave forever -- "happily ever after". Sad, but there are worse things, I suppose... :)

Just wanted to share my experience (for what it's worth). I know we are all frustrated, and all do not necessarily have the same exact root cause -- just a lot of similar symptoms, and NOT a lot of concrete answers and solutions.

Success and solutions to all...

KT

Thanks for that KT ... I wonder if I can achieve the same test with an external SSD on my Mac Pro ... ah well it's an excuse to buy more tech ....!

I wonder if the problem would reappear if you now upgrade that back to Catalina?

>> I wonder if the problem would reappear if you now upgrade that back to Catalina?

We shall all continue to "wonder" about that, because I am not touching this thing in ANY way!! haha.... :)

KT