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

susanfromwinthrop wrote:

I have reported these problems to Apple support, but i filled in the feedback form now as well. FWIW, the Bad Magic crash only occurred once within the first 24 hours of my MPB 16", but it should not happen at all.

Same for me. Didn't happen again, yet.

“Bad Magic” makes me feel like those agents on Mission Impossible series.

My recommended user manual update for any Mac produced after 2018 (intro to T2 chip)

is as follows:

“Your mission Apple User, should you choose/decide to accept it, ... As always, should any of your Mac devices experience any kind of kernel crashes , the Apple support will disavow any knowledge of your kernel panics. This Mac will self-panic in five/ten seconds/minutes/days/weeks/months and will not leave a log of the worthy kind. Should you find any logs, you will be told that the panic is because of 3rd party software and your mac is just fine or you have been hallucinating”

Calmly hang up the phone and call back when you have enough patience to go thru the whole process again.

Every solution nowadays seems to be "turn off FileVault" and T2 chip. Many users suggested the same things when I was having issues with Mac Mini acting up, but nothing worked. I just hope Apple would get their shtuff together.

Hey guys...I'm wondering if this BAD MAGIC bug is a problem related to machines in the US-Market. I'm quite active in the german community and there is no word about it.

Could you specify your location (roughly) ?

Hi, I just bought 2 days ago a 16 inch macbook pro with i7 and AMD5500 8gb. The first day I plugged the computer in, used it for a while and closed the screen and went to bed. In the morning as soon as i opened the mac it froze, fan sped up for a second and BAD MAGIC! kernel panic occured... Do you still think that i should go issue a refund and wait until they definitely fix the issue, or will it take so much time that it's better off keeping this machine?

Personally, I would return it and wait until there is an official response from Apple on this matter, or find out if it was fixed after the release of MacOS 10.15.3. No one yet knows if it's a hardware or a software issue, unfortunately.... I mean if you have time to wait to find out what's the issue.

All in all, I feel humiliated as a consumer. ”Pay thousands of hard earned dollars, and mess with all this on your own” is not my cup of tea.

Talking all about these on this forum on our own as if we are a small number of people who got affected is wildly unreasonable.

I would also return my units back, until I hear a solid confirmation of the issue from them.

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/macos_release_notes/macos_catalina_10_15_3_beta_2_release_notes

Anybody try 10.15.3 to see if the crashes stop?

Can anybody summarize what works and what doesn't work in regards to addressing these crashes?

Especially useful to know are what very lengthy steps like reinstalling the OS that doesn't work.

I just tried the full reset of the SMC: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201295#t2 and that didn't help.

Justin > summarization has been done many times in this thread. Take a quick look at the last pages you should come across the last one in an instant.

I'm in the beta users program,10.15.3 is not available at the moment. Can't wait !

It's just such a weird problem... I'm going right now to return my machine even if it crashed just once. It just bugs me that I'm going to have to wait god knows how much time for apple to actually fix this with an update or replace the T2 chip... I'm seriously thinking about switching to windows.

I did those resets which MAC people generally ask me to do. I also see that from morning it hasn't frozen.

And just yesterday you can see how many times it rebooted. Also I was watching streaming sites like youtube. I am not sure if something is triggering that :(

Since it is a brand new macbook, I am super ******. I need it resolved else I return it. I don't think it is a hardware problem. Everyone's macbook started having this problem from the time they installed Catalina. I am waiting for 10.15.3 and may be it fixes this problem. I will have a call with Apple now and lets see what they have to tell me about it. I will keep you guys updated.

I am from Netherlands 🇳🇱 So I took the macbook from apple.nl and not any other electronic store. So I had a call with apple support and the guy was not very helpful :(

1. He said he wanted to re-install the OS again. But from morning I haven't seen it freeze. So I asked him not to repeat it
2. He said he has *never* heard of this problem BAD MAGIC! (flag set in iBoot panic header) and could be "one off" incident and I was like -- dude seriously, just go look at the apple forums how many people are complaining.

In Netherlands we have a 14 day return policy and I can return and get back 100% of the money if I get the problem again and I hope it doesn't happen. If it does, I will get in touch and update the thread here..

I have a new Macbook Pro - 2019 model - 13 inch screen

My apple id wasn't working either correctly yesterday with this machine.

So my conjecture is this

1. The apple ID wasn't associated with this macbook in all of apple's database may be
2. The T2 security chip was probably checking against this and then just gave an error
3. Today evening my apple ID also started working and then things are okay

Let's wait and watch.. I have some time before I can return it

If your macbook were to be older than 15 days, get ready for a customer “support” that is like a nightmare.

I am sure they are well aware of the issue. But the denial is what kills my trust in these products.

Has anyone from this thread returned their computer for a new replacement only to have the same issue arise on the new computer? If its not a hardware issue, then not sure what an exact duplicate replacement would accomplish?

“We have no such case” is a coverup protocol that they are using, or else their share prices would drop drastically. Thinking shareholders are more important than customer satisfaction is the shortest way to failure of a company. But guess what? Even other Apple customers do not listen to you if they do not experience the BAD MAGIC problem.