iMac keeps crashing after Catalina upgrade

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.

"...“Put hard disks to sleep when possible“ in the energy saver settings.

No panics since I have disabled this option...."

Well done, good deduction. That setting is pretty unnecessary these days and well worth trying with it it off

This is definitely somehow related to certain external monitors connectected via Thunderbolt. At least for me anyway. I isolated a number of things. I have an 2019 iMac 3.6Ghz 9-core Intel i9 w/64GB or RAM running Catalina 10.15.3. It's connected to 2 external monitors via Thunderbolt (an LG monitor that is connected to a HD array which is connected to one Thunderbolt connector and a Viewsonic monitor connected directly to the remaining Thunderbolt connector).

When I startup in Safe Mode with no external monitors connected, it does not crash.

When I startup in regular mode with the LG monitor connected to my HD array to my iMac, no crash.

When I startup in regular mode with just the Viewsonic monitor connected directly to my iMac, it crashes. Weird.

I was having this problem on a 13 inch 2019 macbook pro. Upon further research, I believe I found that the problem was related to my external OWC dock and monitor combination. After taking the OWC dock out of the equation the restarting problem has stopped.

11AppleJax wrote:

I was having this problem on a 13 inch 2019 macbook pro. Upon further research, I believe I found that the problem was related to my external OWC dock and monitor combination. After taking the OWC dock out of the equation the restarting problem has stopped.

If it worked in Mojave, it wasn't the problem.

This thread is losing focus quickly.

Remember, this is about a specific crash in Catalina with external monitors (often two) connected and the computer is idling.

After updating to 10.15.3 I had a single watchdog crash right away. I have been trying everything to resolve the issue, and I disabled file vault (iMac Pro 2017). Since then, I have gone 7 days with no idle watchdog timeout and no kernel panics.

Previously I was using Amphetamine to keep my Mac alive.

Is FileVault potentially a common factor?

Same problem here. I waited 4 months before upgrading to Catalina, figuring Apple would have time to work out the bugs. No dice.

Maxed out BTO iMac Pro 2017 with two external Dell monitors. Catalina turns it into a $12,000 paperweight.

• Two monitors and Catalina: panic during display sleep with "no successful checkins from com.apple.WindowServer" after a few hours
• Unplug monitors: no panic
• Plug monitors in again: panic
• Wipe disk, fresh Catalina install with two monitors: panic
• Fresh Catalina install with monitors unplugged: no panic
• Downgrade to Mojave with two monitors: no panic

Apple support points at Dell. Dell points at Apple.

Have any of you tried different brands of monitors or different video cables? It's a reach, but I'm willing to try about anything at this point.

Maybe a clue? Not sure if anyone else has been having this issue, but I've been having problems restarting the iMac. When I tell it to restart, it quits all apps and closes all windows and clears the menubar. Basically nothing on screen except my desktop image. But it just hangs there. Can initiate the "Force Quite Applications" window, basically nothing to do except use the power button to force a hard shutdown. I'd been using that method whenever I ran into it since it seemed like nothing would happen. Today, however, I decided to just wait and see. Maybe I waited 5 minutes, and eventually the screen did go dark. But it wasn't a standard restart. It actually crashed and initiated a reboot with the usual reports of a panic. In my case, I think it may be related to my external Thunderbolt drive bay. I have 3 drives in there, and one of them tends to have a problem unmounting (not sure why). When I don't connect the drive bay, I don't have restart problems, and the iMac does not spontaneously crash on its own when idle.

On the chance it's software related and now hardware 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.

Will they let you boot from an external HD and run? You could load the system on the EHD without any of your files and run for a while to see if the crashes still occur or not. If not then there's something in your files, an app or whatever, that may be the culprit. That's how Apple verifies that it's not software related but they erase the drive, install a pristine system and user and test.

Otherwise get your IT people involved.

You need to restore the system, apps and files from a full backup, either a Time Machine backup or clone, made just prior to the time you upgraded to Catalina. That will restore you to the state you were in prior to the Catalina upgrade.

@Jeff The only resolution with consistent success is a downgrade to Mojave. Unfortunately, that does require yet another fresh install. For many of users here, the window server deadlock reproduces even after a logic board swap (basically a new computer) and with no additional software installed.

It's likely that the current shelter in place order in California isn't helping macOS development or QA efforts. It may just be best to give Catalina a miss and wait to hear if the next annual OS release addresses the issue.

If anyone else is looking to downgrade, Google turns up a number of articles if you search "downgrade Catalina to Mojave." Some of those have links to the OS downloads, but make sure to use one of the links that's on Apple's site. A third party site could have added malware to the installer.

Expect to have to make a bootable USB drive to host the bootable installer. A 16GB memory stick is sufficient, or an external USB hard drive works just as well.

i have a macbook 12 2015 with m core. after update to catalina it keeps crashing. i can have 5 hard restart in a day until i give up. Sometimes question mark appeared during the start up. "yes i know you will say board fault" but why only after update, and it boot fine later.

finaly, yesterday i erase the mac disk (action of frustration) and install a fresh catalina. you know what, during the install, it keeps crashing when said "estimating time.....bla bla", over and over (just search the internet "catalina crash time estimating", you will know). after 3rd time it suddenly works and.... its been 1 day, no crash.

so i guess one option is fresh copy.. but it will be painful process too..

just make sure you erase all hdd rather than data partition, catalina partition a bit different.

cheers