Near constant panic/reboots

Question

Level 1

8 points

Near constant panic/reboots

This started a week or two ago. I gave up and formatted the disk and reinstalled Catalina. Then installed my normal work apps and it started again. So I did what any sane human would do. Backup, format, reinstall an OS. Then I tried to be more judicious and install ONLY the necessities to get my job done. and it's crashing again. 90% of the time as soon as I log in, I get 60-300 seconds and the OS hangs, panics, reboots. Safe mode seems to work fine, and I'm not finding useful data in the crash reports. I could use some help. I may open a ticket with Apple Support, but I suspect they'll just tell me to format/reinstall again.

MacBook Pro Retina

Posted on Sep 18, 2020 5:08 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

bearwebber Author

Level 1

8 points

Sep 19, 2020 4:40 AM in response to HWTech

As far as I can tell, the MBP 16 with the AMD Radeon graphics chip crashes constantly With GlobalProtect 5.1.6 and 5.2.2. The MBP 15" doesn't have a problem with those versions. PaloAlto started using NetworkExtensions with 5.1.4 and above. 5.1.3 works fine (kext) on the MBP 16" with the Radeon chip.

Also, on the MBP16 if I connect immediately after login (before the crash) it will prevent the crash.

Reply

Answer 2

HWTech

Level 9

60,452 points

Sep 18, 2020 5:24 PM in response to bearwebber

Since you have only a couple of items installed here and Safe Mode seems to work so either one of the items installed is at fault (Palo Alto is most likely since it has an extension) or you have a hardware failure.

Make sure to disconnect all external devices just in case one of them is actually causing a problem.

Are there actually any Kernel Panic logs on your system? Kernel Panic logs have their file names begin with "kernel" and end in ".panic". I believe they are located in the "/private/var/log" folder or within the "Diagnostic Reports" folder within that log folder.

You can try running the Apple Diagnostics to see if it shows any failures. If it fails it will definitely make your conversation with Apple much easier since they will want to know if a clean install without third party apps still crashes the system.

Reply

Answer 3

etresoft

Level 9

50,962 points

Sep 18, 2020 5:53 PM in response to bearwebber

Two things:

1) Don't run the Mac App Store version of EtreCheck in Safe Mode. The Mac App Store version relies upon certain system services to report 3rd party system modifications. In Safe Mode, those 3rd party system modifications aren't running, so they may not be included in your EtreCheck report. If you have to run in Safe Mode, run EtreCheckPro.

2) You are running Console. Don't do that. Console is such a beast that it will overwhelm everything else on your computer. With Console running, all performance measures are total garbage.

Reply

Answer 4

Sep 18, 2020 6:54 PM in response to HWTech

/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports

name includes date&time and ends in .panic

Reply

Near constant panic/reboots

Similar questions