Since installing Catalina yesterday, multiple crashes from userspace watchdog timeout

Thanks for the update. I have an iMac (Late 2015) with the 10.15.1 on it. I have had crashes at a rate of about 2 to 3 per day. I also have a Mac Book Pro 2019 with 16 gig memory factory installed and the developer version of Catalina 10.15.2 beta and I have not had any crash issues.

Multiple people observe that their Catalina OS crashes in correlation to the use of Multiple Monitors, but I do not use multiple monitors on my iMac, only the MacBook Pro uses 1 external LG monitor and an iPad 12'9" Pro 2nd Generation in Side Car mode. The Mac Book Pro has not crashed - ever.

Based on your report, it seems that the Apple developers are aware of the problem and are taking active steps to correct the problem.

As a side note, my iMac was at the end of the Warrantee period and Apple Support changed out the Hard Drive and the Wireless Card, but those hardware changes did not fix the problem. As a final resolve we downgraded the OS back to Mojave 10.14.6 which has not had the crashing problem ever.

I guess I need to wait till the 10.15.2 Catalina is commercial release.

One more note, the memory in my iMac is 32 gig, but the factory installed memory was 8 gig. There was a hypothesis that the after market memory might have been the problem, but I think we can safely conclude that the after market memory is OK. Its a Catalina OS problem that is being resolved as we speak.

iMac Pro w/ 10.15.1 installed, crashed just like this when computer was under heavy load (CPU, disk), thanks to about 5 or 6 Windows 10 VMs (Fusion 11.5.1) decided to run a Windows 10 update...

And, yes, I have 2 x external Apple Cinema displays connected to this computer at all times.

Ok thanks for letting me know. Apple down graded my OS on my iMac to Mohave 10.16.6 and I have not had the problem. My iMac is a Late 2015 4 Ghz Intel Core i7 with 32 Gb memory and the AMD Radeon R9 M395x 4GB graphics card.

I looked for a possible workaround yesterday afternoon but that road went nowhere for me.

However I was pleasantly surprised to discover 10.15.2 was released during the night, and applied it this morning.

My 10.15.1 was a clean install, with data from my home folder transferred with the Migration Assistant.

Since 10.15.2's reboot I have had no crash, no beachball, no sudden loss of mouse or keyboard control, no frozen screen... while Time Machine creates a full backup of my clean 10.15.2.

I am back to a usable system, and it feels good.

As written earlier, the problem started after I upgraded to Mojave, and got worse with the Catalina 10.15.1 fresh install.

It is my first real clean install in nearly 10 years. I suppose I was looking for trouble.

That specific machine is a MacPro 2013, 12 cores, D300, OWC 1TB, 12GB, hooked to a thunderbolt OWC dock I had to unplug to let the Mac reboot during the 10.15.2 update.

On the basis the machine did not reboot a single time for the first half the day, while I suffered nearly a dozen reboots yesterday afternoon, I suppose we can call that 10.15.2 update a frank success.

I'll get back to you with more information:

Tests over many more hours on both devices:

1st MacBook Pro Late 2017, 8GB RAM, with or without external monitor 4K, no TimeMachine: no crashes on Parallels 14, Windows 10.

2. iMac 27 Late 2015, 16GB RAM, without external monitor 4K, with TimeMachine:

no crashes on Parallels 15, Windows 10.

3. iMac 27 Late 2015, 16GB RAM, with 4K External Monitor, with TimeMachine:

Time and again crashes at irregular intervals on Parallels 15, Windows 10.

In my opinion it can only be due to the external monitor in connection with iMac 27 and Parallels 15. Monitor is connected via DVI. Could still try to connect it via HDMI, just like MacBook Pro does.

Adding my name to the list of people with this issue. 2019 16 MBP attached by thunderbolt to an LG 5K2k. Crashes whenever it goes to sleep. Have updated to 10:15.2, hasn't made any difference.

I'm disappointed nobody at Apple appears to listen. Kicking myself now. Should have bought a PC this time round.

I also updated to 10.15.2 and I'll get the Panic crash unless I manually put my computer to sleep or shutdown at night. Doesn't happen when screen saver starts, so it must be when the system actually goes to sleep on it's own.

