Kernel Panics

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Level 1

46 points

Kernel Panics

Bought my iMac Pro in early 2018. Constantly reminding me to update the OSX but failed to complete every time. Frequent freezes and crashes. Vending store said it was prolly legacy issues transferred from Time Machine - weren't very helpful.

Eventually with a new upgrade to Mojave, the iMac just stopped working, wouldn't reboot. ISS (Vendors) eventually acknowledged there was an issue and took the machine in to Mactivate (official Irish Mac repair agents). Their report said the motherboard required replacing which they supposedly carried out (Dec 2018). ISS refused to extend warranty and within weeks the problems recurred. Around this time I purchased a (thunderbolt) Drobo backup system which included 5 8TB drives. When these drives began to report failures I contacted Drobo and sent them frequent issue logs. 3 drives (all new) had to be replaced over a two month period. Drobo could find nothing wrong with their machine, but I found the iMac more stable when the Drobo was not attached.

Struggled all through 2019 with frequent crashes, but was still paying for the machine so couldn't afford to replace it.

Following the Covid shutdown, my iMac lay unattended for 6 months until I brought it home from my studio. It crashed more frequently than ever, often hourly - wouldn't reboot unless left unplugged for long periods. Also, crashed every night without fail and often when left running while afk. I brought the machine to CompuB (Dublin outlet for Apple). the examined it, reported no failures in their diagnostics but acknowledged it was crashing - prolly a software issue and recommended wiping the drive and reinstalling a new OS X. Did this brought it home and ...it crashed an hour later. CompuB said it could be a motherboard issue but without a warranty they couldn't replace it for less than €1500 and even then no guarantee of solving the issue.

Recently I updated Drobo software and got a message saying kernel extensions for Drobo & Wacom would soon be incompatible, which set me thinking is it the extensions are causing the issue. Either Wacom Driver (Vers. 6.3.41-2) or Drobo (Vers. 3.5.2). Should I try and install older drivers?

Please note - I am also using a Mac Mini with identical software which has never crashed.

Any Advice out there?

iMac Pro, macOS 11.1

Posted on Dec 23, 2020 4:50 AM

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TomWheel

Level 2

406 points

Dec 23, 2020 8:55 AM in response to Snap !

As an owner of an iMac Pro purchased in December 2017 when this computer first started shipping, I am sorry to hear of your problems. I have a few suggestions which may or may not help. (1) You did not mention what version of MacOS was reinstalled. I am assuming it was Big Sur (11.1). If not, I would boot your iMac Pro wile holding down the Command+R key and boot into recovery mode, then download and install 11.1. (2) If you do not wish to install Big Sur, at the least I would open disk utilities and run Repair on both of the volumes of your Macintosh HD. (3) Your problem might possibly be a bad ram stick in our iMac Pro. There are a number of free ram checking programs available and I would use one of these to check your ram. While it is not possible for he user to install ram on the iMac Pro, it is certainly a lot cheaper to replace a bad ram stick than a logic board. (4) You could determine if it is a software issue by wiping the Macintosh HD, installing the OS and no other software at all. Use the computer in this bare bones mode for a few hours to see if you still get a crash. If so, then it is certainly a hardware rather than a software issue. (4) Download and run the free program EtreCheck. You can examine the results and possibly find an issue that could be causing your problems or you could post the results of EtreCheck on forums and see if anyone is able to spot an issue. I wish you the best of luck in resolving this issue.

Tom

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Kernel Panics

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