MacBook Pro 16 2019 10.15.4 Kernel Panic / Reboot When Plugged In -- Help!

I received a brand-new Macbook Pro 16, i9, Radeon Pro 5500M a week ago, created a new user connected to iCloud and moved some applications and data to the new device and upgraded to 10.15.4. After I saw the same problems described above I tested the following, partly with the help of apple support (2 calls made), partly on my own:

Reformatted the disk and reinstalled 10.15.4 from scratch, created a new user and configured it with my iCloud during initial user setup. No data or settings transferred from my old machine.

SMC Reset

PRAM/NVRAM Reset

No other applications or device drivers (kernel extensions) installed

No other peripherals connected, no monitor connected, only the power supply via USB-C

created a test user, without configuring iCloud during setup.

Observations:

1) With my own user, putting the macbook to sleep (closing the lid), waking it up again (opening the lid) after 5 minutes: no problem, login via touch id possible.

2) With a test user, putting the macbook to sleep, waking it up again after 5 minutes: no problem, login via touch id possible.

3) With my own user, putting the macbook to sleep, waking it up again after more than 1 hour: laptop starts with white apple displaying and progress bar, thereafter touch id not possible, need to enter password, kernel panic report is shown after login. This behaviour is 100% reproducible, each time I leave the macbook in sleep mode for more than one hour.

4) With a test user, putting the macbook to sleep, waking it up again after more than 1 hour: no problem, login via touch id possible

5) With my own user, power nap disabled, waking it up again after 6-8 hours: no problem, login via touch id possible.

Conclusion: disabling power nap is a workaround for me. I haven't experienced the kernel panics in sleep mode thereafter.

I called apple support, told them I believe 10.15.4. has a bug with the new Macbook Pro 16, i9. Told them that it seems I am not the only person experiencing this problem, offering to give the this thread id, also mentioning a second thread.

apple support level 1 passed me on to level 2. Level 2 support told me he couldn't find in his support database anything regarding kernel panics after sleep with 10.15.4. He wasn't interested to be pointed to this thread and told me that to me it may look like a problem of general interest, but they receive so many reports, and my single call wouldn't be sufficient for him to escalate that further to engineering. He would need more proof to do that.

As the Macbook is brand-new, I expressed my concern that it might be a HW fault and that I would like to have the HW exchanged to exclude that it's a problem of my specific device. He said "he doesn't believe" that it's a HW problem.

He looked into his support instructions and asked me, if I had any third party kernel extensions, to which I told him (again) that it's pure 10.15.4., not even data copied from the old machine.

He looked into his support instructions and told me I could narrow down the problem, if I wanted to, by keeping power nap on, and disabling cloud services one by one, to see if it makes a differences. To which I answered that each test would take more than one hour and I would prefer that Apple engineering or quality assurance spends their time debugging. Rather than a customer who just spent a considerable amount of money for a brand new device.

So my confidence that Apple will take care of this problem soon is rather low. Apple support also told me he believed that if it's a general problem Apple engineering will become aware of it and fix it at some point in time, but he cannot tell me when.

That was long, but if you read until here thanks for letting me vent. :-)

I can confirm, after doing every type of troubleshooting, that turning off "Power Nap" in the settings will allow this issue to stop. This is a temporary work-around until Apple releases a new update to fix this.

After disabling "power nap" I haven't had the issue. But I plan to keep a close eye on it.

I spoke with a senior Apple tech person yesterday and shared my crash logs. It seems that the issue (i.e., crash) doesn't occur when our systems go to sleep, but when they are woken up from sleep - an interesting distinction.

Installing the 10.15.4 supplemental update and using the first method on the SMC reset description help page (shut down laptop, then press the power button for 10 seconds) fixed it for me: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201295

Technically it is not an SMC reset that I did. There is no description on what the first method on the help page (shut down computer, then press the power button for 10 seconds) really does.

Got a new MBP 16" earlier this month from apple.com, it was delivered running 10.15.3 so I updated it to 10.15.4 immediately. Crashes during Sleep galore.

After a week I decided to ring Apple for support - they didn't know about the issue - and decided my MBP would have to be defective and arranged an exchange for a new one. What's interesting is that they didn't want to know about the issue and had their sales department deal with the issue, as it was under 14 days old.

