You can make a difference in the Apple Support Community!

When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.

Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

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

I formatted my Mac and reinstalled macOS, the solution I was hoping to frequent freezing (after about 30 minutes of normal use). To my terrible surprise, my Mac still froze. A hard shutdown and restart and here I am.


The log says this: "BAD MAGIC! (flag set in iBoot panic header), no macOS panic log available"


I'm at a loss. I haven't installed any software and it froze. A quick hardware diagnostics didn't find anything wrong with my hardware. This is a new 2018 MacBook Pro. It was working great until Catalina.


This is terrible. I place myself in the helpful hands of the internet in the hopes of solving this.

MacBook Pro 15”, macOS 10.15

Posted on Nov 5, 2019 6:04 PM

Reply
414 replies

Dec 11, 2019 8:14 PM in response to pedro-ale

Has anybody experienced this when the Mac was already plugged in to a power source? Mine seemed to happen when it was running on battery.

I've had my Macbook 16" for 2 weeks (i7 16gb ram 512mb ssd). Today I got this error twice: BAD MAGIC! (flag set in iBoot panic header), no macOS panic log available


The first time was at work. The laptop was not plugged into a power source. I then connected it to a docking station at work that was connected to power and ethernet only.


The 2nd time was just a few minutes ago. The Macbook was on, I then plugged in the power and then pugged it my dongle to USB which is connected to a Logitech Unifying USB receiver and an external IPS 1080p monitor and then I shut the lid and left the room. I came back and it was rebooted and I saw this message when I logged in.


This is the first day I've seen this issue. The only thing I've done differently was the night before - I installed Adobe Acrobat Reader DC and Dropbox.



Dec 12, 2019 3:34 AM in response to pedro-ale

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?

Dec 12, 2019 12:55 PM in response to Central9

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:

Jan 12, 2020 4:02 AM in response to pedro-ale

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.

Jan 16, 2020 8:02 AM in response to markuschow


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.

Jan 30, 2020 3:07 AM in response to pedro-ale

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.


Feb 9, 2020 2:22 AM in response to pedro-ale

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.

Feb 9, 2020 5:38 PM in response to pedro-ale

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 ?

Feb 12, 2020 5:08 PM in response to Nat_c

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.

Mar 15, 2020 8:45 AM in response to Community User

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/

Mar 15, 2020 9:46 AM in response to Community User

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?

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

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple Account.