Since installing Catalina yesterday, multiple crashes from userspace watchdog timeout

It took me several attempts to get a sysdiagnose through. I suggest you keep trying via terminal (having it already open) if you can get to it.

Everyone in general should get the Apple Feedback Assistant app and submit this problem. The more submitted the more they might pay attention.

Of course if you get a sysdiagnose attach it to the report in Feedback Assistant.

I think it's clear there are several causes for this, as in my case I'm no longer having this problem after updating to the latest OS. I do have a couple of apps crashing fairly frequently (Roon and Screenflow so far) but I'll take that over system crashes.

I believe I am in a very similar situation. I have resorted to leaving the laptop open and setting the laptop and the external display to mirror each other. As long as I don’t use the clamshell mode I don’t get the crashes. I just open the laptop a few inches.

I also have experienced no more crashes since the 10.15.6 update, at least so far. (MBP 16" 2019 in clamshell mode with one external display.) I hope for everyone else's benefit that Apple fixes this for all soon! Baby steps are better than none at all, I guess.

I'd had a nightmare of crashes with my MacBook Pro 16, 2019 model with Catalina versions up to 10.15.3.

However since around 10.15.4 the crashes are no longer occurring at all.

Not sure exactly how it happened ( at the time I doubted my Akitio 10GB Ethernet dock and two 4k monitors ), but one thing I remember is that after being frustrated with 10.15.4, I tried clean install of everything.

I know how frustrating it can be to be told "try re-installing everything",

but to me Catalina 10.15.6 is perfectly stable, if anyone is still experiencing problems, why not give it one last chance, with a clean install.

Hi

(easyread bit)

Certainly from my experience where the screen freezes I don't believe that the watchdog is the cause of the problem, just the program which catches it.

panic(cpu 6 caller 0xffffff7f912faad5): userspace watchdog timeout: no successful checkins from com.apple.WindowServer in 120 seconds

So the WindowServer that drives the desktop display stop responding, watchdog notices this and after it has been unresponsive for 2 minutes restarts the system.

(easyreaders stop here :)

As for interrupt storm, anything is a possibility. I haven't found a pattern to the hangs yet. Although in my case it's definitely the WindowServer which is hanging first. Everything except the mouse pointer freezes (including toolbar apps like clock).

I would love to be able to find out what WindowServer is waiting for when it hangs. Might give a few clues.

I know many are seeing this when the system is sleeping or otherwise involved in power saving, but others, like myself, are seeing this whilst the system is actively being used.

... there is a glimmer of hope though. 10.15.6 (release) has now been stable for a couple of days. Even if it crashes now that is far better than the previous release / betas which were struggling to survive a couple of hours.

@BlakeEiseman, try unchecking "Put hard disks to sleep when possible" in the Energy Saver System Preferences. That's what I tried last week, as suggested by an Apple support tech, and I haven't encountered a single kernel panic since.

Hardware acceleration has nothing to do with the watchdog timeout kernel panic.

The problem is likely associated with a kext conflict as result of a memory leak. It has been reported by users of both apps to their respective developers who are already aware of. Hopefully this issue will be corrected on an upcoming release followed by a supplemental update from Apple.

I had not had a crash in 2 days until today when I was running VMware Fusion and then joined a MS Teams meeting. After about 15-20 mins into the Teams meetings, my MBP froze (could still hear the participants in Teams for about 1 minute) and crashed in a manner indicative of this problem. So excluding my "Virtual Machines" directory from Spotlight didn't fix this.

As long as I avoid running VMware Fusion at the same time as MS Teams, then 10.15.6 does not crash on me. I can run either one or the other, but not both simultaneously.

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

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…

I have two work Macbook Pro's (a 2017 with an i7 and a 2019 with an i9). I run a TB3 dock (CalDigit) with dual monitors, keyboard, mouse, etc...

The i7 runs flawlessly on Catalina 10.15.7. When I run Catalina 10.15.7 on the i9 I get the same watchdog issues described in this long thread. Once I go to 10.14.6 on the i9 it runs flawlessly and I see zero issues.

I only get the watchdog issues when I put the laptop to sleep. All software and (external) hardware is identical for the most part. That tells me it is something configuration wise with the internal Mac pro hardware that is causing these issues. I suspect it's a driver issue with the Radeon Pro Vega 20 OR the i9/chipset but I don't have any proof.

MBPro 2018 15" and problem seems diminished.

OFF

Prevent Computer from sleeping

Wake for WiFi

ON

Put hard disk to sleep

Enable Power Nap

The 10.15.3 update is out. If that doesn't fix things I guess we have to hope for 10.15.4. :-/

The Catalina 10.15.5 update is out. Fingers crossed...

Anyone want to try the just released Catalina 10.15.6, and report back if it helps?