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

Same issue here. Brand new mbp 16, i9 2.3, 32GB. It happened a couple hours after installing the latest Catalina update. The Mac was plugged in at the time. High-rev fans for half a second then shutdown. I was just web-browsing. Upon reboot I got the same error message as everybody here.

Been using that Mac for about 10 days now and had 0 issue until that latest Catalina update. Should I get an Apple Store / ASP appointment?

Hi!

im not sure if this is maybe another issue, not related to there "BAD MAGIC"......

Im getting this every time my MAC wakes up from sleep if it is connected to my external monitors. (After screensaver is ended).

(This artifacts never appeared without external monitors.)

Well, this is my first MBP, i used Windows PCs for years. All that is very frustrating.. I will give apple some time to get fixes for this issues, if they don't do anything i will simply switch back to Windows. :-/

See this reproducable artifact issue here:

I had some hope with the latest MacOS update 10.15.2, but this morning I got the Bad Magic crash again...

This thread has become quite lengthy. I'm surprised we haven't gotten any Apple attention yet.

I’ve recently upgraded to a 2019 2.4ghz Touch Bar MBP from a mid 2014 MBP.

all was working fine for the first week but every day now after I put it to sleep I have the same BAD MAGIC! error, MacBook freezes, shuts down then reboots with loads of flickering static on the screen. Very infuriating.

I have had this issue 3x so far. Once waking out of hibernation while on battery power, once after waking out of hibernation on battery power and then just now, 5 minutes after a reboot while researching the issue 😂

I'll add my screenshot to the lot for good measure

Seeing the advice regarding FileVault, I've turned it off for now... let's see if that fixes it. If not, off to Apple Support.

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 updated to "macOS 10.15.3 (19D76)" three hours ago in hope it would solve the problem. Unfortunaltely it didn´t.

I have a 16" Macbook Pro and I just got another BAD MAGIC reboot.

Poweradapter attached.

Automatic graphics switching turned off.

No films or any other media viewing.

One external 5k screen connected (and a SideCar on my iPad) directly to the computer (Thunderbolt)

A plexgear USB-C -> USB-A hub connected.

I had Intel Power Gadget running and managed to snap a screenshot when the computer froze (but before it shut down). As you can see the temperatures are OK and not much going on..

Previously (for Apple support) I hade the computer running absolutely nothing except a time logger to know when it failed (simple shell script) and it still BAD MAGIC:ed after a few hours. So I'm pretty sure it has nothing to do with the software running at the time of the freeze.

Also, for me it has nothing to do with sleep mode, it happens randomly when the computer is very awake and I'm using (or not using) it.

@orcoonx, sure. I have already received my replacement macbook from apple which I am using so far without this crash

I will check with my colleagues on monday and ask them their bridge version so you can check. Considering that today was friday not many people were at work ;)

It means : return to square one.

For documentation i join a screenshot of yesterday Bad Magic instant reboot after doing, nothing. Look at those gorgeous lines : T° is still 100° / Cores maxed out / Frequencies locked at 5 and then 3ghz for a moment... (MBP15 / 2019)

So something that could be related to this happened. My replacement MBP16 (10.15.1) only had the Bad Magic crash once, upon waking up, after a month of smooth operations.

But since, I had this "rebooting instead of waking up" crash twice, only these times I got a log entry upon restart, pasted below:

I don't know if this can help anyone make more sense of it. I thought it could be related since for my machine it's the exact same symptoms/context as the Bad Magic crashes after sleeping.

Bad Magic!

Just happened to me for the first time.

1 second fan rev then it rebooted. Only things plugged in to the USB ports were the power adaptor & Beats Pro headphone case. It had just woken from sleep.

Is there an official fix yet ? Brand new computer, I've only had it for a couple months.

I have a live streaming situation I do once a week....this CAN NOT happen in the middle of that :(

PLUS, with the money I spent on this thing...shouldn't have to deal with it at all.

...doesn't sound like the issue has been resolved on the software side of things.

Should I go straight for a replacement unit since I'm under warranty ?

Connecting this to my 2019 16" macbook pro will see it bad magic consistently:

I refuse to stop using it, as my 2011 & 2016 macbooks and 2015 imac can handle it fine, all of those cost way less than this fully specced 2019 pile of crash.

I'm currently backing up my macbook pro 2019 16" with 4 logicboard replacements to mail back to apple to get a full unit replacement. So fifth one. This is a great piece of backup software for macOS:

I usually never restore and just copy/paste data and fresh install all software for a new macOS install or machine, but I mean come on 4 replacements going on to the fifth now Nov '19 - Mar '20 I'm having to make shortcuts as all my work is now SO behind I'm probably just going to have to go back to my Linux/Windows setup.

https://eclecticlight.co/2020/02/12/time-machine-in-catalina-10-15-3-has-serious-bugs/

Here is the backup completed in under an hour. You can tell Time Machine is bugged in 10.15.3 because it takes 5-6 hours for the same amount of data.

Here is the email apple support have sent me about my replacement, pickup window 9AM - 5PM, a full working day that I've had to cancel appointments for and waste even more time. For the logicboard replacements, this was an hour drive one way so 8 hours driving.

How much do users in this forum charge per hour?

Hmm, I'm actually not seeing the BAD MAGIC side so maybe I'm posting in the wrong thread but I have the exact same issues. It is dying during IDLE mostly, overnight type stuff. It seems the same. Here is a screenshot of what I'm seeing, is this the same as you guys?