Catalina 10.15.6 Still Crashing Kernel Panic

You installed an update over a malfunctioning system. You should always fix problems before updating or upgrading.

A Troubleshooting Procedure that may Fix Problems with macOS El Capitan or Later

You should try each, one at a time, then test to see if the problem is fixed before going on to the next.

    If possible, backup your files before proceeding.

1. Shutdown the computer and disconnect all third-party peripherals.
2. Wait 30 seconds before you restart the computer.
3. Resetting your Mac's PRAM and NVRAM
4. Reset the System Management Controller (SMC)
5. Reset your Startup Disk and Sound preferences, if needed, after resetting the PRAM.
6. Test in safe mode to see if the problem persists, then restart normally.  Use safe mode to isolate issues with your Mac and Playing Safe - what does Safe mode do?
7. Repair the disk by booting from the Recovery HD. Immediately after the chime hold down the Command and R keys until the Utility Menu appears. Choose Disk Utility and click on the Continue button. Select the indented (usually, Macintosh HD) volume entry from the side list.  Click on the First Aid button in the toolbar. Wait for the Done button to appear. Quit Disk Utility and return to the Utility Menu. Restart the computer from the Apple Menu.
8. Reinstall a Combo Updater: macOS Catalina 10.15.6 Combo Update, macOS Mojave 10.14.6 Combo Update, macOS High Sierra 10.13.6 Combo Update, macOOS 10.12.6 Combo Update, OS X El Capitan 10.11.6 Combo Update.
9. Create a New User Account Open Users & Groups preferences. Click on the lock icon and enter your Admin password when prompted. On the left under Current User click on the Add [+] button under Login Options. Setup a new Admin user account. Upon completion log out of your current account then log into the new account. If your problems cease, then consider switching to the new account and transferring your files to it - Transferring files from one User Account to another.
10. Reinstall OS X by booting from the Recovery HD using the Command and R keys. When the Utility Menu appears select Install OS X then click on the Continue button.
11. Erase and Install OS X Restart the computer. Immediately after the chime hold down the Command and R keys until the Apple logo appears. When the Utility Menu appears:

     1. Select Disk Utility from the Utility Menu and click on the Continue button.

     2. When Disk Utility loads select the drive (out-dented entry) from the Device list.

     3. Click on the Erase button in Disk Utility's toolbar. A panel will drop down.

     4. Set the Format type to APFS (for SSDs only) or Mac OS Extended (Journaled.)

     5. Click on the Apply button, then wait for the Done button to activate and click on it.

     6. Quit Disk Utility and return to the Utility Menu.

     7. Select Install OS X and click on the Continue button.

With regard to kernel panics:

Dealing with Kernel Panics

Disconnect any third-party peripherals including any USB hubs. How to use safe mode on your Mac, Use safe mode to isolate issues with your Mac - Apple Support then boot the computer into Safe Mode: Use safe mode to isolate issues with your Mac - Apple Support and Playing Safe- what does Safe mode do? See Diagnosing problems- crash, freeze, panic, or spinning beach ball?, Don’t Panic! Understanding & Troubleshooting Kernel Panics in macOS, How to fix kernel panics after installing OS X updates | MacIssues, and If your Mac restarted because of a problem - Apple Support.

Kernel panics are indicative of possible hardware failure, so you should Check your Mac with hardware diagnostics or AHT. Kernel panic logs are found in: /Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/ folder.

If you have no success figuring what is happening then you may need to examine the software you have running when the panics occur. Be sure it’s all current. If you must to resolve the problem erase the disk and reinstall macOS. Follow this outline to reset the computer to the factory-new state: Factory reset of your Mac - Apple Support.

Boot Into Safe Mode

1. If your Mac isn’t already shut down, then shut it down and wait at least 30 seconds before rebooting.
2. Immediately, at or before the chime, press and hold down the SHIFT key. 
3. Release the key after the Apple logo and progress bar appear.
4. Safe mode startup is much slower than normal startup, so be patient.
5. When the Login Screen appears enter your admin password. If you use automatic login, then this means you are in safe mode.

joxesCA wrote:

We are not running virtual machines on our laptops, just Apple with the office 365 and some adobe apps.

frtzn wrote:

I was able to limit the group of suspects to a handful of programs, including Microsoft Office (16.40 Business Pro) and Adobe CC / Photoshop (21.2.2). Though it seems unlikely that these programs are causing any trouble, they do install half a dozen background processes that run all the time. …

I just wiped my entire HD again, reinstalled Catalina (10.15.6), but this time left the system completely untouched.

Over the weekend, I reinstalled more apps to my Mac except Microsoft Office and Adobe Creative Cloud. The system runs perfectly stable so far. Could it really be one of these two highly popular software packages that is causing the kernel panics?

I will use the Mac for at least a couple more days and then reinstall just one of the two (probably Office) to see if it's causing any trouble.

joxesCA wrote:

We are not running virtual machines on our laptops, just Apple with the office 365 and some adobe apps

frtzn wrote:

over the weekend, I reinstalled more apps to my Mac except Microsoft Office and Adobe Creative Cloud. The system runs perfectly stable so far. Could it really be one of these two highly popular software packages that is causing the kernel panics?

