Catalina constantly crashing when Sleep

I was having this problem on a 15" MBP 2019 with the Pro Vega 20, then again on the 16" 2019 MBP with the 8GB Radeon I swapped it for.

Basically, your Catalina install comes with a bunch of extensions for running RAID hard drives (most users won't ever do this). Something about at least one of them is broken. I haven't worked out exactly which ones cause the problem, but they can all be safely removed if you don't use RAID HDDs.

They can be found in MacintoshHD>Library>Extensions. Make sure you're looking the right right Library folder, you want the one on in Macintosh HD, NOT the one under your username. I made a backup of them just in case, then cleared out the following .kext files:

ACS6x

ArcMSR

ATTOCelerityFC8

ATTOExpressSASHBA2

ATTOExpressSASRAID2

CalDigitHDProDrv

HighPointIOP

HighPointRR

PromiseSTEX

SoftRAID

Since I was on a very fresh install, I expect these are all the ones which come with Catalina as standard. My machine has since been waking from sleep successfully and quickly every time, even with multiple displays and USB-C devices plugged in.

This was happening to me and was driving me nuts.

I'm using macbook pro 15 2019. Didn't happen before upgrading to Catalina.

After upgrading, it was happening everytime the macbook was going to sleep.

After contacting the Apple Support, I did NVRAM SMC something or everything. After those attempts, I found out that this kernel panic and rebooting was happening only when my macbook was connected to power adapter AND 4k monitor with usbC-DP cable. It did happen in other circumstances before the NVRAM and SMC reset, but it was narrowed down to that specific situation.

I googled and tried every possible ways, but the only difference was the error message ranging from "darkwake...", "...watchdog...", ,"...window server....", "....powerstate change...." or whatever. after 3to 5minutes of no work, the screen freezed, 2minutes after that, the fan suddenly "whoosh" than automatic reboot...

After the frustration with new poweradapter, THIS worked for me:

"using belkin usbc to HDMI converter and HDMI 2.0 cable"

I was using 3840x2160 monitor, and needed a cable supporting 4k 60Hz transport. I bought Moshi usbC-DP cable, and that was okay before Catalina, but did not go well with Catalina.

So, hope this helps. I'm not trying to advertise belkin or anything. Maybe the apple usbC to HDMI converter may work as well, in cases like mine.

"

Hi everybody,

I might have solved my sleep crash issue. Three days without problems so far, so I'm cautiously optimistic.

If you also experience mostly browser related crashes, even after a clean install (see my previous post), you might want to try the following:

1) Test if the issue also happens in safe mode (restart holding the shift key, open some programs, let your Mac go to sleep, wait for a bit, wake it up). If you cannot reproduce the crash in safe mode, you might be lucky and the next two steps will do the trick for you.

2) Now restart in regular mode and reset your network settings (https://macreports.com/how-to-reset-network-settings-on-mac/). I used "Method 2" from the linked article. Don't forget the backup.

3) Uninstall or deactivate your network security/virus scanner app(s), one by one if you have several running, and see if the issue still occurs. In my case the culprit was AVG Antivirus. Never thought of it because it never caused any problems prior to Catalina. As soon as the app was gone, no more crashes.

I hope this works for you, too.

After uninstalling Kaspersky Security my MacBook Pro 13" 2017 stopped crashing when waking up. If you google "KIS 20 freezes MacBook Pro (Catalina) after waking up" you should find a thread on this. AFAIK, Kaspersky is still "working on this".

The crashes started after upgrading to Catalina from Mojave and remained with the updates up to 10.5.3 (current as of 3/18/2020). Perhaps there is more than one cause.

[FINAL]

Well just for your information. At the end, my service center ended up to replace the whole board (including CPU, Memory and SSD). And problem gone (of course). But from what they tested before replacing the whole board, the crash during wake was caused by a corrosion on the logic board. When they clean the corrosion, no more crash after wake.

Why they replaced the whole board was due to left side thunderbolts port doesn't work at all and difficult to replace only that part. That's why they decided to replace the whole board..

Well, for you who suffer from "CRASH ON WAKE", what I can suggest really:

Bring to Apple Service center to inspect (lucky if you still have warranty or extended warranty). And could be something similar to my case which is related to board issue.

I had the same issue with my 2017 iMac... There are two situations I hear that causes this. One is with the video card, apparently there is a problem with the software if you use an external monitor (according to a tech rep)and the second culprit is with an energy saving option in the "system preference" menu. I don't use an external monitor, so we tried option number two. My OS isn't on the 'Latest version' and i refuse to update since there are so many problems with MacOS (being an audio engineer, updates can mean loss of plugins, software compatibility, etc...) and i refused to update... so the gentleman recommended I go into SYSTEM PREFERENCES, ENERGY SAVER (with the lightbulb icon), ENABLE POWER NAP should be checked blue. If the Enable power nap is checked blue, uncheck it, and see if it resolves your issues. I had this problem every day for a few months and got tired of waking up to a completely shut down computer. So far, everything is good on my end and I have my fingers crossed it stays this way. I hope this information can help, or at least point you in the right direction

A further update on my Catalina problems after sleep. Basically my native apps do not work after sleep until the Mac is rebooted..

I've had nearly 5 hrs worth of phone calls to Apple Support and submitted multiple screen shots and sys logs. There have been detailed investigations by the engineers behind the support staff.

By the way they strongly advise that anyone with problems should contact support and submit log files to them so they can eliminate the usual suspects of external influence or 3rd party software. They stated that they have very little evidence of similar problems to mine despite this and other blog files stating to the contrary. Without the full sys log info they state that they cannot identify the specific OSX problems and develop a solution...

