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Despite passing hardware tests my wife's MacBook Air has had two abrupt restarts in 24 hours. No peripherals attached, occurred during routine Safari use.
Should I return it as defective or is anyone else seeing this?
One potential confounder -- she needs to use Citrix Workstation and that's installed on her Air. It wasn't in use at the times of the restart.
MacBook Air
A few days ago we named our M1 Air "Crashy". As noted above after reinstalling Big Sur Crashy went from restarting every 3-4 hours to restarting every 2-3 days. Since we were nearing the end of our two week return window we installed Big Sur 11.2 the moment it showed on 2/2 AM. We told Crashy that if he did one more restart prior the end of our two week return window he was out the door (we confirmed deadline was midnight PT 2/5)
Crashy has not restarted since. So, for better or worse, he's ours now. We are going to keep the name Crashy however.
I got a hint from Apple tech support that there were firmware/macOS version problems from some of the factory installs. I've seen these kinds of crashes on my Intel Air when I downgraded Mojave to get around a screensaver bug (that was fixed the day after I downgraded) -- they resolved on the Intel machine when I went back the latest Mojave release. I think Crashy had the wrong firmware for the factory shipped macOS Big Sur version.
A few days ago we named our M1 Air "Crashy". As noted above after reinstalling Big Sur Crashy went from restarting every 3-4 hours to restarting every 2-3 days. Since we were nearing the end of our two week return window we installed Big Sur 11.2 the moment it showed on 2/2 AM. We told Crashy that if he did one more restart prior the end of our two week return window he was out the door (we confirmed deadline was midnight PT 2/5)
Crashy has not restarted since. So, for better or worse, he's ours now. We are going to keep the name Crashy however.
I got a hint from Apple tech support that there were firmware/macOS version problems from some of the factory installs. I've seen these kinds of crashes on my Intel Air when I downgraded Mojave to get around a screensaver bug (that was fixed the day after I downgraded) -- they resolved on the Intel machine when I went back the latest Mojave release. I think Crashy had the wrong firmware for the factory shipped macOS Big Sur version.
I reinstalled Big Sur (remarkably easy, took 1.5hours total) and created a fresh admin account and we have not been able to crash the Air for two full days. I'm not yet going to call this a fix, but if we go two more days I'll start to wonder if there was a factory failure to update the firmware (since Mojave or perhaps earlier MacOS updates often update firmware) -- I've seen crashes with OS/Firmware mismatches.
For anyone having M1Air crashes I would recommend:
If it crashes again I'll just return at this point. Will update post with result.
I'm not the only one to have stability issues with the MacBook Air: https://macexpertguide.com/m1-macbook-air-and-macbook-pro-issues-and-how-to-fix-them/
I'll open a support ticket with Apple in case I need to replace it.
Chat support advised remove login items and safe boot. Today anther restart while my wife had Safari open on a news site, no click or other interaction.
At least it's crashing often enough to track!
I just uninstalled Citrix workspace technology preview (she needs it for work). If it crashes tomorrow I'll try creating a new user account for her to test in and I'll re-run hardware diagnostics. If it crashes after that I'll try Chat Support again but mostly likely return the MacBook and try again in 4-6 months (maybe buy an Intel MacBook Pro.)
The machine went from 1/29 to 3/1 before it had another spontaneous reboot. So 3 days of use basically. The spontaneous restart was in the non-admin migrated account, note the fresh user account. So now my wife is going to try just using the fresh user account. If we get a spontaneous reboot in that account I'll return the device.
I should add there's one last troubleshooting step I could take. That would be a full erase and reinstall, not just the Big Sur reinstall. I've heard from tech support that there have been issues with how the OS was installed. The problem is I'm running into the deadline for returning the machine (2/5) after which I'd be on warrantee support. So we will test with the fresh user account until then and one more restart will trigger a return.
Feb 27: crashing more frequently lately. Maybe every day or two. Still passes hardware test. Crash report went to Apple, I don't see clues there beyond panic.
Reviewing https://www.macworld.com/article/2047747/take-control-of-startup-and-login-items.html I did remove several old plists from login items. Removed, for now, both Google and Microsoft's updaters from launchdaemon. Still have Citrix unfortunately, my wife needs it for now.
Down to the final step tonight. Reinstalling Big Sur, then I'll create a fresh admin user account for my wife to test in. If the machine restarts again it's going back.
Write up here: https://tech.kateva.org/2021/04/the-panicky-m1-macbook-air-known-as.html.
Disabling FUS and removing all traces of Chrome have stopped crashes for now.
No more panics or crashes or spontaneous restarts more than 3 weeks after disabling fast user switching and removing all traces of Chrome/Google software.
M1 MacBook Air - two abrupt restarts in 24 hours
