iMac keeps crashing after Catalina upgrade

I'm having the same issue. I have successfully stopped (read: worked around) the problem and recreated the problem three times.

I have two 4k monitors attached to my 2019 MacBook Pro (2019 MacBook Pro with 8-core i9 processor and Radeon Pro Vega 20 GPU). It seems that whenever the computer under a heavy computational load (like bulk transferring large files) and engages the GPU to assist, the computer freezes and then force-restarts to resolve the situation. (I'm sure that's not technically what's happening under hood, but that's the best way I can describe what seems to be happening.) This happens only when I am connected to my 4k monitors. When I disconnect them, my MacBook is stable and doesn't crash.

So now have two 4k monitors that are sitting unused until Apple gets this fixed, or I revert back to the previous OS version. This is hands down the worst upgrade experience I have had with Apple since I bought my first Mac in 2007. Disappointing, to say the least.

Issue is with Spotlight mds process.

If you have large folders with lots of files exclude them from Spotlight searching under System Preferences > Spotlight > Privacy.

This fixed my Catalina crashing issue.

Will just raise my hand that I'm experiencing the same issue of crashing after a period of time. I thought it might be ShareMouse, which I use as a virtual KVM switch. However after reading comments from all y'all, sounds like it could be deeper.

Problem system is a 2017 iMac Pro with 32 GB RAM, 3.2 GHz 8-Core Intel Xeon W processor and a Radeon Pro Vega 56 8 GB graphics card.

Upgrade on my 2018 15-in MacBook Pro has had no issues.

Should have waited on the upgrade...

Just to confirm, my fix has held through a whole night without using the machine, and after all mails have re-downloaded. There's no way this was happening before.

Looks like I'm good here. Again, hope it helps somebody else.

We too are excited. You have buggered my MacBook Air with a wepon called Catalina. This is it, we will let you go round and round in your new palace. You must have buggerd million of Fanbois Mac's. Good bye Apple, may you kill off Macs, you don't make money on this crap. Back to installing Linux on the machine.!

It’s the Vega GPU that’s common between all our crashes. Usually an external monitor triggers it. I’m going to wait for others to try out their new 10.15.1 beta and confirm it’s fixed, and then upgrade 6 months after :)

I have a MacBook Retina 12 inch early 2016, 8 GB memory, that is also crashing. It seems to happen when it goes into sleep mode. Typical first black screen says the computer shut down after a problem. Also, Time Machine has not been able to successfully back up my system after the Catalina 10.15 install. I removed my antivirus software, checked for malware; everything checks out ok. Virtual disk is half full. I think there must be a glitch, a final note: its difficult to get my computer to restart when pressing the start button.

Now, after a couple of experiments, I'm pretty sure it's "Sleep" mode of Cataline caused my iMac to crash randomly. I have checked the option "prevent computer from sleeping automatically when the display is off" last night and it didn't crash over the night when I checked this morning. I recommend you to do the same and see if that solves the issue.

It is amazed that Apple still doesn't produce a fix for this yet. Cataline upgrade is the worst I have ever experienced including going back to the old days when I was with Windows machines.

Exact same problem with my Mac Pro (late 2013 model) since upgrading to Catalina. Random crashes and similar reports:

Panic(CPU 0, time 9864229070687): NMIPI for spinlock acquisition timeout, spinlock: 0xffffff80aed93020, spinlock owner: 0xffffff80a7731530, current_thread: 0xffffff80a7731530, spinlock_owner_cpu: 0x0

12" Early 2015 MacBook. Same problem - it appears related to the machine going to sleep. If it sits for a few minutes and looks to go to sleep, failure. Tried formatting and reinstall Catalina fresh - not just an upgrade. No luck - problem persists. Also tried resetting NVRAM and SMC controller. Nothing works.

CozmoBailey, I have disabled the screen saver and set the Mac so it will not sleep and I have not had a single crash since doing so. The workaround is not ideal--but it's far better than the Mac crashing every few minutes.

I have the same issue whenever I leave my MacBook unattended and the screen in the up position. At this time (before the fix happens), I close the screen down when I am taking a break. When I return I just open the screen again and it returns to a normal state of operation. I have had some success with using the standard shutdown protocols. Leaving the laptop running for any extended period of time, without any keyboard interaction, is when it crashes. Of course, this isn't possible with a desktop Mac.

My MBP keeps crashing too when screensaver goes on, or when I'm using Parallels 15. Its a MacBook Pro (15-inch, 2018) 2.9 GHz 6-Core Intel Core i9, 32 GB, and Radeon Pro Vega 20 4 GB Intel UHD Graphics 630 1536 MB with 1TB HDD.

monsterdiv, my 2019 MBP, with the Radeon Pro 560X, two 30" external monitors and Parallels 15 had been crashing every time it was unattended. The crash report each time started with a variant of the following: panic(cpu 2 caller 0xffffff7f8a39cad5): userspace watchdog timeout: no successful checkins from com.apple.WindowServer in 140 seconds

I've not had a crash since disabling the screen saver, disabling all sleep functions, and enabling the Parallels Tools "Do Not Sleep" function.