iMac keeps crashing after Catalina upgrade

I literally wrote this a couple of hours before and Apple deleted it, they are actually charging people to repair the logic boards and stuff, the only problems other your computer if ur reading this is Catalina and u most likely have a Radeon pro vega graphics card, don’t waste money downgrade to high Sierra or Mojave and it fixed it for me, Apple technicians don’t know what they have to do to fix this problem.

Looking through this discussion, I saw several potential solutions:

(a) Downgrade to Mojave or High Sierra;

(b) Get rid of any 32-bit software lurking deep in the system; and

(c) Switch off the sleep capabilities.

Options (a) and (b) were clearly going to take some time, so I went for the 'switching off sleep' option, as a starting point.

So far, no crashes. I have put the MBP to sleep manually and it has woken without any drama. Yes, it's only been about 6 hours, but I would have expected a couple by now, on a normal day. I started without external monitors, than added the two regular ones. It just handled it easily.

Tomorrow morning I will know better. 24 hours will be a better test, and I will have it connected to a different pair of external monitors and then a video projector. I'll let you know if there have been any crashes in that time.

There are solutions, but they are several pages back, and they don't seem to work for everybody. Here's what I have surmised thus far, quoting my earlier reply.

"Looking through this discussion, I saw several potential solutions:

(a) Downgrade to Mojave or High Sierra;

(b) Get rid of any 32-bit software lurking deep in the system; and

(c) Switch off the sleep capabilities.

"Options (a) and (b) were clearly going to take some time, so I went for the 'switching off sleep' option, as a starting point.

"So far, no crashes. I have put the MBP to sleep manually and it has woken without any drama. Yes, it's only been about 15 hours now [updated the time], but I would have expected a couple by now, on a normal day. I started without external monitors, then added the two regular ones. It just handled it easily.

"Tomorrow morning I will know better. 24 hours will be a better test, and I will have it connected to a different pair of external monitors [I have already and no problems at all] and then a video projector. I'll let you know if there have been any crashes in that time."

Try the sleep option. The details are in a post about 3 pages back (about page 24 or 25 of this thread), and there are other details of the '32-bit software hunt' you can do, including how to do it and software that can help, and links to the downgrade option.

If the 'sleep' fix works, that's great. If not, keep it and try the '32-bit software hunt' option. There seem to be some drivers that are software specific that are still 32-bit hanging around, and often they are bit of code deep inside a large chunk that seems 64-bit. If that seems daunting or you've got too much stuff that you need that has 32-bit issues, go for the downgrade option.

Note that the file extension on Time Machine back-up files was changed with Catalina, so you will need to change that extension manually to access the back-up files with Catalina or Mojave. There are details of that in a post about 4-5 pages back.

I'm not sure that I have fixed it, but it may be a step in the right direction. Those who said that Adobe software had this 32-bit issue should note that some updates came out this afternoon (Thursday, 7th November, 2019) for the Creative Cloud apps (I think all 7 that I have installed noted that updates were available), so Adobe may be moving on the 32-bit issue.

Good luck with this, folks. Read back through the previous pages to see what solutions have been posted. There's 28 pages so far, so it may take. bit to see them all!

I can only suggest what has come up already in this rather long (31 pages to date!) thread. That seems to be:

(a) switch off sleep mode, but you can allow Power Nap to be on;

(b) switch off Time Machine back-ups (that seemed to trigger some crashes for me);

(c) go through your machine and find every last 32-bit app, driver, sub-driver, routine, and piece of code, and replace it (which is a pain, but an app called Go64 seems to do the search for you) or eliminate it;

(d) downgrade to Mojave or High Sierra.

I did (a) and it helped for about 24 hours, then (b) when the crashes returned. That reduced them, but didn't eliminate them, but that may be enough to get you rolling with (c) and/or (d). I'm going to look at (c) real soon, to see if there is anything obvious.

The crash logs I'm getting suggest two things. One is that something is hanging the system, and the 'watchdog' doesn't get called for a minute or two, and then the system has a panic. What causes the hang itself seems deeper. The other suggests some other kind of error and that is rarer, but it does seem to have occurred during boot once. I've even had the system stall and then crash as a result of trying to submit a crash report!

Whether this is a hardware issue seems uncertain. The behavior has a lot of similarities to an intermittent RAM error, but it probably isn't. Whether the software issues are causing hardware problems is also uncertain, as is the question of the hardware inducing a latent problem to become more apparent. If it is software causing hardware damage, we probably should be going back to Mojave as soon as possible.

I found that whatever I do seems to work for a while, then back come the crashes. Crashes do tend to cluster: get one and more follow until things stabilize.

I 'm hoping that Apple gets this one sorted out a.s.a.p, because this is a huge black mark for them. We are getting a lot of mixed messages here from Apple, and it isn't helping. It is digging into my productivity.

