iMac keeps crashing after Catalina upgrade

What helped me was starting the computer in safe mode, removing all drives etc attached.

Restarted in regular mode see if it works correctly before attaching anything back to it.

If it works, then connect them, one at the time, checking if the computer keeps working correctly every time you connect one back.

I had two external drives, starting in safe mode, fixed the issue for me.

I lost hours of work from the crashes with design deadline in a few hours. Very frustrating. How could they have missed such a flaw[s]? I have now hard reset my computer 4 times and counting since the Catalina upgrade a couple of days ago.

It's been awhile since I have posted an update. Apple and I are most tight with each other, we hang out a lot and chat a lot. I'm expecting another call with them tomorrow.

I do have quite the update. The rep I have worked with talked me into wiping my storage complete and freshly installing the MacOS Catalina freshly. After I did that, I performed a few tests, it seemed to sleep appropriately and waking up with struggle but hasn't crashed so I migrated my recent backup files (not from the destroyed by Catalina hard drive) and I seem to be working ok. It's not a sure answer yet as I am making up for several hours of lost work.

Here's my time wasted on average because of the crashing and the wiping and the re-install (4 times of wiping and reinstalling to stabilize it):

About $7,500 has been lost in my business time attempting to fix this issue. To install the Catalina update should have only wasted $125 worth of my time. On top of that, Catalina has destroyed my hard drive that I mentioned earlier that is over $100 buy from Costco for a 6tb drive but the files on the hard drive lost is valued in the several thousands.

Plain and simple, Catalina should have never been released in the state it was in. QA missed BIG on this.

Now, I will give Apple props for their fabulous customer service. They have been trying to work with me on research and debugging but this amount of time, hours spent on fixing this when I could have been serving my customers is ridiculous. The time I lost over the weekend from my family is unacceptable, we did cancel plans because of this issue. This is real financial loss.

The hard drive I can recover from specialists but that too will be an additional financial loss. Apple, I'm doing math beyond what I should be for work.

If this current fix you just ran me through doesn't work out, our conversation is going to be much different on our next phone call tomorrow.

If it was that simple, I would not be here. I did not solve the issue. Practically, any suggestion from online posts or the basic resets of what Apple will typically guide you through has not worked.

The reps that I have been speaking with have been calling me back. This issue is all the way up to the engineers having research performed to attempt to prevent this issue from happening.

I haven't stepped away from my computer yet today, I'm about too, and if it crashes again, then I was told that this will be progressed for the engineers to dig in themselves to solve the issue.

This feed is much more than "crying", it's a feed for Apple that their eyes are on, and they know this is a serious issue. No basic fixes unfortunately.

Oh don’t get me wrong here, I’m in the same boat. My iMac just keeps crashing mid encoding and I can’t figure out why. Glad I have a 2015 MacBook that’s still working even after the upgrade.

I was wondering if anyone had tried that and if it was successful.

When I revived my iMac Monday, I had to do the upgrade which didn’t go at all well, as Apple shipped it with the older OSX. Apps either crashed or just didn’t work. So I did a fresh install of Catalina, and here I am, all apps working but the computer just keeps crashing. Sometimes it gets thru my work ok, sometimes not. Apple have to work this out fast!

The same issue happened with me. I have Mac pro early 2013 and I follow up with support chat for 3 days doing everything from reinstalling and erasing the storage and installing from scratch but the same result every time. It works for multiple minutes then crash and refuse to turn on again. After some time, it turns on again. Horrible experience with Mac. I even tried to run the mac os recovery to turn it back to the OS I got with my mac when I bought it in 2013 but it refused and didn't complete!

This is not upgrade version ! it is a virus behavior! I can't imagine how such a software package is released from Apple labs with this level of bad quality ! too frustrated. No clue for me. Even Apple authorized centers refuse to help me as my model is flagged as Vintage which they can't even check and/or help! all blame came to me because I trusted apple and upgraded my machine to the latest software from Apple.

ALERT!

This is getting very bad for Apple!

The Catalina poor software release has just hit Forbes Magazine. Seems thousands of Mac and apple users are furious with this terrible OS that should not be named Catalina, but more properly, Catastrophe

Just restored my MacBook back to Mojave took 4 hours!

Before I did this I put a fresh version of Catalina on the system. This also crashed after connecting my external displays the same as the upgraded system.

I'll stick with Mojave for now I think.!

Well.... the panic attacks returned to my Macbook Pro!

panic(cpu 3 caller 0xffffff80090e0683): "m_copydata: invalid mbuf chain 0xffffff81fbb4e700 [off 0, len 12885]"@/BuildRoot/Library/Caches/com.apple.xbs/Sources/xnu/xnu-6153.11.26/bsd/kern/uipc_mbuf.c:5374

For the time being I'm naming my computer "Macbook Amateur".

