MBP 13 2020 won't recognize USB devices from TB dock after sleeping and connecting to the dock. After unplugging the dock MBP crashes and does SMC reset

Hi all, I wanted to share another data point after upgrading to Big Sur 11.0.1. Once I upgraded my MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2020, Four Thunderbolt 3 ports) to Big Sur 11.0.1, the wake-from-sleep kernel panic issue and USB device disconnect issues have disappeared with my Plugable Thunderbolt docks. I did get a few kernel panics stating "Sleep transition timed out after 180 seconds while calling power state change callbacks. Suspected bundle: com.apple.iokit.IOGraphicsFamily”, which I believe may have to do with the “Power Nap” setting.  Once I disabled “Power Nap” these kernel panics seem to have stopped.

Also, as a side note, my entire Mac's performance is WAY better with Big Sur than it was under Catalina. I noticed a major performance and responsiveness improvement immediately after upgrading to Big Sur. Also, all of my applications seem to work just fine under Big Sur.

Just wanted to share another data point...

I installed 11.1 today and will report back if I notice any changes on my M1 MBP.

I also spoke with a senior advisor today that I was still having issues (although the behavior is different) with TB and devices not being recognized. He sent it to engineers and I am supposed to speak with him again later this week. If anything interesting comes up I will post here.

This overall issue is really disruptive to my business day.

I move in and out of my office with my Macbook, and plugging in my Apple Thunderbolt monitor is triggering the issue, and as it causes a restart I'm losing work.

It's also a pain it not recognising the Apple monitors inbuilt hub, as my wired ethernet connection is connected that way.

I've been a loyal Macbook Pro owner and this is my third new MBP, and I've never had to shutdown to keep everything happy, this new MBP 2020 is a bit of a let down.

My worry is that this is a hardware issue.

On my MBP2020 Catalina 10.15.7 this problem may have been solved. Anyway, now when I reconnect the Thunderbolt3 dock (CalDigit TS3 Plus), the problem does not occur.

This may not be the case for everyone, but in my case, the problem has not occurred since I upgraded the DisplayLink Manager to 1.2.0.

It's still happening for me with on my clean install (just to test this issue) that I just upgraded from 10.15.6 to 10.15.7.

[MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2020, Four Thunderbolt 3 ports), Kensington SD5000T dock]

Interesting, Apple has removed all posts from this thread that mentioned I was able to get a refund for my 2020 four-port MBP (after going through tons of troubleshooting and sending it in for logic board replacement). I have an M1 MBP now, and was still having some TB issues (no kernel panics) until updating to 11.1. Now it's all working fine. I'd be curious if 11.1 fixes the issues on Intel MBPs.

I’m running a 2020 13 in. MB Air with Big Sur (v 11.1). I use an Apple USB-C to Thunderbolt 3 adapter to run a Buffalo 1 TB peripheral drive. The adapter connects the peripheral to the machine fine but the Intel crash / reset issue is persistent. It seems to be stable / work better when I am doing actions that hit the drive. But as soon as I stop, the machine crashes. This is a pain. I have a photo library on that peripheral I am concerned will get corrupted because of all of this resetting. Based on what I am reading on this form, this sounds not to be a hardware issue but a bug with the OS—and going back to Catalina builds. I really, really hope that Apple fixes this.

It's quite silent here since Christmas. Everyone got this fixed already?

Just to check-in - I've "resolved" this by replacing my thunderbolt dock with the USB-C DisplayLink-capable dock. It's a downgrade as DisplayLink can't play DRM content and the display performance is not that good and also I have to connect my second monitor separately with display port to thunderbolt cable separately, because DisplayLink has problems with screen rotation unfortunately. So yep, definitely a downgrade, but still an improvement, because I don't have to reboot my Macbook every single day.

Thanks Apple.

For me this problem was fixed only by updating to 11.1 on an M1 Macbook Pro. I was still having some issues on 11.0.1 but it's been fine since 11.1. I'd hoped to see that 11.1 fixed the issue for Intel MBP users, but it's not looking like it according to averan above.

I sure hope Apple figures it out. I know I was lucky with my timing and persistence to be able to return my 4TB port i5 MBP and get an M1. But seeing as how this is almost certainly an OS issue maybe Apple will be able to fix it.

11.1 fixed it for me on my 2020 Intel MBA. I could reproduce it consistently every time before that version, and now I can't make it fail. It just picks up and keeps on going.

This is with multiple bits of TB hardware, too: a TB3 dock and an old Apple TB monitor. Both of them work, whether direct to the machine or with the monitor behind the dock.

It was bad, but it's over. Try it.

Recently, if I restart connected to my dock, it starts without connecting any bluetooth devices and in light mode (I use dark mode). Then, when I disconnect it and open the lid, it goes completely black, often flashing the apple logo like it's restarting (without the new Big Sur restart tone) or sometimes remains off.

I am beyond upset at this point. Despite opening a ticket in October, I couldn't refresh my OS because I was in school full time and couldn't risk losing my computer for homework. I reinstalled the OS a couple weeks ago and refreshed every single plug in to be Apple compatible and am still having issues with the dock (despite being current on Big Sur).

I wish I had waited for an M1.

11.1 finally seems to fix the problem. Phew!

Just for context: my setup is a MBP13" 2020 and an external LG Ultrafine 5k.

My primary use case is starting to work, connecting the LG without ever opening the MBP's lid and working with the LG 5k screen, KB and magic trackpad connected to its USB-C hub all day.

In the evening, I disconnect the LG (lid of the MBP still closed), and later may or may not open the lid to use the MBP away from the work desk. Before 11.1, next time I connected the MBP to the LG 5k, either external USB would be dead with screen ok, or the machine would crash entirely.

Over time I found that opening the lid before disconnecting the LG 5k also prevented the problem - that's the workaround I've been using the past 2 months to avoid a reboot each and every day.

Now with 11.1, just putting the (closed) MBP to sleep and disconnecting the LG works fine. I haven't tried "hot" disconnecting (w/o putting the MBP to sleep) yet.

Same issue. MBPro13 2020 Intel Core i7 running 10.15.7. I use two docs, CalDigit TS3+ and OWC Thunderbolt 3 dock. Every reconnect results in unrecognizable USB ports including hard drives, mice, keyboards. Have to restart every time. I tried all the usual troubleshooting methods including SMC, nvRam resets and safe boot with no resolution. I thought I had a solution for a short time with changes to the energy saver settings but that did not work after a couple of successful sleep reconnection cycles. The sad part is that this machine ran fine until one of the 10.15.x upgrades (unfortunately I didn't pay attention to which one caused the problem).

Please Apple, fix this problem.

I can't upgrade to Big Sur since that broke my audio hardware drivers and won't work with the work VPN. I'm in upgrade ****!

It's been a week now and has been flawless.

I too had to wait until my audio software and sound interface fixed problems and confirmed support.

I was a bit nervous but all seems fine now. I'm an Ableton user, with a UAD Apollo interface.

"It's been a week now and has been flawless."

This is really great to hear!

Is the Apple Thunderbolt Display setup you mentioned, your regular, everyday space?

For me, it's my "sometimes" studio space in a different area of the house, so I haven't been completely diligent in testing—the issue is also very, very frustrating, as you well know.