Same issue here but I may have fixed it (fingers crossed). Was crashing every 20-30 minutes after installing Catalina. Last night I did 3 things: ran disk first aid, reset SMC, zapped the PRAM then shut it down for the night. So far today have had no crashes at all. Computer has gone to sleep and awakened normally, I have left the computer and have had no "restarted because of problem" messages when I returned, no black multi-language error screens. Hoping this solved the problem.

iMac 27" late 2015

3.2 GHz Quad Core Intel Core i5

24GB 1867 MHz DDR3 (including 2 off-brand)

AMD Radeon R9 M390 2GB

cantlep wrote:

I'm running a late 2013 Mac Pro (trashcan) and also have had this issue every day (many reports submitted to Apple) since upgrading. However, yesterday, I upgraded to 10.15.2 (Beta) and for the first time since upgrading to Catalina, the machine didn't crash overnight. For those who are really suffering, it may be worth joining the Apple Beta program and seeing if it helps you too.

Apple Beta - https://beta.apple.com/sp/betaprogram/

Again, which problem did you have? There are lots of different issues and crashes in this thread.

Just following up after seeing these issues continuing.

I've switched off my external pair of Dell monitors for the moment and started using my iPad Pro as a second monitor with Sidecar. It's not ideal, it's not as productive as having multiple monitors but it works and does not crash, so that's a potential interim option for those that have one available.

Let' hope 10.15.3 helps....

Steve

I had exactly the same problem with 2 screens connected in Thundebolt on my iMac2019.

I bought a Thundebolt Elgato dock to which I connected the 2 screens and since then there has been no problem. It seems that it is the management of the 2 Thunderbolt sockets of the iMac that are problematic for Catalina

I have been dealing with this issue on two iMacs with Catalina.

The crash only happens when external monitors are connected.

The only workaround I have been able to make work is NEVER allowing the screen to sleep (screensaver ON) by using the "Amphetamine" app from the App Store. Any combination of settings without using "Amphetamine" cause the kernel panic when the computer idles.

I don't need Paragon anymore

From EtreCheck report:

2020-01-08 09:39:10 Kernel Panic (4 times)
        Details:
            panic(cpu 4 caller 0xffffff800de6520a): Kernel trap at 0xffffff7f8ee30
            473, type 14=page fault, registers:
        3rd party kernel extensions: 
            com.paragon-software.filesystems.ntfs

Fixed my Mac's nightly crashes. I believe it was McAfee's Total Protection scanner. Once uninstalled crashing stopped. I remember support indicating they have a special work around for Catalina. But, yet to attempt reinstall. What I get for deciding to install virus protection after years of going commando.

Hello Praetoriano - I have been able to replicate your problem on two iMacs - crash on idle only when 2 external monitors are connected (Late 2014; iMac Pro) and I have been able to keep the computers awake and avoid kernel panics by using "amphetamine" app from the App Store, and leaving the screens ON, running a screensaver. You must use amphetamine to keep the screens on, however.

Download and run Etrecheck. Etrecheck is a diagnostic tool that was developed by one of the most respected users here in the ASC and recommended by Apple Support  to provide a snapshot of the system and help identify the more obvious culprits that can adversely affect a Mac's performance.

Copy the report

and use the Add Text button to include the report in your reply. How to use the Add Text Feature When Posting Large Amounts of Text, i.e. an Etrecheck Report

IMPORTANT:

Before running Etrecheck assign Full Disk Access to Etrecheck so that it can get additional information from the Console and log files for the report:

ALSO IMPORTANT:

Then we can examine the report and see if we can determine the root of the problem.

It means that Catalina is more sensitive to the quality of the RAM. We have have numerous users come to the ASC with complaints of problems that related to added RAM. In nearly all cases the added RAM was from sources other than Crucial.com and MacSales.com. Both suppliers test their modules in the model they are designed for and guarantee their compatibility.

Many users had no problems with their RAM until the got to Mojave or Catalina and then it all went south. They reported replacing the modules with some from the two suppliers noted above solved their problem.

So I'd say the source is experience.

10.15.3 finally fixed both my Macbook Pro 2019 16 inch and my Macbook Pro 2018 6c Vega 20. They were both suffering from sleep restarts (windowservice timeouts) when connected to 2 4K monitors with one monitor on each machine connected through a thunderbolt 3 hub.

It was the most annoying restart bug in 36 years of using Macs (since the first Mac in 1984). This has been more painful than going to PowerPC or to Intel or to 32-bit everywhere. (moving to 64-bit only in Catalina) - I only had to walk away from the computer. I can only hope this is figured out if/when they move to ARM for some machines. What Apple has to remember is to NOT release software if it is not completely stable. This is the reason we did not use Windows in the first place. We want the ability to not have our creativity interrupted by our operating system. It should just work whether we are creating music, movies, art, books, plays, photographs, or code. Apple please listen to this group of disgruntled users because the pain is real. It is sad when Windows 10 just works and Mac OS does not.