I must say... over the last years Apple has been really helping gaining and increasing my trust for Linux. I think I'll start making preps for the tranfer.

I am having the same issue. When I return the screen is a blue/pink swirl of color, or the computer has shut down and I need two restart. Sometimes the system completely freezes, and sometimes I am able to get it running again without a restart. If it goes into sleep mode, even if I do this manually, it crashes upon waking up ever since the upgrade.

I thought that this would help - and it did for few days - but last night I had this same crash again.

I have an open AppleCare ticket and sent log files to them this morning.

Case still open, no permanent solution found, except unplugging external monitors :(

This will some what repeat what I said last time but this is purely on the steps that I took as advised by Apple support. This is the last step for a solution according to my rep. I went over 24 hours with this solution and I have not experienced 1 single crash. In fact, the upside to this, my computer is some how running the most smooth it ever has in comparison to the other 2018 and 2017 MacBook Pros I have owned. I think this will be the steps I take for each major update. The solution is purely a clean install of the OS so make sure you run the Time Machine backup first before you proceed.

1) Run Time Machine Backup

2) Restart the computer and hold Cmd+R before the Apple logo appears

3) Log into Disk Utility and erase the hard drive. If you have both Macintosh HD and Macintosh-Data, erase both drives and delete one of the patricians. (Caution: You may have to perform this action a couple of times or even create a new blank Partitian and delete the others - I had to do this very thing to have a function blank drive - yeah, it did get complicated but it was worth it)

4) Exit the disk utility and run a clean install of the Catalina operating system. DO NOT run that install with Time Machine or run the Time Machine restore... This is to be purely a clean install as if you just bought the computer.

5) When you run the install and initiate a user profile create, do not create the same user profile that is on your back, name it something else.

6) Log in to your new clean install, test the monitors with the computer, recreate the environment that would cause the crash. If you are crash free, then close all programs and windows, you are ready for the next step.

7) Click on the search icon for "Spotlight Search" in the upper right corner, search for "Migration Assistant", then run the Migration Assistant from your most recent backup. This will allow the transfer of the files over without the installation of the buggy OS.

8) With the back files successfully transferred back over, you can now log into your original user profile with programs and files.

9) Don't celebrate yet, you need to check your computer for any invalid programs and or files. When I cleared these out, I found my system also performing much better. May I recommend "App Cleaner & Uninstall" to assist you.

Once again, I'm on 24 hours now without debugging, without fixing and without a crash. If I experience a crash again I will post but so far I have a way better performing computer now than I have had before. But this solution is still no excuse for Apple to not address this very issue. So far I have had terrific reps who has been with me every step of the way and I have a direct line to my rep just in case if this issue reoccurs.

This is a complex fix and requires surgical precision when performing it. Good luck and let me know how it goes for you.

Mine crashed and would not recover until I tried all kinds of resets. Sometimes it would only fan-on for a few seconds and then crash straight away again. Of course I eventually unplugged the external screen and had better luck. it still crashes now so I stopped the computer from sleeping in any way. It scared me but I'm glad others have similar issues and it's maybe not a hardware fault. I was so close to taking it into a repair shop. Not cool Apple... I've wasted over 24 hours dealing with Catalina issues. From now on I'm NEVER installing a new OS until it's at least 6 months old.

Hi mrbofus, it's interesting you say to use a different user name... I wonder if it's related to my other issue I'm having with user accounts. I noticed a bug where I deleted and created a new admin account but with the same name.... anyway the computer is always confused as to which password to accept for admin access. Sometimes it allows the new password - sometimes not! - this is really really strange behaviour.

I've been seeing degradation on my MacBook as well since the upgrade last week. Two hard crashes. Both times, attached external monitors (once at my home office, once at work office, so different monitor configurations). Noticed that in general the machine has had a hard time recognizing the monitors and placing them correctly since the update, so wouldn't at all be surprised if this is some sort of graphics driver issue. Have not had a crash without external monitors but will try that later tonight. Yeah, Apple needs to resolve ASAP, this is not a "minor" bug.

MacBook Pro (15-inch, 2017)

2.9 Ghz Quad-Core Intel Core i7

16 GB 2133 Mhz LPDDR3

Radeon Pro 560 4 GB

Intel HD Graphics 630 1536 MB

j5create docks at home

Belkin dock at work

One note worth adding: I've also had issues with my Dock disappearing only to come back after reboot, then eventually never coming back until I've deleted the docking plist file under library\preferences. When it occurs "Automatically hide and show the Dock" is checked in the Dock preferences even though I've never checked it and unchecking doesn't do anything. Related? Who knows.