Got the new MBP 16", which I left on 10.15.3. And it's is fine. I am 100% that if I were to update back to 10.15.4 it would be Crashes again. For those of you that think it's hardware, I am positive it is not.

16" MBP 2,3ghz 16gb ram and the 1 TB HDD.

Same specs for mine MBP:

10.15.4 - crashing

10.15.3 - not crashing

I reverted back to 10.15.3. to specially check that it not crashing my MBP, because first thing I did when received MBP - install latest update...

Turning off Power Nap while plugged in fixed the problem for me. Power Nap is useless for me anyway, I don't want the computer to check emails, etc, while asleep anyway.

I think Apple are aware of the problem and will fix soon, some reports of it fixed in latest 10.15.5

Honestly your case is starting to sound more like you could potentially have some type of hardware problem if none of the recent updates have helped or remedied your problem. A few people have noted that they had this problem and Apple has replaced their logic board and Touch ID sensor, you may want to contact Apple and possibly setup a repair with them and see if that permanently remedies the problem for you.

Have you disabled the power nap when plugged in? It works for me on 10.15.4, 10.15.5(19F96) and 10.15.5 (F101). And it even works when I enable it again. But after each update I have to flip it off and on again.

BTW,

Yes my issues was fixed (at least 2 weeks with no issues) on 10.15.5 , my annoyance is just for lots of minor issues that just built up over time,

Maybe it's Catalina (as many say), I don't know, but I heard good things about apple but all I got was mess.

I want to provide an update for those that haven't seen. I was someone with a new 16" that had this problem. I believe that 10.15.5 fully fixed it for me. Did it also fix for others? I am guessing so because, pre-update, there were multiple updates to this post daily. Since then, it's died down, so I take that to mean that, like me, most people saw it resolve.

I had this issue too for several month until about two weeks ago. Meanwhile it is completely gone after a clean installation of MacOS 10.15.5. I did several clean installations before and they did not help at all....

Then I read this article on a German portal for IT ("heise.de") which has a good reputation. This article can be summarized as follows: Is is intended by Apple that the firmware of the device is updated when ever you install or update MacOS. But Heise found out that the firmware update often fails while the OS update succeeds and users do not get any message or alert about the failure of the firmware update. The result of the tests they did was that a significant number of devices have this problem: old firmware and new MacOS.

I know that it is a lot of work to reinstall MacOS and all the software required but I recommend not to give up. I tested my device without any additional software installed and only used safari and mail and I did not connect any hardware except the original charger. This was to exclude external programs or devices to cause the kernel panic.

So if the built-in hardware test is successful (press "D" at startup and run the hardware diagnosis) and the SMC-reset also does not solve your problem I can just recommend to try re-installing MacOS until your firmware was also successfully updated.

Its a shame that Apple does not fix this issue but they seem to be focused on rather developing new stuff than fixing the issues. For me personally I decided not to buy a Macbook again as Windows in my opinion is at least as stable as MacOS if not even better and the premium prices for Apple devices are by far not justified in my opinion. At least the Apple support is friendly but unfortunately not sufficiently competent to solve this kind problem.

Good luck trying!

Typically your best bet is to look at the Kernal Panic to see what exactly is being affected, whether it be applications, specific drivers, etc.

I noticed that whenever I leave anything plugged in (other than having the MBP charging) for extended periods of time, the computer will crash. I tested this out with my iPod Classic attached to my MBP 16” and sure enough, it crashed, but this was the only instance of it ever crashing ever since the 10.15.4 update (currently 10.15.6).

After much testing on my behalf, this crash only seems to occur when something other than the charging cable is plugged in and the device goes to sleep for a certain period of time. I recommend disabling Power Nap entirely when connected to Power at the bare minimum.

Same Kernel Panic and Sleep issues here with my 16" Macbook Pro that I purchased in December of 2019. Apple final asked me to bring in for repair. The replaced the entire Logic Board. I have now gone 3 weeks without an issue. Looks like this model has a Logic Board issue and it's not software related.

I confirm that disabling Power Nap prevent the computer from crashing.