iMac keeps crashing after Catalina upgrade

I took my Mac to an Apple store and they said I need a new Logic board and took out a ram slot but I downgraded now and everything seems to be working fine, imagine I actually paid £1000 pound if I listened to them. Just downgrade people and smc reset or whatever.

Hopefully this will be my last update... The last time I posted on here, I stated that I gave up and was reverting back to Mojave. Well... that didn't exactly happened.

I attempted to goto the Internet Utilities on the MacBook Pro to revert back to Mojave and come to discover, Catalina, somehow, rewrote the chipset that controls the Internet Utilities. I received a constant error and I was unable to pull up anything.

I finally started using the "s" word with Apple (never had to do that before) and that I was going to reach out to my attorney if they couldn't take my case seriously and find a resolution.

They ran another System Diagnostics and after a couple of days, they came back and stated that something was wrong with the Vega 20 graphics card and that required a whole logic board replacement. They didn't describe the details of what was wrong but I will give credit to Apple for coming up with a hardware issue just to replace the whole logic board so I can have Mojave back without any Catalina impressions.

I got my computer back last night, new logic board and I'm dragging all my old files over and installing the programs fresh. I'm back to Mojave. Today is my first day running it on the 2 4k LG screens with the CalDigit T3 docking station. I'm expecting it to perform as it had before Catalina.

One more note, I have spoke with a former employee of mine and at her new gig, her co-workers all have the same exact issue because of the upgrade. Now, this maybe second hand knowledge but this is only confirming to me along with this discussion board that Catalina was a BIG mishap.

ThatGuy2020, yesterday 11/11/19, I did exactly what you suggested with the Energy Saver settings and so far, so good . . . no crashes since then.

When I go to bed, I leave everything running, but manually put the computer to sleep. (I also unplug my modem.)

Carbon Copy Cloner wakes the computer from sleep at midnight to do a backup, without any problem.

I have a mid-2014 iMac w/ 8 GB RAM and an external startup SSD (Oyen U32 - installed 11/01/19) to replace the failing internal drive (subsequently wiped and no longer used). What an amazing performance increase, but that's a different topic.

Prior to my Energy Saver adjustments yesterday, I removed the only 32-bit app that was present and deleted the only two Kexts that showed up, which were part of Avast, which I also removed thoroughly (due to a crash reported in EtreCheck), using App Cleaner & Uninstaller.

I still had a daily Kernel Panic, though, which seemed to be associated with the sleep mode, which is why the only thing I have checked on my Energy Saver preferences is "Prevent computer from sleeping automatically when the display is off", and the display is set to turn off after 15 minutes. If I step away from the computer for awhile, I manually put it to

sleep.

I'll report back later whether these Energy Saver settings have been successful, or not.

Many of us have had the same problem, kartik. I certainly feel your pain.

Based on the trends in the related posts of the past month, can it be assumed your machine has been rendered all but useless too?

Is your Mac device 2016 or later? Seems to be an emerging pattern. Some even older OS X are unable to sustain the upgrade as well while other oldies seem unaffected.

My advice: REVERT BACK TO MOJAVE - like most of us with this problem!

Back up your machine if you can - manually - file by file (you can count on iCloud.com for your data to be preserved and for the APP Store to have stored your Apple Store Software purchases).

Install Mojave OS X.14 onto a zip drive (from the Apple website).

Wipe your hard drive clean.

Boot from your zip drive and install Mojave.

Hope this helps~

For those people considering if crashes are happening due to switching between integrated and discreet graphics card, is it worth trialing gfxCardStatus to force Catalina to remain on a discrete card setting?

https://gfx.io

It might help, as I'm wondering if a switch to a screen saver (or from as the screen blanks) is causing a change in graphics card that is being used which then causes the KP.

That's something that I have also noticed . . . that the Kernel Panics seem to occur more often when we step away, i.e., when the computer is not active, and even when disconnected from the Internet (in my case, when I unplug the modem overnight).

Given the varying problems that cause a KP, though, from highlighting text, to multiple monitors, etc., I may be stating the obvious in saying that there will be no singular fix, due to the multiple issues being reported.

From what I've experienced, I believe that removal of 32-bit apps, removal of 3rd party kernel extensions (kextstat | grep -v com.apple), and the only Energy Saver setting checked/selected being "Prevent computer from sleeping . . .", are all helpful in reducing the number of KP's.

I believe the more input and feedback that others contribute to this thread, the quicker Apple engineers will find a solution(s).

Good news, guys!

It seems 10.15.2 beta2 fixed halt-restart-unattended-with-external-monitor issue.

