iMac keeps crashing after Catalina upgrade

Your feedback is very encouraging and the methodology if building from scratch is to be recommended.

"...The only things NOT installed are Sophos and SecurEnvoye VPN which are imposed by security policy..."

precisely the type of products that the experienced members have warned about time and time again. Catalina has its own three pronged security and your IT people need to understand it. Or provide you with a windowzer.

The checks for viruses, which can only affect only windows machines, need to be on the network firewalls (bear in mind Windows also have MS security software provided free)

Sending all traffic through third party VPN servers is far from private but I guess your company trusts/pays them.

However,

If you install them and you either get crashes, or no crashes, please come back because this is not only of great interest but highly controversial.

I have the same iMac with the same specs, does the same thing. Crashes constantly, always get panic errors, or kernel panics. Adobe after effects crashed 10 times a day, I spent 5 grand

mike u.

[Edited by Moderator]

I had a few rants earlier in this thread about how my 2017 4K iMac was rendered useless by Catalina. I bought a Windows machine to use, but a few days ago I booted up the iMac and updated to 10.15.4. I can report this thing a now rock solid. I've been running it for a few days now. Nothing I do causes it problems - even putting it to sleep, doing regular Time Machine backups, you name it. It's even more solid than it used to be on Mojave, where I had a few crashes. I don't know what Apple has done but there is definitely some magic in 10.15.4. Famous last words, of course, lol!

same here, bought a brand new macbook air 2020, was stupid enough to install 10.15.4... now it get 2-4 random kernel-panics a day, this issue is now months old.... no word from apple yet... no sign of help or change.

I got really tired of waiting for months a patch that will fix Catalina freezes and restarts. I am downgrading today to Mojave. It is a shame that Apple is not caring for the customers anymore. I am really considering to start testing alternatives like linux. I mean, if at the end I have to spend a lot of time fixing bugs myself, it would be more or less the same spending time installing stuff on linux.

Mojave sucks, Catalina sucks and Adobe After Effects sucks, all 3 cause my top end iMac to crash 10 times a day. I gave up and installed boot camp and am running windows 10 with after effects. I understand the iPhone is now the most important part of Apple but they have plenty of money to keep the Mac OS up to par.

I would suggest those following this thread to follow the same on Macrumors, there has been good discussion regarding possible fixes and it has a wide range of technical users attempting to diagnose: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/constant-kernel-panics-userspace-watchdog-timeout-no-successful-checkins-from-com-apple-windowserver.2222878/

Mojave and Catalina, both have constant panic and kernel attacks combined with adobe after effects, I don’t know what it is or who is to blame. A normal working day for me is 10 crashes. Spending at least an hour rebooting over and over again. I don’t want a new OS version with a Slick California name, I just want it to work. Ready to switch to windows... I spent over 3k on this top of the line iMac and it’s garbage.

I have Tweeted OSX rumors and they have looked into it and don’t have a solution. I think by this point with no acknowledgement from Apple that it’s a safe bet Catalina is a wash. One can only hope the extreme stability issues get resolved in the next version of Mac OS X

10.15.4 fixed my 21.5" 4K 2017 iMac. I'd already moved to a Windows desktop PC but thought I wouldn't be able to sell the iMac while it was unstable. I tested it for several days, sleep and no sleep, lots of apps running and nothing could de-stabilise it. It was rock solid. I was able to sell it and got $875 for it. More than my better specified Windows PC cost me. I'm pleased.

I feel for you. I restored 10.15.3 from a Carbon Copy Cloner backup and immediately updated to 10.15.4 and was amazed when it was super stable. Before I sold it I did a clean install of 10.15.5. The guy who bought it has given me very positive feedback on eBay and he's very pleased. I'm enjoying Windows 10 - these days there's very little to choose between macOS and Windows 10 in actual usage. The only thing macOS does better is that it is more consistent in the way it handles a high DPI monitor. Windows 10 is a little rough around the edges, but with a little tinkering it's fine.

I might have found the culprit. I have a 2019 i9 with stock memory, 2 Dell 4K monitors on either side and since Catalina beta. Crash crash and more crashes. You know the same Watchdog issue.

Drive was full and I deleted the Photos Library.photoslibrary - low and behold...no crashes for 2 weeks. No background sync processes for Photos are running. As soon as I created a new library.....the crashes began again. As soon as I deleted the Photos Library.photoslibrary - no more crashes.

I've been working on a solution for 6 months...but this is the closest to being able to reproduce this consistently as I have gotten.

I have a MacBook 2018 15'.' Same thing happened to me when computer goes to sleep, but does not always happen. It started after Catalina upgrade. I am using 10.15.5. I am also using 2 external displays. and from time to time (every 4 hours) it crashes when using Adobe illustrator 2020. However sharing my screen in zoom using the external display crashes mac 100% of the time after no more than 30 seconds.

I have a new late 2019 16" MBP (as well as a 2013 15" quad-core MBP, and a late 2018 iMac). Both the latter Macs run High Sierra, and both are 100% stable: they have never crashed. One is the editing machine (iMac); the other controls the studio.

The new 16" six-core MBP is THE most unstable machine I have ever used. It restarts automatically multiple times a day, and there is no repeatable pattern to these restarts. Definitely, this machine and/or the OS is not ready for prime time work, and that's what I bought it for. I am considering trying to return it, but I know what a drama and time-waster that will be. I am disappointed by Apple in this regard; I make a living editing video and presenting workshops (now via Zoom) and I cannot use this new computer reliably for these tasks. I have considered downgrading this machine to High Sierra—and have read about how this might be done, but it looks difficult to me. I can only hope that Apple fixes this, but iOS seems to be the priority these days. Very disappointing, I have to say.

The only solution for me....Remove Photos and Photo Library. All my crashing issues disappeared, especially with Zoom. Good luck. There “seems” to be some random syncing issue with background process from mobile to desktop/laptop when synch from

icloud. Yes yes, I know it seems odd but that’s my diagnosis. By NOT having an iCloud photos synch process, no crashes.

(8 months of research and tears...)