macOS 10.15.7 very unstable, constantly freezing and restarting automatically

Question

Level 1

14 points

macOS 10.15.7 very unstable, constantly freezing and restarting automatically

Hello, I have been with my iMac 5K 27" Late 2014 for several years. Until recently it has always been perfect. From a version of Catalina that I cannot determine because I do not remember and I would be giving inaccurate information, the system began to show kernels panics and restarting automatically (maybe 1 time per hour). Reading the error messages they seemed random and from very different sources. I sent all of them to Apple.

With the 10.15.7 update the system continues to be very unstable, the computer almost unusable, every 45 minutes it restarts automatically but now the screen freezes and it restarts after about 6 seconds, without showing any kernel panic.

I don't have plugged any kind of accessory hardware (I have retired my audio interface), all installed software is legal. A few days ago I formatted the entire system but I still have the same problems mentioned.

This computer before Catalina was perfect, now it is a ruin 😞.

iMac with Retina 5K display, macOS 10.15

Posted on Sep 27, 2020 3:46 AM

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Answer 1

Feb 11, 2021 2:45 PM in response to Luis Sequeira1

I'm having this problem as well and I am definitely NOT tech-savvy enough to figure it out myself. My computer is a MacBook Pro mid-2012. It was doing fine until I was forced by Adobe to upgrade to Catalina. Now it randomly restarts -- mostly while I'm using Safari 14.0.3. I ran the etrecheck thing as suggested and here's my report:

etrecheck report

I am grateful for any suggestions and help anyone can provide.

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Answer 2

pshill84

Level 1

24 points

Nov 19, 2020 8:12 AM in response to Gregory Kane

Had my first kernel panic / reboot on 10.15.7 last night, and then again just now. Last night all that was running was Apple Music. This morning, Word, Preview, and FixMyMac (which had just run a malware scan).

Anyone know how to fix this if it continues?

Panic log from last night is below. No idea what it means, but I'd sure like it to stop. Since I'm on a mid-2014 MBP, I'm waiting for a 11.1 or 11.2 before updating to Big Sur to avoid the bricking problem, which sounds worse than kernel panics.

/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/.contents.panic

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Answer 3

Dec 8, 2020 9:58 PM in response to Andreu87

I was facing same issue on my Catalina 10.15.7. I upgraded to BigSur 11.0.1 thnking that issue will be resolved, but facing same issue on BigSur also.

OS freezing and restarting automatically without any kernel panics.

just by looking at crashes, I think it is a WindowServer crash.

MacOS SkyLight.framework/WindowServer crash logs.

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Answer 4

Nov 12, 2020 6:28 PM in response to Andreu87

Same problem here, my 2017 iMac has been an unbelievable machine until this update and now I am spending more time crashing and restarting than anything else.

Mac apps and Adobe apps all seem to just bring the computer to it's knees.

I have slowly tried to eliminate software and now hardware... run system diagnostics and disk utility... everything comes up clean.

The machine appears to think that adobe apps are "not responding" while they are booting. If you wait long enough, sometimes they load but then whatever unexplainable thing that starts the crashing process slowly takes over the entire system. Cannot even get into terminal. Just need to do school work - but instead I'm wasting time with this!!! oye!

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Answer 5

Apr 15, 2021 4:00 PM in response to Andreu87

I am also having this problem. Started happening this week. Crashes twice a day now.

Do not always get a crash report but this is one of them : panic(cpu 2 caller 0xffffff7f9d7a1a8d): watchdog timeout: no checkins from watchdogd in 99 seconds (3318 total checkins since monitoring last enabled)

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Answer 6

Sep 27, 2020 4:42 AM in response to Andreu87

We need to know more in order to help you.

There are two likely causes for this sort of problem:

a) a hardware issue

b) a software conflict - maybe something that you have had installed for a long time is not compatible with Catalina. This occurs often. I guess you may have been updating your mac over the years; you may have something in there from the time of Mavericks or Yosemite...

In order to figure that out:

Please run Etrecheck and post its full report here. Use the "additional text" button and paste the report into the text box.

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Answer 7

Andreu87 Author

Level 1

14 points

Sep 27, 2020 10:36 AM in response to Luis Sequeira1

Hi Luís, as I told you, I don't have any additional hardware installed on the computer (I upgraded the RAM 3 or 4 years ago, without any kind of issue), and if I had something broken on the motherboard or similar, I understand that with previous versions of the operating system I would have had similar problems. And until Catalina was updated, I never had a kernel panic, so I don't think it's a hardware problem.