For nine days, my MacBook Air worked like a charm.

On August 29, I installed Adobe Creative Cloud. My Mac immediately started to behave oddly again. For example, the screen would freeze for about a minute each time I reactivated the computer from sleep. Just four days later, I had another kernel panic. The last two log files, written just seconds before the panic, were related to Adobe apps.

I uninstalled Adobe Creative Cloud, and the freeze-on-wakeup issues are gone again.

I will use the Mac now for the next days without installing anything, checking if it crashes again. At the moment however, it seems to me that Adobe Creative Cloud may be the cause for those kernel panics.

joxesCA wrote:

I was running for my business 6x 2020 MBPs and 8x 2020 MBAs. The employees complained. We are not running virtual machines on our laptops, just Apple with the office 365 and some adobe apps.

This might actually contain a hint to what's causing the issues so many users have:

• I have a 2020 MBA as well (4 weeks old now, Core i5 version)
• I get the same random kernel panics …
  • … even after installing the 10.15.6 supplemental update
  • … even after wiping the HD and performing a clean reinstall of Catalina 10.15.6
  • … even after wiping the HD again and performing a clean install of the Big Sur public beta (!)
• I do not run any virtualisation software
• I do not have memory issues; the panics seem to be random and often happen when the machine is not actively used (just running on idle)
• I do not have any external hardware attached
• As I do not have much third-party software installed, I was able to limit the group of suspects to a handful of programs, including Microsoft Office (16.40 Business Pro) and Adobe CC / Photoshop (21.2.2).

Though it seems unlikely that these programs are causing any trouble, they do install half a dozen background processes that run all the time.

I just wiped my entire HD again, reinstalled Catalina (10.15.6), but this time left the system completely untouched. I let it play videos for ~24 hours now -- no panic so far. Based on the problems of the past weeks, it should panic soon. If it doesn't, we can be quite certain that against all odds, some third-party software is causing the trouble.

It sounds that you're using the original build of macOS 10.15.6.

Installing the supplemental update might resolve the watchdog timeout issue.

From what I've heard from many other users the problem persists even after applying the kext fix - though personally I didn't tested the updated build with any virtualization app yet to determine if the kernel panic is related with the virtualizers.

This issue has plagued 16 inch users for coming up to a year. There is nothing you can do with the machine to make it stable. Have a look on Macrumors and you will find a thread running close to 10 months on this issue. People have this issue with MACs straight out of the box with nothing other than the OS installed. There are others that Apple has stated the logic board is at fault and replaced that continue to kernel panic on their return with nothing installed. Simply about all you can do is try turning off all OS feature and keep the machine turned on continuously seems to be the only remedy. Its unlikely to be fixed in the near term and the problem is persisting in BigSur so no relief on the horizon for the next few months. 10.15.7 did not fix it either.

Hi, since I updated to 10.15.4 and even now with 10.15.6, Catalina crashes from time to time.

I discovered that it happens when I upload a big amount of data to Drive, Dropbox or pCloud or event to an external Hard drive. That is to say, when I am transferring a lot of data, after few minutes it gives a Kernel Panic. So I try to avoid such sort of operations . It has not been solved with 10.15.6 so ... I guess that Apple has not found the way to solve it.

I as posing to move back to Mojave that worked like a charm but it would take me a lot of effort so I will wait...

I have the same issue, I found out that whatever external device you add, the MacBook Pro will crash again sooner or later. As JAB_66 said, it happens when you start loading data, or when you run a Teams call and use MS Office in parallel.

I did reinstall 4 times from scratch, including installing from a USB drive. As soon as I run my external monitor, Teams and/or OneDrive it crashes. I called Apple help desk too, guess what, they didn't found anything.

I replaced the external USB-C hub to a new Satechi, no luck.

I think it's a 10.15.7 issue, as I didn't had it on the versions before...

I started having what I believe to be called kernel panic issues with my mac mini 2018.

I'm not sure if it's related but it started after I updated to safari 14 on OSX 10.15.7.

The problem is that the mac reboots by itself and it gives me a black screen with a message in multiple languages that says that a problem occured.

It would reboot more and more until I couldn't even boot completely before it rebooted again.

Then it started giving me a "blocked" sign on boot up, that apparently means no compatible OS found.

So I did a clean reinstall of OSX, started installing my softwares on it, problem reappeared.

Decided to do another clean reinstall, this time the mac would crash during the install, I had to retry about 3 times before I could finish the OS installation via internet recovery, standard recovery didn't want to work.

This time I didn't install anything on it and didn't update to safari 14, seems to be ok but I haven't used it much.

Luckily I don't have any work to do on it for now but I will eventually so I'm starting to wonder what I'm gonna do, I don't really feel like wasting hours again reinstalling everything...

Since 10.15.6 I’ve found that resetting SMC/PR on my old iMac seems to help for a while, but the watchdogd panic eventually returns.