Coming to the end of the line for my 2013 Mac Pro, but I'm not shelling out $6k + for a new Mac Pro if I can expect this level of support from Apple.

I've been on the phone to a more senior adviser in the US who did appear to be making a genuine effort to get to the bottom of this. Stage one was to restart with right shift, option command pressed for 7 seconds on start, then a further seven seconds, which resets something (SMC?) Anyway, I don't hold much hope that will work, but if it doesn't then she is emailing further steps and a support ticket if they fail.

Update: first crash in more than 24 hours.

Once again the report stated the WindowServer not checking in in more than 120 seconds.

The crash started with the screen becoming a dog's breakfast: the windows were diced and shifted, and did not agree with the actual boundaries of the monitor anymore.

My monitor is a basic 23-inch (1920 x 1080) on display port. Nothing like 4K.

On the grounds that the frequency of the crashes went down dramatically after updating to 10.15.2, it looks like Apple fixed the major issue (with regards to a clean install of Catalina). However there may be compounding bugs that result in a similar visual effect.

Keep sending your reports and describing your configuration and cleanliness of your Catalina install as precisely as possible.

Don't upgrade to 10.15.2!

(2018 MacBook Pro in clamshell mode with 3 external 23" displays)

I was able to avoid most crashes in 10.15.1 by turning off sleep and TimeMachine. I took the chance (hoping Apple would fix the crashes) in upgrading to 10.15.2 and now constantly experience the Panic/Windows crashes (about every 30 minu

I am on a MacBook Air 13-inch, Mid 2012 with no external monitor or anything plugged into it. It has crashed on me twice in the last 4 hours and twice a few days ago. I am using Catalina updated to 10.15.2

But I am writing a massive paper for my Masters degree. This is terrifying every time it dies, afraid I am going to lose my 25 page paper.

panic(cpu 2 caller 0xffffff7f87cefa8d): watchdog timeout: no checkins from watchdogd in 93 seconds (1338 total checkins since monitoring last enabled)

Backtrace (CPU 2), Frame : Return Address

0xffffff8099ff3c40 : 0xffffff800713bb1b 

0xffffff8099ff3c90 : 0xffffff80072733e5 

0xffffff8099ff3cd0 : 0xffffff8007264e5e 

0xffffff8099ff3d20 : 0xffffff80070e2a40 

0xffffff8099ff3d40 : 0xffffff800713b207 

0xffffff8099ff3e40 : 0xffffff800713b5eb 

0xffffff8099ff3e90 : 0xffffff80078d2575 

0xffffff8099ff3f00 : 0xffffff7f87cefa8d 

0xffffff8099ff3f10 : 0xffffff7f87cef467 

0xffffff8099ff3f50 : 0xffffff7f87d41e76 

0xffffff8099ff3fa0 : 0xffffff80070e213e 

      Kernel Extensions in backtrace:

         com.apple.driver.watchdog(1.0)[EFAA17B9-A62C-30B7-9602-0BB5282EDDD6]@0xffffff7f87cee000->0xffffff7f87cf6fff

         com.apple.driver.AppleSMC(3.1.9)[CA7CACA5-58A6-3E59-9F67-2422183AB544]@0xffffff7f87d34000->0xffffff7f87d52fff

            dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOACPIFamily(1.4)[3467C105-9354-3BD2-85F3-E5AEF94BD275]@0xffffff7f87ce5000

            dependency: com.apple.driver.watchdog(1)[EFAA17B9-A62C-30B7-9602-0BB5282EDDD6]@0xffffff7f87cee000

            dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOPCIFamily(2.9)[1286D5E5-A6A1-3C44-A244-04C068903DB2]@0xffffff7f87cf7000

BSD process name corresponding to current thread: kernel_task

Mac OS version:

19C57

Kernel version:

Darwin Kernel Version 19.2.0: Sat Nov  9 03:47:04 PST 2019; root:xnu-6153.61.1~20/RELEASE_X86_64

Kernel UUID: C3E7E405-C692-356B-88D3-C30041FD1E72

Kernel slide:     0x0000000006e00000

Kernel text base: 0xffffff8007000000

__HIB  text base: 0xffffff8006f00000

System model name: MacBookAir5,2 (Mac-2E6FAB96566FE58C)

System shutdown begun: NO

Panic diags file available: YES (0x0)

Just to provide my system details: 15" 2018 MacBook w Touch Bar, 32 GB RAM and a Radeon Pro Vega 20 w 4 GB RAM. I've got three external monitors connected, and use the MacBook in clamshell mode. Mojave was close to rock solid- rarely crashed.