Regarding the software, as I have also told you, 1 week ago I did a clean installation from 0. Then I installed the Adobe Creative Suite, Rekordbox and several apps from the App Store.

Here's EtreCheck report:

EtreCheck version: 5.6.1 (5217)

Report generated: 2020-09-27 19:17:26

Download EtreCheck from https://etrecheck.com

Runtime: 1:48

Performance: Excellent

Sandbox: Enabled

Full drive access: Disabled

Problem: Computer is restarting

Major Issues:

Anything that appears on this list needs immediate attention.

No Time Machine backup - Time Machine backup not found.

Minor Issues:

These issues do not need immediate attention but they may indicate future problems or opportunities for improvement.

Unsigned files - There are unsigned software files installed. Apple has said that unsigned software will not run by default in a future version of the operating system.

Limited drive access - More information may be available with Full Drive Access.

Kernel extensions present - This computer has kernel extensions that may not work in the future.

Hardware Information:

iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, 2014 - 2015)

iMac Model: iMac15,1

3,5 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i5 (i5-4690) CPU: 4-core

16 RAM - Upgradeable

BANK 0/DIMM0 - 4 GB DDR3 1600

BANK 1/DIMM0 - 4 GB DDR3 1600

BANK 0/DIMM1 - 8 GB DDR3 1600

BANK 1/DIMM1 - Empty

Video Information:

AMD Radeon R9 M290X - VRAM: 2 GB

iMac (built-in) 5120 x 2880

Drives:

disk0 - APPLE SSD SM0128G 121.33 GB (Solid State - TRIM: Yes)

Internal PCI 5.0 GT/s x2 Serial ATA

disk0s1 - EFI (MS-DOS FAT32) [EFI] 210 MB

disk0s2 [APFS Fusion Drive] 121.12 GB

disk2 [APFS Virtual drive] 1.12 TB (Shared by 5 volumes)

disk2s1 - M******************s (APFS) [APFS Virtual drive] (Shared - 240.38 GB used)

disk2s2 - Preboot (APFS) [APFS Preboot] (Shared)

disk2s3 - Recovery (APFS) [Recovery] (Shared)

disk2s4 - VM (APFS) [APFS VM] (Shared - 2.15 GB used)

disk2s5 - Macintosh HD (APFS) (Shared - 11.23 GB used)

disk1 - APPLE HDD ST1000DM003 1.00 TB (Mechanical - 7200 RPM)

Internal SATA 3 Gigabit Serial ATA

disk1s1 - EFI (MS-DOS FAT32) [EFI] 210 MB

disk1s2 [APFS Fusion Drive] 1000.00 GB

disk2 [APFS Virtual drive] 1.12 TB (Shared by 5 volumes)

disk2s1 - M******************s (APFS) [APFS Virtual drive] (Shared - 240.38 GB used)

disk2s2 - Preboot (APFS) [APFS Preboot] (Shared)

disk2s3 - Recovery (APFS) [Recovery] (Shared)

disk2s4 - VM (APFS) [APFS VM] (Shared - 2.15 GB used)

disk2s5 - Macintosh HD (APFS) (Shared - 11.23 GB used)

Mounted Volumes:

disk2s1 - M******************s [APFS Virtual drive]

1.12 TB (Shared - 240.38 GB used, 927.86 GB available, 857.91 GB free)

APFS

Mount point: /System/Volumes/Data

disk2s4 - VM [APFS VM]

1.12 TB (Shared - 2.15 GB used, 857.91 GB free)

APFS

Mount point: /private/var/vm

disk2s5 - Macintosh HD

1.12 TB (Shared - 11.23 GB used, 927.86 GB available, 857.91 GB free)

APFS

Mount point: /

Read-only: Yes

Network:

Interface en0: Ethernet

Interface en4: Bluetooth PAN

Interface bridge0: Thunderbolt Bridge

System Software:

macOS Catalina 10.15.7 (19H2)

Time since boot: Less than an hour

Configuration Files:

/etc/hosts - Count: 1

Notifications:

Notifications not available without Full Drive Access.

