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

I'll be keeping an eye on a customer's 16" MBP. They are running Win 10 in Parallels all day long to use AutoCad (landscape development). That laptop stays very hot all day. No issues so far, even has an external 4K screen attached and Thunderbolt dock.

I have another 2016 15" MPB that was having keyboard issues, was able to physically clean and no more issues. My key repeat issue was software based and got worse when the keyboard was a bit dirty. Yes the keyboard was more prone to issues when dirty vs earlier models, but it was fine for me until the firmware update.

Quite the intense task for a battery operated machine, although as a web developer I tend to have multiple VMs open briefly for cross device testing of my web sites & apps. All of it including creative software for images/videos a trigger point for a freeze followed by a force restart or a user restart to escape. Random though.

It's a shame the culture of mac seems to include a lot of users coming to blame themselves for what are basically laziness and shortcomings of mac Q&A. My 2011 is still going strong and more worthy of the 'pro' tag.

I can't find myself to trust apple software right now with a sleep bug triggered by the only port type on the machine resulting in an undescriptive 'bad magic' that has users blaming themselves.

I can't find myself to trust apple when a lot of the freezes in my mbp 2019 16" result in a 'user held power button during wake' crash log, essentially blaming the user and failing to report that it was frozen.

For a company focused on making rainbow phones you'd think they could brighten up their mac department a bit with some quality instead of excuses and blaming users for the expensive, unproductive stitch ups.

I was able to trigger the Bad Magic error by installing recent Apple updates.

Started with 2017 iMac Pro running macOS Mojave on an external SSHD. A clean OS was installed using recovery mode. After the OS install everything worked fine, I could reboot without error. After running Software Update and installing updates, I am now getting a crash on reboot, again. Just as I was from booted from the internal SSD using macOS 10.13 and then 10.14.

This is happening on macOS 10.13 and 10.14.

Software Installs (past 30 days):

    Install Date Name (Version)

    2020-03-15 Safari (13.0.5)

    2020-03-15 Security Update (10.14.6)

    2020-03-15 Gatekeeper Configuration Data (140)

    2020-03-15 MRTConfigData (1.56)

    2020-03-15 XProtectPlistConfigData (2115)

Same error here. Have 2x LG 4K attached via Thunderbolt 3 / USB-C. Haven't had this error last year. It appeared yesterday for the first time now. MacBook pro 13" isn't rebooting as many times as Shreyas is reporting. Only 2x in 24 hours now. Very annoying though.

Macbook Pro 2019 16" owner with the same problem: BAD MAGIC! (flag set in iBoot...)

I use a CalDigit TS3 Plus dock to connect 2 NEC displays, keyboard, trackball, etc. Additional display connected directly to a TB3 port.

Crashes have occurred on waking from sleep but also randomly while working -- using a browser, sending a message, etc.

My memory is that crashes have occurred mainly (only ?) while connected to the dock.

An earlier reply pointed to possible TB3 issues or driver while several have suggested the T2 chip. Others wonder if it isn't a software issue that will be fixed with the next Catalina update. Others believe only a logic board replacement will do.

What is a busy Mac user to do? I dread several rounds at the Apple store -- it's a brand new machine, I've treated it well, and I just want the thing to work. I've spent enough time moving things over from an older laptop, getting the environment set up, adapting to the new library paths for compiling, etc., etc. I need to get work done!

I like the Mac ecosystem and greatly prefer it to Windows. I had a classic Mac Pro that served me without trouble for a decade. I've been the primary Mac evangelist to multiple family members and colleagues. But the quality issues of late, whether hardware or software, are a mounting liability. At some point, it will be time to move on.

👆 It's not. I only have one display connected to my Mac Mini that's having this issue.

I have another Mac Mini that's identical (just with more RAM), that has two displays connected (an LG 4K & a Wacom Cintiq Pro), and it's not experiencing the BAD MAGIC error.

The issue that seems to be common, is people getting this message after upgrading to Catalina.

I only have one external display, an LG Ultrafine on y 16". It crashed daily a couple of months ago, then it was stable for a month and now am experiencing 2+ crashes per day. Not running any new software or external drives, etc. Have tried all the fixes descried here. I'm typically in Safari when it occurs. Not related to sleep or wake. Cursor just freezes and 10 seconds later it restarts. Applestore is closed so I'm living with it for now.

I had this issue today. I reset the NVRAM / PRAM and SMC, and so far, so good. Similarities to the above issues were the 2x Samsung 4K via Thunderbolt to DisplayPort x2 and a thunderbolt hub with a bunch of accessories and peripherals.

Leading up to the intermittent shut downs were the monitors not being remembered in their positions, then, for about 3 weeks, the wifi would drop for no apparent reason, and then not reconnect. Finally, the shutdowns started yesterday.

Reseting PRAM / NVRAM and SMC are kinda old-school tricks for old-school MacBooks, but it appears, at least so far (1 hour), to have done the trick.

