iMac keeps crashing after Catalina upgrade

All the while I've been trying to prevent my machine from idling / sleeping and it's continued to panic every few minutes of inactivity. I've now just stumbled upon something weird and my machine hasn't rebooted in the last 20 hours! Set your Energy Saver settings like in the attached screenshot (let display turn off after 3 minutes of inactivity). I'm now aggressively causing my display to sleep and it seems to have stopped rebooting.

After using these settings my Mac mini it stopping crashing (Thanks to GW1921). I have now installed latest 10.15.1 and restored defaults and no more crashes every few minutes. I was running 10.15.1 in beta but it that made no difference to crashes.

I hope I am not jumping the gun but all looks good for me, lets hope everyone else's issues are resolved soon.

Good luck

Same issue here as well. MacBook Pro 2018. Contacted Apple Support yesterday and was told to reinstall, boot into safe mode, unplug all devices, update drivers, etc. Support call is still open.

Did all the above, but to no avail. The MacBook sometimes crashes while using it (short freeze, fans start making a loud noise a fraction of a second and the Macbook either reboots or turns off) and sometimes reboots after I've closed the lid. Only to come back to the login screen asking me to enter my password (in orde to be able to use Touch ID) and asking me to send a crash report to Apple. I've already sent about 30 crash reports by now...

I'm contacting them again today to point them to this thread. Hope it helps somehow.

The update to 10.15.1 didn't solve the described problem.

Edit: saw this strange crash report this morning... It's a new one. The rest is all about a peripheral device error.

This has to be the buggiest OS ever. Steve Jobs must be turning in his grave. I went back to Mojave. Not only is it buggy but controlling. Wiped out many apps I enjoyed on Mojave. It forces you to update many of the crucial apps I liked. Later Catalina may the force send a tsunami upon you from Jobs. Seems many youngsters wrote the code.

I agree on the drivers permissions could possibly be incorrect. in addition since Catilina is 100% 64bit there could be some driver libraries that are in 32bit. When going to sleep or other driver methods called, this could be causing crashes too.

I know these two apps listed are NOT drivers but it shows the idea that applications and drivers even though they may be 64bit that does not mean every library they need is 64bit. And since this is a major change in the OS, I would be very surprised if there are NO rivers using some 32bit code.

I want to say I experience it crashing too. Have had them nearly once a day since I updated to Catalina. I've nothing extra attached to my mac (apart from sometimes the charger and some regular headphones) . It mostly crashes when I have the charger in, but that might be a coincidence. For some reason my MacBook won't disconnect my LaCie hard drive when I'm not using it anymore. Says it is in use, even though I know there are no other programs using my hard drive. I have to force quit it every time. I don't know if that has something to do with the problem or not, so I'll just leave it as extra information.

Picture below is my mac. Sorry, I'm Norwegian so some of the information is in Norwegian. "Tokjerners" is Dual-Core (I think).

You think that you've eliminated all 32-bit code from your computer, then you find 64-bit apps and drivers that use 32-bit code. Run Go64. Nuf Sed. Deep dive on the permissions solves some problems too.

I've managed to keep my Mac Pro up for over 2 days now - it's a dream come true ;) I'm using the following settings for energy saving and this is the most stable that it's been. There's another BETA update out so I'll be installing that now (can't get worse....can it??)

Sorry to hear you have a similar issue with external monitor(s). Apparently, you are not alone in this.  

If after all PRAM, SMC resets, hardware diagnostics, and a fresh macOS Catalina install you did, your Mac still crashing, then it is definitely a high IO activity involved that it can’t be confirmed or seen in Activity Monitor utility alone.

To get a live look at the way your Mac performs and how the IO commence in real time, there is a special developer tool called IO Registry Explorer. This tool is used by developers to troubleshoot issues with any hardware or peripherals your Mac utilize and interacts with. You need to create a developer account to download Additional Tools from the developer site. After you download and install Additional Tools in the Utilities folder found in Applications, launch IO Registry Explorer that you’ll find in the Hardware folder; also launch the Console utility from Utilities as well.

In the IO Registry Explorer left pane, see if there are any terminated processes. Do this without a plugged in external monitor and then with the monitor plugged in. Take a screen capture. If most of the process termination are seen in IOSurfaceRootUserClient, click on it and then get the PID # (process ID #) and search for it in the Console. It may look complicated but it is not really at all. If you see the process being terminated, crossed out and in red, then it is the video card. See snapshot below. Btw, do repeated snapshots to see if the terminated processes add up in the left pane of the IO Registry Explorer.

