MacBook Pro keeps freezing after Big Sur Update

Hi Syntheticzero, Thanks for that. Was your re-install from Recovery mode from the OS on your drive or from the internet OS? Apple Store suggests always use the internet OS recovery.

I think it is strange that a clean install + migration assistant did not cure the problem, but following that with a "dirty" re-install DID cure the problems. Maybe this indicates that the install process is the root cause and that it is unreliable and maybe multiple attempts eventually gets a good install. This may also explain the parallel reports of Big Sur failed installs.

I have failed to reliably clean downgrade to Catalina (because Migration Assistant won't work on downgrades) and so resigned myself to a Big Sur clean install - and I am reluctant to do that having heard so many fail to successfully do so. So maybe I will try you dirty install first!

It surprised me, too, but I figured why not give it a try since everything else failed. As a software engineer myself I think what must be happening is there is a bug in both Migration Assistant and the upgrade process (both of which probably use a lot of shared code) which causes some settings to get hosed in certain cases, but the "dirty" reinstall overwrites some of the settings. I actually think that it's not that the upgrade is randomly failing but the upgrade process and the install process use fundamentally different code and whatever bug exists in both the Migration Assistant and the upgrader doesn't exist in the reinstaller (if you think about it, the assistant starts from a fresh OS and writes on top of it and the reinstaller overwrites the OS files so it might "fix" whatever the migration screwed up.)

This Big Sur issue manifests itself in different ways - and not everyone has the same symptoms. My freezes occurred whilst using a range of apps, not just Mail etc. I have had the issues for 3 months now, and have been clearing out 3rd party apps, and removed all Google instances on my Mac and upgraded at each incremental Big Sur update. Now the freezes have not occurred but I just get system crashes, following runaway processes, overheating and full-on fans. Spotlight processes running away now seem to be conspicuous in Console.

I'll report back when I have re-installed a dirty Big Sur.

Syntheticzero,

Because the one relationship that I have been able to reproduce reliably is that Apple News uses up memory under Big Sur. I use Apple News on a daily basis. If I stop using Apple News my MacBook Air doesn't lock up. If I start using it again it invariably locks up. If I close down Apple News and reopen it frequently my MacBook Air doesn't lock up. Under I never experienced this issue under Catalina.

I have now done Syntheticzero's dirty re-install of Big Sur and I am not sure it has changed things for me.

I have not had a crash yet, but the fans do kick in for no apparent reason when in Safari and the Console is still dominated by 90% of the lines: com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.mdworker.single.x86_64.: Service exited due to SIGKILL | sent by mds[2566]

I'll report back if I get any concrete evidence it is a fix.

I tried Syntheticzero's dirty re-install of Big Sur. The reinstall went fine, but Safari is still freezing and suddenly deciding to stop responding to any command (issues not present in other browsers). So far, I haven't noticed any other malfunctions in Apple software yet, so maybe things are improved if not fixed completely.

My update is similar: my system is MUCH more stable since the dirty reinstall; but Messenger/Safari etc does eventually start to freeze up, but it typically takes many hours of continuous use. So it's gone from extremely annoying to only mildly annoying. I am next going to try, probably this weekend, just starting from a totally fresh copy of Bug Sur and just installing applications and software I need, one by one, from my old system backup, rather than doing any sort of migration.

One thing that might be a coincidence is the freezes didn't start again until I had turned FileVault back on (in a previous attempt to fix this I had File Vault off after I had reinstalled Big Sur from scratch).

For what's it worth, I have never enabled FileVault. I have both a MBP and an iMac. Both have the freezing-whatever we call this issue, wherein various Apple apps just stop working. Usually, I can force quit the stalled program and the computer continues to operate otherwise. On the iMac, I tried deleting every single piece of non-apple software, which did nothing that I can tell. On the MBP - far less filled with stuff I never use - I tried deleting on app at a time, and then waiting for safari or mail to just stop working. I finally deleted Pages and bought Microsoft even though it irked me having to do so. But the issue is still present in Safari so far. Seems less frequent though...

Okay, my latest update. Since my system was much MORE stable after the dirty reinstall, but not 100% stable, I decided to bite the bullet and wipe everything and start from a fresh Big Sur install, but this time just selectively install apps that I am REALLY using right now, and copy over all my documents, etc., rather than using Migration Assistant.

Thus far, having used my machine for around 8 hours since I did this, no freezes so far. I will report back once I've tried this for longer. I have read other people doing this and it worked for them. It's a huge pain although it's ameliorated if you use iCloud to sync photos and settings and keychain etc. Also helps that Chrome syncs all my browser settings so I didn't have to recreate all my bookmarks and passwords and so on.

Update on the problem.

I went for a "dirty" re-install of Big Sur. In preparation I had already removed all the likely suspects - Chrome, Keystone, 3rd Party apps. etc. None of these seemed to cure the problem. I then did a straight internet re-install of the Big Sur. 3 weeks later I have not had a crash nor freeze. I still get the fans kicking in and Console still is full of :

getattrlist failed for /Library/GPUBundles/AppleIntelHSWVA.bundle/Contents/MacOS/AppleIntelHSWVA: #2: No such file or directory

and

com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.mdworker.shared.0): Service exited due to SIGKILL

My update weeks later: clean reinstall of Big Sur has completely eliminated the freezing. I reinstalled nearly everything I was actively using including Chrome, all my developer tools, etc. One nice side effect of this is I've eliminated hundreds of gigabytes of crap I was apparently never really using, accumulated over years of OS upgrades without doing a fresh reinstall. So I kind of recommend doing this even if you're not crashing! I copied ALL my documents but just going through and reinstalling apps and tools (including dev tools like Homebrew, etc) has worked thus far. One thing I did NOT reinstall was Docker for Mac. I really don't need Docker on my machine, I just installed kubectl via Homebrew to be able to manage remote pods.

I've just upgraded my 16", 2019 Mac Book Pro to 11.5.1 (20G80). After 3 hours working some applications started to freeze, only a reboot helped to fix it. The Problem has occurred since the upgrade from Catalina to Big Sur in all (patch) versions.

I have experienced a recent freezing when running Word in VM Fusion for an extended period (after about an hour), using latest version of VM fusion 12.1.0 and Big Sur 11.1

Me too. My mac book pro has been freezing many times. And even a black screen of death after the update.

Hi,

Same issue here. Macbook Pro 2017 and after installing Big Sur, keeps freezing. Is anyone going to do something about it?