"BAD MAGIC! (flag set in iBoot panic header)" — Catalina freezing all the time!

I truly feel you orcoonx, my unit is plagued with that instability too, but we are here to report the problem to Apple and share any possible quick-fix for the time being.

I agree with you there is no definitive fix at the moment even with a full replacement or clean install, but as people can't just switch in an instant, we must hang here and press Apple on that matter to acknowledge and disclose the issue and most of all take quick action. A massive recall seems plausible since no software update seems to fix that for the last 2 years.

I renew my call to all users plagued with that instability to contact your tech influencers, bloggers and magazines to investigate what seems to be a #T2gate and future massive recall.

Important note, the last Catalina update 10.15.3 released worldwide yesterday (Jan 28, 2020) did not fix the BadMagic kernel panic. I'm now in full replacement mode till my unit is definitely stable or refunded. (MBP15 2019 fullspec)

Shreyas, can you please check and share two things for me?

1) Make a list of your friends’ and your unit’s t2 chip hardware and software version (Go to terminal and type the following)

/usr/libexec/remotectl list

2) Any peripheral that you use specifically and different than others in your office.

Once again all of my own findings indicate this is a hardware issue. In the root of the cause lies the t2 chip, because never ever before had anyone tried to put a supervisor chip (t2 is ARM based) in between the data pipeline and the Intel chip which uses a completely different command set and language.

Same for me: got my Macbook Pro 2019 replacement and so far no crashes.

Previous configuration crashing constantly after 5-10 minutes:

Catalina 10.15.2

iBridge2,14 J152fAP 4.2 (17P2551/17.16.12551.0.0,0)

New configuration with no crashes atm:

Catalina 10.15.3

iBridge2,14 J152fAP 4.2 (17P3050/17.16.13050.0.0,0)

overovermind > very interesting, if really stable in the next months, it means the iBridge version finishing with 13050 is stable (iBridge2,14 J152fAP 4.2 (17P3050/17.16.13050.0.0,0)

For your tests, remember what triggers the kernel panic > usb-c devices connected + sleep-wake mode

THis is also my second unit, my first one went into a boot loop after 30 and got replacement the next day.

The second unit works good, it is 1 month now and no crash, i still think the cpu temperatures are odd. One time it did something strange, screen didnt turn on, but i didnt get any forced shutdown error or error log at all. This is my info, i think the first unit was the same:

localbridge      iBridge2,14  J152fAP  4.2 (17P2551/17.16.12551.0.0,0)

I have connected all 4 usb c - power, 4k LG monitor with usbc to hdmi cable, and 2x dongles

It is a systemic perk, they basically have to prepare another invoice for the new unit. So this puts you in a category of someone who got a new unit. (Get 1 year of Apple TV+ free when you buy an Apple device.)

Why is this important? I hate to say but THEY DO NOT APOLOGIZE FOR “BAD MAGIC”.

Sadly, welcome to the club etienne243. Sadly, because I wouldn’t want anyone else to have this problem. Unfortunately, you will not find logs for this error.

In some countries just complaining works to get a replacement, in some they want some kind of evidence. If they want such an evidence, just film the whole time on pc to a gopro on a loop mode. Show them, they will say to you

” This is the first time we see this problem, engineers will look at it”

“It looks like a 3rd party software issue”

”Peripherals are the cause”

”Did it crash again really? But it never crashed on our tests in house”

My Macbook Pro is very unstable and I'm running iBridge with 13050:

iBridge2,3   J680AP   4.2 (17P3050/17.16.13050.0.0,0)

For me the crashes happens during normal browser activity, or when in sleep mode.

I have the exact same issue.

Normally after work, I disconnect my MBP 16inch from an external RX580 GPU that was connected via Thunderbolt3 and close the lid.

Almost every time when I get home, open the lid, I can see it restarts and show "BAD MAGIC!" error message.

Then I have to restart all the apps, see if anything lost.....

I tried reinstalling macOS, updated to latest version (current latest is 10.15.3), didn't help.

I had this Bad Magic for few first weeks. I had OWC Thunderbolt 3 Dock (2 displays and other devices connected to it) and one other display in one USB-C port. I ran my MacBook Pro 16” lid closed. I disconnected the cables while the lid was still closed, put the MacBook to my backpack. Later when I opened the lid, it had rebooted and displayed the Bad Magic error.

But now I always open the lid before disconnecting the cables, and haven’t had a single Bad Magic since.

Ps. Don’t turn FileVault off, turn off most Energy Saving etc. Those things are pretty much the go-to solutions to all Mac problems nowadays but won’t help at all.

My 16" had been stable for over a month but yesterday, bad magic returned and recurred about every hour for several hours. I updated to 10.15.3 and it worked for about an hour, then crashed again so that does not fix it for my unit. It crashes even when I'm just have a static webpage on the screen and no music, video or other UI interaction happening.

My MacBook Pro 16 base model had the same issue, brought it to Apple genius bar for check up, they said they had ran a long over night test on all the hardware without any issue found, so they reset the macOS on my MacBook Pro, deleted everything with a clean install and gave it back to me.....

Then, after a clean install of macOS it ran well for a few weeks, however, the "bad magic" came back a few days ago... it crashed when I was typing.... it's so frustrated. :(

I don't know should I bring it to Apple Genius Bar again... they seems to have no idea on how to address that issue.

I do a lot of Apple repairs and the constant I keep seeing with this issue are Thunderbolt accessories like monitors and docking stations.

I keep finding personally that this issue relates to something with the thunderbolt 3 buses. Its not a logic board or graphic card issue as replacing them doesn't change the symptoms. It could be a software issue that releases to thunderbolt 3, but so far there has not been a good solve for it. If it was the T2 chip then turning off SIP and removing security restrictions should help ease this, which I also don't see resolving the symptoms. When I send in my BAD MAGIC crash log to apple I try to always add my computer specs, as well as my thunderbolt peripherals attached at the time, and I attach my email address in hopes the engineers reach out to actually try to solve this, but alas still no communication or resolve.

"Run macOS in a gimped state" seems to have been the official answer for almost 2 years now with latest T2 machines.

Copying data via usb-c devices is the most worrying thing on set now, have a spare older machine to do the copies and don't even know why my 2019 is on set.

I'm running a 28tb DAS syncing with other NAS 24/7 and no problems tied to big file transfers via usb-c on a MBP15 2019.

What triggers the bad magic juju is the sleep-wake mode with any usb-c device connected. Once i disabled all energy savings that exist and never closed the lid, my crash rate dropped by 98%. I still get some random instability from time to time, but that's rare if respect "the ritual".

A real shame... I'm waiting to get a secondary work unit to send this one back to Apple.