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decipher panic report

My MB Air (mid-2011) with High Sierra has been having kernel panic and shutting down.

I went to the Apple store in Beijing - they ran a full hardware check and everything was OK, so my drive was erased and they put on a new High Sierra OSX (10.13.6)

The panic stayed, and happened just now.

The APPs I had open were: Firefox 85; MS Edge 88.0.705.56; Easyfind; iTunes 12.8.2.3; Textedit; Notepad; and System Preferences.

Just after rebooting I received a flash of a System message about "Energy Saver" in Sys Prefs. ???

Here's the Panic Report I received tonight-How do I troubleshoot from this:



MacBook Air

Posted on Feb 2, 2021 7:37 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Feb 2, 2021 8:09 AM

The panic report is not extremely helpful this time around.


You do NOT have any 3rd party kernel extensions (the most common case of kernel panics; so we cannot blame another software vendor).


The kernel backtrace says the code was in the graphics driver talking the integrated intel graphics. The integrated intel graphics are rather reliable, so it is not often any problems are attributed to them.


Sometimes the "kernel trap" is associated with 3rd party RAM, but the Macbook Air does not have replaceable RAM, and besides, it looks like you have original Apple provided RAM. The Apple provided RAM also tends to be reliable.


I think you are on High Sierra (based on the version in the panic report; and supported by this post being in the High Sierra forum). I do not know of any serious issues with High Sierra related to the intel graphics.


Basically the panic report does not have any smoking guns that point the finger at any specific component in your Mac.


If you are getting these panics on a regular basis, then it is possible you have an internal motherboard failure.


This is the "Chicken Soup" recommendation, as in "It Couldn't Hurt"


You should also try an SMC reset and an NVRAM reset

Reset the System Management Controller (SMC) on your Mac - Apple Support

How to reset NVRAM on your Mac - Apple Support


Boot into Safe mode, as that will clear the kernel caches, just in case there is something wrong with some cached code:

https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/start-up-your-mac-in-safe-mode-mh21245/mac


Run the Hardware Diagnostics

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202731

https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/diagnose-problems-mh35727/mac

____         ________
Boot holding Option-D to get the More Extensive (updated) Diagnostics from Apple via the Internet.
____         _
Boot holding D key to get the built-in diagnostics which may be out-of-date.

You could try re-installing High Sierra over top of the current install, just in case a kernel file got mangled (don't know how, but this is the "Chicken Soup" approach). You SHOULD have a good backup before taking this step. While re-installing the current version over top of itself should not damage anything, it is also a procedure that should anything go wrong could result in loosing your data. So make a backup if you decide to go down this route.


Finally, there is taking it to Apple so they can run more extensive hardware diagnostics.


I'm sorry I could not give you a more definitive answer.

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3 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Feb 2, 2021 8:09 AM in response to silentelegance

The panic report is not extremely helpful this time around.


You do NOT have any 3rd party kernel extensions (the most common case of kernel panics; so we cannot blame another software vendor).


The kernel backtrace says the code was in the graphics driver talking the integrated intel graphics. The integrated intel graphics are rather reliable, so it is not often any problems are attributed to them.


Sometimes the "kernel trap" is associated with 3rd party RAM, but the Macbook Air does not have replaceable RAM, and besides, it looks like you have original Apple provided RAM. The Apple provided RAM also tends to be reliable.


I think you are on High Sierra (based on the version in the panic report; and supported by this post being in the High Sierra forum). I do not know of any serious issues with High Sierra related to the intel graphics.


Basically the panic report does not have any smoking guns that point the finger at any specific component in your Mac.


If you are getting these panics on a regular basis, then it is possible you have an internal motherboard failure.


This is the "Chicken Soup" recommendation, as in "It Couldn't Hurt"


You should also try an SMC reset and an NVRAM reset

Reset the System Management Controller (SMC) on your Mac - Apple Support

How to reset NVRAM on your Mac - Apple Support


Boot into Safe mode, as that will clear the kernel caches, just in case there is something wrong with some cached code:

https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/start-up-your-mac-in-safe-mode-mh21245/mac


Run the Hardware Diagnostics

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202731

https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/diagnose-problems-mh35727/mac

____         ________
Boot holding Option-D to get the More Extensive (updated) Diagnostics from Apple via the Internet.
____         _
Boot holding D key to get the built-in diagnostics which may be out-of-date.

You could try re-installing High Sierra over top of the current install, just in case a kernel file got mangled (don't know how, but this is the "Chicken Soup" approach). You SHOULD have a good backup before taking this step. While re-installing the current version over top of itself should not damage anything, it is also a procedure that should anything go wrong could result in loosing your data. So make a backup if you decide to go down this route.


Finally, there is taking it to Apple so they can run more extensive hardware diagnostics.


I'm sorry I could not give you a more definitive answer.

Feb 4, 2021 1:30 AM in response to BobHarris

Bob - This solved my Kernel Panic issue. NVRAM reset took away some crazy setting that had entered from my System Preferences. Probably it was the "Put Hard disks to sleep" setting in the Energy Saver area, but who knows for certain? I'm not clear exactly what settings were reset and which were retained, but everything seems to be working now. Thanks!

decipher panic report

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