Security:

Gatekeeper: Enabled

System Integrity Protection: Enabled

Antivirus software: Apple

Unsigned Files:

Launchd: ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.google.keystone.agent.plist

Executable: ~/Library/Google/GoogleSoftwareUpdate/GoogleSoftwareUpdate.bundle/Contents/Resources/GoogleSoftwareUpdateAgent.app/Contents/MacOS/GoogleSoftwareUpdateAgent -runMode ifneeded

Details: Exact match found in the legitimate list - probably OK

Launchd: ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.google.keystone.xpcservice.plist

Executable: ~/Library/Google/GoogleSoftwareUpdate/GoogleSoftwareUpdate.bundle/Contents/Resources/GoogleSoftwareUpdateAgent.app/Contents/MacOS/GoogleSoftwareUpdateAgent -runMode xpchost

Details: Exact match found in the legitimate list - probably OK

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Answer 8

Andreu87 Author

Level 1

14 points

Sep 27, 2020 10:37 AM in response to Luis Sequeira1

Apps: 5

Kernel Extensions:

/Library/Application Support/Logitech.localized/Logitech Options.localized

LogiMgrDriver.kext (8.30.1 - SDK 10.13)

/Library/Extensions

RDUSB019EDev.kext (1.0.3 - SDK 10.14)

System Launch Agents:

[Not Loaded] 17 Apple tasks

[Loaded] 178 Apple tasks

[Running] 118 Apple tasks

System Launch Daemons:

[Not Loaded] 35 Apple tasks

[Loaded] 184 Apple tasks

[Running] 119 Apple tasks

Launch Agents:

[Running] com.adobe.AdobeCreativeCloud.plist (Adobe Inc. - installed 2020-09-22)

[Running] com.adobe.GC.AGM.plist (Adobe Systems, Inc. - installed 2020-09-15)

[Not Loaded] com.adobe.GC.Invoker-1.0.plist (Adobe Systems, Inc. - installed 2020-09-15)

[Loaded] com.adobe.ccxprocess.plist (Apple - installed 2020-09-22)

[Running] com.logitech.manager.daemon.plist (Logitech Inc. - installed 2020-09-08)

Launch Daemons:

[Running] com.adobe.acc.installer.v2.plist (Adobe Inc. - installed 2020-09-22)

[Running] com.adobe.agsservice.plist (Adobe Systems, Inc. - installed 2020-09-15)

[Loaded] de.appsolute.mampprohelper.plist (MAMP GmbH - installed 2020-09-15)

[Not Loaded] jp.co.roland.RDUSB019ESetupd.plist (Roland Corporation - installed 2020-09-19)

User Launch Agents:

[Loaded] com.google.keystone.agent.plist (? 0 - installed 2020-09-15)

[Loaded] com.google.keystone.xpcservice.plist (? 0 - installed 2020-09-15)

User Login Items:

[Not Loaded] Ampado Login Helper (App Store - installed 2020-09-14)

Modern Login Item

/Applications/Ampado.app/Contents/Library/LoginItems/Ampado Login Helper.app

[Not Loaded] CodeBar (App Store - installed 2020-09-15)

Modern Login Item

/Applications/CodeBox.app/Contents/Library/LoginItems/CodeBar.app

[Not Loaded] ColorWellHelper (App Store - installed 2020-09-15)

Modern Login Item

/Applications/ColorWell.app/Contents/Library/LoginItems/ColorWellHelper.app

[Not Loaded] Folx Schedule Helper (ELTIMA LLC - installed 2020-08-04)

Modern Login Item

/Applications/Folx.app/Contents/Library/LoginItems/FolxScheduleHelper.app

[Loaded] LoginHelper (App Store - installed 2020-09-14)

Modern Login Item

/Applications/Owly.app/Contents/Library/LoginItems/LoginHelper.app

[Not Loaded] LaunchAtLoginHelperApp (App Store - installed 2020-09-15)

Modern Login Item

/Applications/PasswordsApp.app/Contents/Library/LoginItems/LaunchAtLoginHelperApp.app

[Not Loaded] recessLoader (App Store - installed 2020-09-14)

Modern Login Item

/Applications/Recess.app/Contents/Library/LoginItems/recessLoader.app

[Not Loaded] Skitch Helper (App Store - installed 2020-09-15)

Modern Login Item

/Applications/Skitch.app/Contents/Library/LoginItems/J8RPQ294UB.com.skitch.SkitchHelper.app

[Not Loaded] StartUpHelper (Spotify - installed 2020-09-01)