After going through this exercise exhaustively with me they have now identified a problem in Catalina which is causing multiple errors to occur in the background eventually leading to core apps falling over. Don't know what the problem is but they are now working on a fix which will come in the next Catalina update.

Until then they advise that I should expect core Mac apps to fall over and cease to work after a period of inactivity whether the Mac actually sleeps or not. (which is the case). It is not related to the connection of external usb kit/ ext drives etc.

Until then I am advised to switch the Mac off after each use and also reboot before I do any word-processing etc to ensure native apps work ok and I do not lose work. However I have now also taken to using Libre office to get past the problems as this works and seems unaffected by the problem

I await a new Catalina update with bated breath

My temporary solution is to turn off OWC Thunderbay power and it never crashed during sleep even in several days. If left on, it will always crash during sleeping even with 10.15.2 update.

I sure hope OWC is working with Apple on reproducing this issue. I have 2016 MacBook Pro with Touch Bar and CalDigit's ThunderDock 3 (tried OWC direct without ThunderDock and still have same issue). It seems most issue is for iMac but I have the same issue on my MacBook Pro.

Maybe when OS X sees the MacBook Pro is a SSD only internal drive and has a bug for attached external spinning drives going to sleep?

It seems the issue is only on thunderbolt connection (not USB or ethernet based) -and- a spinning external mechanical drive (Not SSD) over thunderbolt connected to Macs. Maybe only OWC brand drive enclosure.

My crash problem stopped when I turned power off of the OWC drives before going to sleep.

Update 2 and a preliminary sign of success (2019 MBP 16”): I removed Avid's "Avid Application Manager" app and its associated Library/Application Support/Avid/Application Manager subfolder. Next day, today, Jan6, there was no crash! System just woke up as it should. I hope this news is helpful for others on or visiting this thread. I did notice, searching about this app, that there are a few "issues" with it so perhaps this was indeed my culprit. I'll report back in a few days. Good luck to others!

Hi, finally yesterday i solved the problem with the most easy way.

I back for the previous OS, Mojave.

So i needed to know that it works perfectly, so i led the macbook pro staying all night on in sleep mode. So, few minutes ago i tested if it'll crashes again. And it works perfect.

So in my experience to save time and worries, return to the previous OS till Apple fix all errors in Catalina OS.

There are a combination of things going on from hub to display. But much of what's happening seems related to Catalina's handling of non-Apple external devices.

Here, I think my issues included an OWC Thunderbay enclosure and how the MBP dealt with sleep on external drives. Setting the computer and drives to never sleep helped there, but it was really just a kludge. However, it did help focus the troubleshooting on the drive sleep problem. I'm pretty sure now that the enclosure was a piece of the problem - I can at least rationalize the external monitor problem as being related to the enclosure too, since the monitor was connected through the enclosure.

OWC had recently posted a firmware upgrade, so I upgraded the firmware on the OWC external device. Probably helped - at least with any issues that were caused as a result of drives or monitor going to sleep.

However, the crash problem really vanished the week before when I downloaded the 10.15.2 Combo Updater (not from Software Update or App Store) directly from Apple. An earlier removal of kext files related to drive enclosures likely wasn't a factor because the Combo Updater replaced those files. But that fix (for some) did point out that something related to external enclosures may have been a piece of this problem.

Originally reinstalling Catalina and then adding supplementary updates on top of that didn't really fix anything; I'm kind of thinking now that the Combo Update may have included some files (or removed some files) that the direct installation of Catalina and supplemental upgrades didn't. Because I applied the Combo Update and the system worked as expected for a week before I upgraded the external device firmware, I can at least say that upgrading the firmware did not affect system software fix.

I remain pretty well convinced that it was the application of the Catalina 10.15.2 Combo Update that "Fixed" my problem - however others say that it hasn't fixed theirs. https://support.apple.com/downloads

Update 4: Okay, I am pleased to report that I have gone over a week now with no more crashing while sleeping on my 2019 MacBook Pro 16 inch running macOS Catalina v10.15.2 (19C57). I elected to start from scratch 9 days ago, by doing a complete disk erase and fresh Catalina installation. This go-round I elected NOT to do a Migration from my old 2013 MacBook Pro running High Sierra, relying on the cloud instead. So far, knock wood, this approach seems to have defeated whatever was my culprit.

In my case my system would almost always crash after sleeping overnight or after an hour or so or more in sleep mode.

Hope this is helpful to anyone visiting here. Good luck!

Update 6: I reached out to Apple and Focusrite on the topic of my newly-installed Focusrite Control app I associate with renewed crashing while sleeping. There seems to be some "kernal panic" history here so I have been advised to review this following article, which also links to a step-by-step YouTube instructional video.

How do I Delete my Audio Preferences on Mac OS X?

https://support.focusrite.com/hc/en-gb/articles/206849239-How-do-I-Delete-my-Audio-Preferences-on-Mac-OS-X-

*Please note that if you do not feel comfortable with the outlined steps or encounter any errors during the process, please do not proceed. At this stage, we would suggest contacting an Apple specialist for further assistance.

If you are experiencing issues with Audio on Mac OS X, it's a good idea to Trash your Audio Preferences, as it's possible that they may have become corrupt. You need to ensure you empty your trash and restart your Mac after deleting these files.

The issues that can be addressed by this fix are as follows: kernel panics (crashes), glitchy audio, interface not showing in Audio MIDI Setup/Sound.

Make sure to Restart your computer after you empty the Trash. When you do, the Preferences will regenerate themselves with their Default Values.

I'll update again if I learn anything helpful. ~k

I made some additional test and I found out that only happened wen conectes vías usbc with in my case a LG 5K ultra Slim M. Yesterday’s I left the machine disconnected from monitor I made several sleeps an everything works well both browsers and email working ok, very weird case