This pointed me to look specifically at a special crash in Console, pointed at the GPU:

"Crashed Thread: 2 com.apple.coreanimation.render-server

Exception Type: EXC_CRASH (SIGKILL)

Exception Codes: 0x0000000000000000, 0x0000000000000000

Exception Note: EXC_CORPSE_NOTIFY

Termination Reason: WATCHDOG, [0x1] monitoring timed out for service

Termination Details: WATCHDOG, checkin with service: com.apple.WindowServer returned not alive with context:

unresponsive work processor(s): WindowServer main thread

90 seconds since last successful checkin, 53 total successful checkins since load, 49 seconds since last crashed by watchdogd, (1 induced crashes)

Application Specific Information:

StartTime:2019-10-12 21:00:07

GPU:IG&AMD

MetalDevice for accelerator(0x4803): 0x7f8fced0bfc8 (MTLDevice: 0x7f8f90098000)

MetalDevice for accelerator(0x4c27): 0x7f8fced10888 (MTLDevice: 0x7f8fa00b0000)

IOService:/AppleACPIPlatformExpert/PCI0@0/AppleACPIPCI/PEG0@1/IOPP/EGP0@0/IOPP/EGP1@0/IOPP/GFX0@0/ATY,Xingu@1/AMDFramebufferVega10

IOService:/AppleACPIPlatformExpert/PCI0@0/AppleACPIPCI/PEG0@1/IOPP/EGP0@0/IOPP/EGP1@0/IOPP/GFX0@0/ATY,Xingu@0/AMDFramebufferVega10

"

Also, I sent my Mac already to Apple for repair.

I have a Macbook Pro 2015 connected with an Apple Thunderbolt display. Since the time i upgraded to Catalina I was facing the exact same issues. I disconnected the monitor. I had fewer restarts but still... I couldn't work. After 3 horrible weeks, I found a very effective solution!

Go to Apple / System Preferences / Accessibility / Display and untick all the boxes!

It worked perfectly for me. I even connected my screen again and for 2 days now I'm not facing any restart issue!

I thought I would submit my iMac and MacBook spec. here as regards Video Cards.

I don't have external monitors sorry.

I do suffer difficulty rebooting [the devices go black but Apple light stays on and I have to force reboot/power=off]

The drive and sharing permissions still have a life of their own [after trying the beta's, discutils or CMD-R startup repairs, etc]

There are often slow-downs, pauses, long waits for files to open, access, or sometimes the file-open windows have the folders grey'd out though they are still accessible].

All very weird across these two different spec devices.

I do report to Apple ... though they are obviously watching here and learning as they deleted my last chat about Catalina as it was the beta software ... well I mean, how else can we keep in to0uch about this mess?.. apart from the social media reports too.

I have the exact same model connected with an apple thunderbolt display. I was facing the same issues till i went to the apple icon / system preferences / accessibility / display and i UNTICKED all the options on that tab. Since then i never faced any other issue with restarts etc!

Another data point for you all:

Mid 2015 MBP, crashed for first time (of many) after Catalina upgrade.

Using two External monitors, one from thunderbolt (old Dell 1280x1024) and a new large monitor (Samsung 2560x1440) on the hdmi port.

Crashing for me seems to be happening when a drop down menu is presented and I've moved the cursor onto it. Doesn't matter which monitor.

This happens on many apps, both Apple, Microsoft, and others.

Has never crashed while sleeping.

Since the latest full 10.15.2 ...

I opened my MacBook and logged in…

Soon as I move my mouse to the left the MacBook appears to immediately shutdown, the Apple logo is no longer illuminated…

I cannot wake the MacBook

I cannot force reboot the MacBook

I try the power button a few times … nothing …

Then a battery icon comes on screen and flashes, presumably saying I have no power … But**

I have to plugin the power adaptor and connect it to the MacBook

Nothing …

I press the power button again a few times… and wait ...

**The desktop suddenly appears just as I left it with windows and applications open and active…

It says in the menu bar that I have loads of battery power 59% one time, 75% another time this happened ?? !! :-( :-(

I have never seen this on my MacBook, never... until the 10.15.2 update.

Reported this via. Feedback Assistant too √

After rebuilding for the 10th time, now it’s just stuck at a black screen. I’ve owned and supported Windows all my life I will continue with BIllG since steven p. has let me down the worst part about this is at least with Windows I had the flexibility to fix the issue or, easily revert back to an older OS, or simply replace hardware. With Mac, I have zero control to do such a thing. It’s a paper weight.