freezes after installing macOS 15.15.4 update - potentially related to fullscreen video playback?

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Level 1

8 points

freezes after installing macOS 15.15.4 update - potentially related to fullscreen video playback?

About two days ago I’ve updated from macOS Catalina 10.15.3 to 10.15.4 on my Macbook (Retina, 12-inch, Early

2015, Model Identifier: MacBook8,1). In the short time since I’ve installed the 10.15.4 update I’ve experienced three total system freezes.

A freeze looks like: Device displays a frozen image (no stripes or other malformed graphics), keyboard backlight still on, no response on keyboard/trackpad, device’s IP not reachable anymore on the local network, needs hard reset).

I haven’t seen such freezes on this device ever before.

Not sure if this is related, but in all three cases there was full screen video playback happening in the moment before the freeze (in one case in Safari browser, in the other two cases the device was in fullscreen mode with a screensaver that plays a video (https://github.com/JohnCoates/Aerial).

I suspect that these recurring freezes are related to having installed the macOS 10.15.4 update.

Below is an excerpt of system.log that show the activity shortly before the hard reset of the last freeze. Probably not of much use, but still attaching it for completeness. (This freeze occurred while the device was in screensaver mode with the above mentioned Aerial screensaver playing a video clip in fullscreen).

Mar 26 15:43:07 Macbook syslogd[160]: ASL Sender Statistics
Mar 26 15:49:02 Macbook com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.FolderActionsDispatcher): This service is defined to be constantly running and is inherently inefficient.
Mar 26 15:53:17 Macbook syslogd[160]: ASL Sender Statistics
Mar 26 16:04:03 Macbook syslogd[160]: ASL Sender Statistics
Mar 26 16:04:04 Macbook com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.FolderActionsDispatcher): This service is defined to be constantly running and is inherently inefficient.
Mar 27 02:42:34 localhost bootlog[0]: BOOT_TIME 1585273354 0

MacBook, macOS 10.15

Posted on Mar 26, 2020 8:22 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

rose_10

Community Specialist

Mar 28, 2020 8:56 AM in response to cko130

Hello cko130,

Thanks for asking the Apple Support Communities for help with your Mac and unexpected restarts. I will be happy to check this out with you.

1. Please start by checking the troubleshooting provided in this help article: If your Mac restarted because of a problem - Apple Support

Even if you are not receiving any alert or error messages, there are many great troubleshooting steps within this article that apply to your situation, and can help isolate the problem between software and hardware.

2. You can also check this article for more hardware diagnostics and troubleshooting using this article: Diagnose problems with your Mac - Apple Support

3. If this occurs with sleep/wake, please check this article for steps under If your Mac doesn't wake when you expect, and If the previous steps don't work: If your Mac doesn't sleep or wake when expected - Apple Support

Thanks and have a wonderful day.

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Answer 2

cko130 Author

Level 1

8 points

Apr 1, 2020 2:06 AM in response to rose_10

I think it's an OS bug introduced by 10.15.4, related to video playback accelerated by the GPU. Specific older Macbooks and Macbook Airs with certain Intel HD GPUs are affected.

The Mac admin guys over here line out how to reproduce it:

https://mrmacintosh.com/2020-002-update-causes-some-macs-to-freeze-up-while-using-vid-conf-apps/

No fix so far (except from disabling video hardware acceleration in the app, if that option exist in that app. For example you can disable video acceleration in Chrome).

Affected hardware as to the above blog post:

2015 MacBook Air

2017 MacBook Air

2015 12″ MacBook

2015 13″ MacBook Pro

2015 21.5″ iMac

Intel only GPU Versions

Intel HD Graphics 6000

Intel HD Graphics HD 5300

Intel Iris Pro 6100

Intel Iris Pro 6200

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Answer 3

ClassicII

Level 4

1,097 points

Apr 2, 2020 10:06 AM in response to cko130

Can you check /Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports to see if you have any .gpuRestart files ? This would be the log file that is created when the freeze happens.

You can also run this terminal command.

sudo ls -lah /Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports | grep .gpuRestart

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Answer 4

cko130 Author

Level 1

8 points

Apr 2, 2020 10:49 AM in response to ClassicII

hi ClassicII, this is what I can find from the time around the crash in /Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports - no .gpuRestart file though:

-rw-rw----@  1 root         _analyticsusers   165801 Mar 26 14:12 com.apple.WebKit.WebContent_2020-03-26-141218_Macbook.cpu_resource.diag
-rw-rw----@  1 _analyticsd  _analyticsusers      483 Mar 27 02:43 Analytics-Journal-90Day-2020-03-27-024306.core_analytics
-rw-rw----@  1 _analyticsd  _analyticsusers      483 Mar 27 02:43 Analytics-Journal-Daily-2020-03-27-024319.core_analytics
-rw-rw----@  1 _analyticsd  _analyticsusers      483 Mar 27 02:43 Analytics-90Day-2020-03-27-024319.8762.core_analytics
-rw-rw----@  1 _analyticsd  _analyticsusers     3343 Mar 27 02:43 Analytics-Daily-2020-03-27-024319.8813.core_analytics
-rw-rw----@  1 _analyticsd  _analyticsusers     5484 Mar 27 02:43 Analytics-Never-2020-03-27-024320.core_analytics
-rw-rw----@  1 root         _analyticsusers    40004 Mar 27 03:09 signpost_reporter_2020-03-27-030911_Macbook.cpu_resource.diag
-rw-rw----@  1 root         _analyticsusers   223232 Mar 27 19:18 shutdown_stall_2020-03-27-191834_Macbook.shutdownStall

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Answer 5

Apr 7, 2020 11:41 AM in response to ClassicII

2015 MacBook Air user here, multiple freezes last night. How long are you supposed to let the machine remain frozen to generate a .gpuRestart log file? I let one of mine sit for 20 minutes last night — still no report.

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Answer 6

cko130 Author

Level 1

8 points

Apr 7, 2020 12:24 PM in response to cko130

there's now another report on Kernel panic on macOS 10.15.4 - here related to copying files larger than 30 GB, if I understand correctly. It's about IO threads. Probably a different issue, but it also might be related. But definitely another indicator that 10.15.4 introduces Kernel changes that don't always play nicely.

from https://www.softraid.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=1299 :

There is a serious issue with 10.15.4.

It shows up in different scenarios, even on Apple disks but is more likely when there are lots of IO threads. We think it is a threading issue. So while SoftRAID volumes are hit the hardest (its now hard to copy more than 30GB of data at a time), all systems are impacted by this.

In our bug report to Apple, we used a method to reproduce the problem with ONLY Apple formatted disks. Takes longer to reproduce, but that is more likely to get a faster fix to the user base.

I hope Apple will get a 10.15.5 out quickly to fix this. Except for downgrading with a previously downloaded installed, it is very hard. (Time Machine is broken where "Snapshots" were not working, so the magic "go back" is not working)

As far as I know, there is no way to download a fresh 10.15.x, except .4.

If you can go back to 10.15.3, I recommend it, but it is difficult.

Other things are broken also, such as Time Machine, ssh have introduced bugs.

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