Modern Login Item

/Applications/Spotify.app/Contents/Library/LoginItems/StartUpHelper.app

[Not Loaded] WhatsApp Login Helper (App Store - installed 2020-09-19)

Modern Login Item

/Applications/WhatsApp.app/Contents/Library/LoginItems/WhatsApp Login Helper.app

Internet Plug-ins:

AdobeAAMDetect: 3.0.0.0 (Adobe Inc. - installed 2020-09-22)

User Internet Plug-ins:

User Internet Plug-ins need Full Drive Access

User Audio Plug-ins:

User Audio Plug-ins need Full Drive Access

User iTunes Plug-ins:

User iTunes Plug-ins need Full Drive Access

Safari Extensions:

Folx (ELTIMA LLC - installed 2020-08-04)

iTubeDownloader (Ysanna John - installed 2020-08-07)

3rd Party Preference Panes:

TD-25 (Roland Corporation - installed 2019-09-05)

Backup:

Time Machine Not Configured!

Performance:

System Load: 2.57 (1 min ago) 3.00 (5 min ago) 1.92 (15 min ago)

Nominal I/O speed: 10.18 MB/s

File system: 22.17 seconds

Write speed: 532 MB/s

Read speed: 676 MB/s

CPU Usage Snapshot:

Type Overall

System: 3 %

User: 3 %

Idle: 94 %

Top Processes Snapshot by CPU:

Process (count) CPU (Source - Location)

Other processes 14.57 % (?)

EtreCheck 8.95 % (App Store)

LogiMgrDaemon 0.28 % (Logitech Inc.)

Core Sync 0.21 % (Adobe Inc.)

sharingd 0.12 % (Apple)

Top Processes Snapshot by Memory:

Process (count) RAM usage (Source - Location)

EtreCheck 559 MB (App Store)

Dock 96 MB (Apple)

accountsd 78 MB (Apple)

Creative Cloud 64 MB (Adobe Inc.)

CCLibrary 64 MB (Adobe Systems, Inc.)

Top Processes Snapshot by Network Use:

Process (count) Input / Output (Source - Location)

Other processes 135 KB / 83 KB (?)

rapportd 22 KB / 3 KB (Apple)

spindump_agent 0 B / 0 B (Apple)

backgroundtaskmanagementagent 0 B / 0 B (Apple)

UsageTrackingAgent 0 B / 0 B (Apple)

Virtual Memory Information:

Physical RAM: 16 GB

Free RAM: 7.58 GB

Used RAM: 4.32 GB

Cached files: 4.10 GB

Available RAM: 11.68 GB

Swap Used: 0 B

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Answer 9

Andreu87 Author

Level 1

14 points

Sep 27, 2020 10:38 AM in response to Luis Sequeira1

Software Installs (past 30 days):

Install Date Name (Version)

2020-09-14 Gatekeeper Configuration Data (181)

2020-09-14 Owly (2.1)

2020-09-14 TrackGuide (8.3.1)

2020-09-14 Ampado (1.2.0)

2020-09-14 Recess (4.1.1)

2020-09-14 GoodNotes (5.4.14)

2020-09-14 Logic Pro X (10.5.0)

2020-09-14 Audio Converter Lite (2.2.9)

2020-09-14 PDF Merger Lite (6.1.4)

2020-09-14 Image Resizer (2.1)

2020-09-14 BPM Tap Tempo (2.0)

2020-09-14 Ruler (20.10)

2020-09-15 Logitech Options

2020-09-15 PasswordsApp (4.9)

2020-09-15 Music Convert-Audio Converter (3.3.6)

2020-09-15 Notepad (1.1)

2020-09-15 VisualJSON (1.6.0)

2020-09-15 Image2icon (2.11)

2020-09-15 CodeBox (1.6)

2020-09-15 Transmit (4.4.13)

2020-09-15 ruler (1.5)

2020-09-15 MAMP & MAMP PRO 3.5.2

2020-09-15 MAMP & MAMP PRO 4.5

2020-09-15 MAMP & MAMP PRO 5.7

2020-09-15 DaisyDisk (4.11)

2020-09-15 The Unarchiver (4.2.2)

2020-09-15 Skitch (2.9)

2020-09-15 Smart Converter (3.0.2)

2020-09-15 Asset Catalog Creator Pro (3.7)

2020-09-15 Cocoa JSON Editor (1.2.5)

2020-09-15 Rested (2.7)