My Macbook Pro 2018 Vega20 with two external monitors just turned them off and gone happily sleep after 30 min unattended and woke up without any errors.

Before 10.15.2 beta2 is was always panic-halt-restart with report to developers.

You should try 10.15.2 public beta2, guys.

If turning BT off fixes your issue (even if partially) then you just need to rebuild/ repair Photos library and your Mac should be fine.

Here is why is this happening:

Most of your pictures were initially imported into Photos and its library built in macOS Mojave. The Photos library needs to be rebuilt so it won’t interfere with Bluetooth’s memory space - in other words the library needs to be rebuilt to be compatible in MacOS Catalina.

a. Quit Photos

b. Hold Option Command while double click on Photos icon

c. Chose Repair at the prompt to repair library

The library should be then compatible with macOS Catalina. Check back.

I too finally called Apple support after troubleshooting the issue for a couple weeks with no success, including doing a clean install; with no external devices attached or additional software, the KPs would still occur when my iMac went to sleep. What's even worse of a problem in my case is frequent freezes or crashes when booting the computer (again, after a clean install).

I too believe the issue is with the display drivers since the KP is almost always due to the AMDFramebuffer (I have an AMD Radeon Pro 560):

panic(cpu 0 caller 0xffffff80114290b7): "AMDFramebufferVIB::setPowerState(0xffffff80459e2800 : 0xffffff7f9323f0f8, 0 -> 1) timed out after 46091 ms"@/BuildRoot/Library/Caches/com.apple.xbs/Sources/xnu/xnu-6153.11.26/iokit/Kernel/IOServicePM.cpp:5302

After I explained everything I've tried to fix it, the support tech was reviewing a reference article, and seemed to imply this was a known issue but wouldn't give any details. She then said I've tried everything the article recommended, and then passed me to a senior tech who then had me run the "Capture Data" utility and upload it to my case file, which he said he was submitting to engineering to review.

Anyone with this problem and with AppleCare, please open a case so we hopefully raise enough attention for Apple to fix it.

Hi Andrew.

Several people have said the new public beta 10.15.2 release appears to have solved their issues.

Personally I'm going to wait for the official release since I can use my MBP just a laptop and it's not impacting me unless I plug my external monitors in. I'll just do without them hopefully for just a few weeks (thinking...I'll see if it has an issue with Sidecar) . I'm not upgrading my other machines (another MBP laptop and an iMac) until the official release comes out and I hear it's helped

If you have more than 1 monitor on your MacPro, try just using 1of them and see if that helps. Unfortunately with the MacPro you don't have a choice like I do since you need at least monitor attached. Otherwise you could check out the comments about 10.15.2 beta and make a decision whether it's worth trying for your situation.

It's painful and in 15 years as a Mac user I've not come across any issues like this with MacOS but I do trust Apple to get this resolved soon.

Good luck

Steve

.

MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2015)

2,5 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7

16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3

AMD Radeon R9 M370X 2GB

Intel Iris Pro 1536 MB

Exactly the same model I have, but the crashes I was experiencing were connected with highlighting text in MS Word. Do you have an external monitor attached?

Have you reset NVRAM/PRAM/SMC? This fixed my issue.

I fixed a same problem with my macbook pro by disconnecting all external hardware (mouse, keyboard, monitors).

There must be some driver software that are not playing nice with each other.

Hope it helps

The solutions has already been posted a few times but it’s getting lost in all the unnecessary replies or repeat of the same question.

the solutions is: Disable sleep mode of your Mac 🖥 💻

Technically that isn't a solution - It's a workaround, an in all honesty one that's got a cost associated with it (electricity bills) and an environmental impact - For this of us who care about these things, it's a poor workaround.

So I have a mac pro (tin can) 2013 and Macbook pro 2015. Upgraded both, both started crashing. Gave it two weeks and did clean installs on both with Mojave. Not looked back and wont go forward. I think Catalina is designed for new hardware and the likely hood of them fixing all of the upgrade problems is slim to none. Recommend not upgrading or buying new machines. As a software developer I understand that supporting backward compliant systems is a futile effort. I reckon they are just waiting for third party suppliers to fall in line with their systems - in true large organisational style. I still love apple software though so wont be moving. I cannot go to windows. Thats like moving into the death star!!!!! :)

After upgrading to 10.15.2 for several hours the system will not crash during animation of adjacent desktops switching but will pause for seconds(6~12) occasionally(But cursor can move and only move).

It will pause with cursor freezing for seconds and crash before upgrading.

Anyway it seems a worked fix for crashing problem to AMD display card so far.

Recommend to upgrade to 10.15.2.