Reset key-combos are found here: https://macpaw.com/how-to/reset-pram-and-smc-on-your-mac

Today I upgraded to macOS Catalina 10.15.4

My macbook pro still experiences the same crashes but now there is information in the crashdump sent to Apple:

panic(cpu 1 caller 0xfffffff0139637b4): x86 CPU CATERR detected

Debugger message: panic

Memory ID: 0xff

OS version: 17P4263

macOS version: 19E266

Kernel version: Darwin Kernel Version 19.4.0: Mon Mar 2 20:38:56 PST 2020; root:xnu-6153.101.6~2/RELEASE_ARM64_T8010

Kernel UUID: 3695E9D9-323E-350E-9A6E-65819BE397D7

iBoot version: iBoot-5540.105.2

secure boot?: YES

x86 EFI Boot State: 0x16

x86 System State: 0x0

x86 Power State: 0x0

x86 Shutdown Cause: 0xc1

x86 Previous Power Transitions: 0x70707060400

PCIeUp link state: 0x1614

Paniclog version: 13

Kernel slide:   0x000000000b92c000

Kernel text base: 0xfffffff012930000

mach_absolute_time: 0x2bcd21afc

Epoch Time:    sec    usec

 Boot  : 0x5e7b6438 0x00024691

 Sleep  : 0x00000000 0x00000000

 Wake  : 0x00000000 0x00000000

 Calendar: 0x5e7b661d 0x0002d27c

Panicked task 0xffffffe0006e2a00: 3297 pages, 215 threads: pid 0: kernel_task

Panicked thread: 0xffffffe000acf4d0, backtrace: 0xffffffe015a3b4b0, tid: 337

 lr: 0xfffffff0131f4764 fp: 0xffffffe015a3b4f0

 lr: 0xfffffff0131f45c0 fp: 0xffffffe015a3b560

 lr: 0xfffffff01330ee7c fp: 0xffffffe015a3b610

 lr: 0xfffffff0137bd62c fp: 0xffffffe015a3b620

 lr: 0xfffffff0131f3f28 fp: 0xffffffe015a3b990

 lr: 0xfffffff0131f4280 fp: 0xffffffe015a3b9e0

 lr: 0xfffffff01402a934 fp: 0xffffffe015a3ba00

 lr: 0xfffffff0139637b4 fp: 0xffffffe015a3ba30

 lr: 0xfffffff013954be4 fp: 0xffffffe015a3baa0

 lr: 0xfffffff013956b0c fp: 0xffffffe015a3bb50

 lr: 0xfffffff01395431c fp: 0xffffffe015a3bbe0

 lr: 0xfffffff01391b780 fp: 0xffffffe015a3bc10

 lr: 0xfffffff01372aabc fp: 0xffffffe015a3bc50

 lr: 0xfffffff01372a340 fp: 0xffffffe015a3bc90

 lr: 0xfffffff0137c8514 fp: 0x0000000000000000

Does anyone knows how to interpret these logs?

Unfortunately, this "fix" I posted only lasted until I connected to external monitors again - and now I'm in an endless power-cycle. Occasionally, it boots all the way to login screen, and I have been able to stash my work on a cloud drive. This is a disaster. This laptop is only 6-months old.

Had the Bad Magic unexpected shutdowns ever since 10.14.5

Stand-alone MacBook Air 2019, no thunderbolt or USB peripherals - a straight-up stand-alone machine

10.14.6 didn’t stop the unexpected shutdowns

Here’s what’s worked for me:

Send the error reports to Apple. They’ll get the serial # of your machine, nothing more

Daily

Then, my MacBook Air stopped. Bricked.

Went to Apple store (with an appointment) they confirmed it was bricked. They didn’t want to talk about Bad Magic. Guess it’s like Fight Club.

They replaced the logic board and it was ready for pick-up in 3 days

I use Mojave not Catalina because I have too much 32-bit stuff

Back-up when you can, good advice forever, but this is a weird hardware thing that got kicked-in with 10.14.5 … that’s my experience

Still present on my customer's iMac Pro running Mojave. Happened after recent security update.

I'm not selling any more T2 Macs until this is resolved. Rest of the new Mac Pro purchases now put on hold, I don't want to get stuck with this error on expensive hardware like that. So far so good with the ones we've delivered, but we'll see. No need to make any hasty purchases for a bit.

Installed 10.15.4, rebooted and 45 seconds after logging in, it crashed again. Panic log now includes some info instead of just a single line.

panic(cpu 1 caller 0xfffffff01e7737b4): x86 CPU CATERR detected

Debugger message: panic

Memory ID: 0x6

OS version: 17P4263

macOS version: 19E266

etc., etc., etc.

Replacement Macbook Pro 16" just arrived today. Reinstalled the operating system from USB using the latest Catalina version (10.15.4), and did the SMC and PRAM resets before trying anything else.

The only thing I installed on the machine was Firefox. After testing with a few videos, I put the machine to sleep. About an hour later, I plugged it into an external monitor and tried to wake it, but it was unresponsive. On reboot it reported a "CPU CATERR," i.e. CPU catastrophic error. Since the update to 10.15.4, it seems Apple is no longer using "Bad Magic!" in the details of the error report when the computer restarts. But if you look at the panic log in the console, the contents look identical to my previous panic logs. The new panic log contains "bug type: 210" and "Bad Magic!" just like my old ones did.

This is two identical machines in a row. I don't know whether it's hardware or software, but either way it seems the MBP 16" suffers from a widespread problem.

Can anyone else confirm this happening after a security update?

I have a prebuilt Mojave OS lacking recent security updates. No Bad Magic until I install a recent security update.

This is likely software based, just like many of the repeating key issues caused by a firmware update.