2020-09-15 The Image Converter (11.0)

2020-09-15 Sylenth1

2020-09-15 Captain Plugins

2020-09-16 Safari (14.0)

2020-09-17 SQLPro for SQLite (2020.80)

2020-09-17 Easy CSV Editor (1.63)

2020-09-18 XProtectPlistConfigData (2131)

2020-09-19 WhatsApp (2.2037.6)

2020-09-19 Toucan 6 (6.8.5)

2020-09-19 TD-25 Driver (1.0.3)

2020-09-23 Numbers (10.0)

2020-09-23 Pages (10.0)

2020-09-23 Keynote (10.0)

2020-09-23 Grab The Icon (1.0)

2020-09-23 Pixillion Image Converter (7.32)

2020-09-23 Image Converter (1.0)

2020-09-23 HEIC Converter (1.8.0)

2020-09-23 Image Format Factory (4.0)

2020-09-24 rekordbox

2020-09-26 Actualització del macOS Catalina 10.15.7

2020-09-26 MRTConfigData (1.66)

2020-09-27 Magnet (2.4.8)

2020-09-27 Spark (2.9.5)

2020-09-27 iMovie (10.1.16)

2020-09-27 Dispositius mòbils (1.0.0.0)

2020-09-27 Xcode (12.0.1)

2020-09-27 EtreCheck (5.6.1)

Diagnostics Information (past 7-30 days):

Directory /Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports is not accessible.

Enable Full Drive Access to see more information.

End of report

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Answer 10

Andreu87 Author

Level 1

14 points

Oct 22, 2020 7:02 PM in response to xeons4

Hi, 3 days ago I deattached an USB 3.0 extension cable from my iMac (UGreen 1 meter male/female blue USB 3.0 cable) and also restarted NVRAM.

No more kernel panics.

The problem was definitely the extension USB cord or the NVRAM cache. I read that more people had kernel panics with USB cables, I thought I should try unplug it to test.

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Answer 11

Daimaou

Level 1

13 points

Nov 12, 2020 8:53 AM in response to Andreu87

I'm having major issues with 10.15.7 as well. I started installing it right before I left to eat dinner with my daughter last night. When I got home, my 2019 MacBook Pro 16" was as hot as an iron and kept rebooting over and over and then crashing at the login screen. I now have to go get that repaired. My 2020 MacBook Pro 13" didn't die (yet), but it is extremely unstable. Cubase refuses to run and so does the Steinberg eLicenser. Both just hang. I use Karabiner Elements to remap my keyboard and the update installer just hangs and won't load. Other apps crash as well. I haven't had the entire system crash and reboot, like my other Mac, but I'm definitely not happy with this update.

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Answer 12

Nov 12, 2020 8:58 AM in response to Daimaou

Try resetting NVRAM and SMC.

Try restarting in Safe Mode. It will be slow, but does it still crash?

If things look ok (but slow) in Safe Mode, it could be a software conflict.

Please run Etrecheck and post its full report here. Use the "additional text" button and paste the report into the text box.

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Answer 13

Dec 2, 2020 11:35 PM in response to pshill84

Last week I had problems with Affinity Photo getting the spinning beachball while trying to open a file, any. file. This week the same happened with Affinity Designer. A restart seem to fix things temporarily.

Tonight, I was working in Apple Music. I had added music, created an album, and was trying to edit individual songs. On Get Info, I got the spinning beachball. Music is still Not Responding after about fifteen minutes.

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Answer 14

Dec 9, 2020 2:15 AM in response to AmitDhiman

I imagine that you just upgraded in place and did not erase and install, right?

Probably whatever was causing the crashes is still there.

Please run Etrecheck and post its full report here, so we can have a chance to look for possible culprits.

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Answer 15

Dec 21, 2020 5:13 PM in response to Andreu87

This is shot of error: panic(cpu 2 caller 0xffffff7f864faad5): userspace watchdog timeout: no successful checkins from com.apple.logd in 120 seconds

service returned not alive with context : unresponsive dispatch queue(s): com.apple.firehose.io-wl

service: com.apple.logd, total successful checkins since load (8000 seconds ago): 789, last successful checkin: 120 seconds ago

service: com.apple.WindowServer, total successful checkins since load (7970 seconds ago): 792, last successful checkin: 50 seconds ago

Laptop starts CPU starts running hard( fan full power) laptop is completely frozen then crashes.

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