Once upgrading to Catalina 10.15.1, I began experiencing numerous crashes (sample pasted below), which I was able to minimize by turning off sleep mode, screensavers, and TimeMachine.

Hoping that Apple had solved the bug, I upgraded to 10.15.2, and now experience constant crashes- Almost every 30 minutes, despite what software is running. I've zapped the PRAM and it didn't help. I might be able to avoid or minimize crashes by unhooking all the external monitors, but then my MacBook is pretty useless for video editing.

My advice is NOT to update to Catalina, (especially 10.15.2) until Apple sorts this out.

-Jim

Snippet from latest crash report:

panic(cpu 10 caller 0xffffff7f8eb9dad5): userspace watchdog timeout: no successful checkins from com.apple.WindowServer in 120 seconds

service: com.apple.logd, total successful checkins since wake (43410 seconds ago): 4342, last successful checkin: 0 seconds ago

service: com.apple.WindowServer, total successful checkins since wake (43410 seconds ago): 4320, last successful checkin: 120 seconds ago

This issue happened with My Mac Pro 2019 since I upgrade to 10.5.2 more than 3 times a day

panic(cpu 2 caller 0xffffff7f9779dad5): userspace watchdog timeout: no successful checkins from com.apple.WindowServer in 120 seconds

service: com.apple.logd, total successful checkins since wake (660 seconds ago): 67, last successful checkin: 0 seconds ago

service: com.apple.WindowServer, total successful checkins since wake (660 seconds ago): 55, last successful checkin: 120 seconds ago

Backtrace (CPU 2), Frame : Return Address

0xffffff91486d3820 : 0xffffff8016d3bb1b 

0xffffff91486d3870 : 0xffffff8016e733e5 

0xffffff91486d38b0 : 0xffffff8016e64e5e 

0xffffff91486d3900 : 0xffffff8016ce2a40 

0xffffff91486d3920 : 0xffffff8016d3b207 

0xffffff91486d3a20 : 0xffffff8016d3b5eb 

0xffffff91486d3a70 : 0xffffff80174d2575 

0xffffff91486d3ae0 : 0xffffff7f9779dad5 

0xffffff91486d3af0 : 0xffffff7f9779d7e6 

0xffffff91486d3b10 : 0xffffff8017466fcb 

0xffffff91486d3b60 : 0xffffff8017470083 

0xffffff91486d3ca0 : 0xffffff8016e22c22 

0xffffff91486d3db0 : 0xffffff8016d41998 

0xffffff91486d3e10 : 0xffffff8016d18625 

0xffffff91486d3e70 : 0xffffff8016d2f0d5 

0xffffff91486d3f00 : 0xffffff8016e4b485 

0xffffff91486d3fa0 : 0xffffff8016ce3226 

      Kernel Extensions in backtrace:

         com.apple.driver.watchdog(1.0)[EFAA17B9-A62C-30B7-9602-0BB5282EDDD6]@0xffffff7f9779c000->0xffffff7f977a4fff

BSD process name corresponding to current thread: watchdogd

Boot args: chunklist-security-epoch=0 -chunklist-no-rev2-dev

Mac OS version:

19C57

It happens for me if I let my Mac Pro go to sleep. If I manually put it to sleep it doesn't happen. Something there. Never happens while I'm using it. Maybe a race condition. Could be running utility tasks, but I turned off Time Machine and it still happened. Defrag while sleeping?

Also, I have two monitors, so that is in common with others, but that could also be a coincidence. Maybe it isn't getting the communication right with the two monitors.

It would be great if there was some kind of grid where each person who has this problem can check off items in their setup and we can lock down the parameters. Find commonalities, reduce noise.