macbook air m1 kernel panic

Hello ixilim.

Thanks for reaching out to Apple Support Communities. We understand that your MacBook Air has been experiencing unexpected restarts. We know how important it is to have a working MacBook Air, and will be glad to assist.

Please see the following resource for the best steps to take: If your Mac restarted because of a problem

Cheers.

Our M1 Air has a spontaneous restart problem. We do use Fast User Switching and there are known bugs with that under Big Sur (esp spotlight indexing/search fails). This past week it restarted once, the week before 5 times. No warning, just restarts. Usually nothing in the log. No problems on hardware test, EtreCheck doesn't find anything, I've cleared out launch daemons etc. We need to use Citrix and M1 support is new there, wouldn't surprise me if it were a contributor.

Very frustrating. We have an Apple support case open but I have very limited time to keep pursuing it. The only thing I haven't done so far is a complete wipe and reinstall only data from backup (for one thing, not clear how one reinstalls Mail files! -- much of modern Mac data is in database).

I check here periodically for hints of a fix or a product recall.

jfaughnan:

Could you provide a reference for «there are known bugs with that[Fast User Switching] under Big Sur (esp spotlight indexing/search fails)»?

I always have used Fast User Switching on all my machines, even my M1 Mac mini, and I have yet to experience any issues.

jfaughnan:

As I’m sure you know, it is highly unusual to have «Usually nothing in the log».

Of course, it does depend upon which log you are looking in.

It is certainly possible to have something that looks like «a spontaneous restart» that is not a Kernel Panic. Such will not create a Kernel Panic log, but will create another type of log.

Welcome, ixilim, to Apple Support Communities!

I though you received some good support already, even though they did not address your Kernel Panic report, directly.

From just the very beginning of the Kernel Panic report, we get some good information:

«panic(cpu 2 caller 0xfffffe0012918088): Sleep transition timed out after 35 seconds while entering darkwake on way to sleep. Suspected bundle: com.apple.iokit.IOUSBHostFamily.»

First, we know that something “got in the way” of the normal, expected timing for this «sleep transition».

Maybe it would have happened, more or less normally, if it was given more time. Maybe not.

Regardless, it took longer than would ever be expected under normal circumstances.

The «Suspected bundle» is just that: «Suspected». It may or may not be an actual cause. (Further investigation, further into the Kernel Panic log can help us obtain a better understanding of more specifics, but is not easy to “sift through”: Kernel Panics are not at all “user friendly”. I, at least, don’t see anything deeper in the log that gives me any further clues, I admit.)

The given «Suspected bundle» has to do with USB devices (which can include internal USB devices, that may include your MacBook Air’s keyboard and trackpad).

Even though you «have no external device connected», at the time, the driver software that was downloaded, installed, and run, from any previous time you installed any «external device» will still be there (possibly running) on your system, and may be causing troubles, and may continue to do so, until such is removed or replaced.

What «external device[s]» had you «connected» previously?

ixilim wrote:

Sometimes I connect a seagate external hard drive to perform time machine backups, but reboots happen even when it is not connected.

Just because such is not connected does not guarantee that the driver is not loaded.

However. That is not to say that that is what is causing the problem.

On the other hand, Time Machine doesn’t “like” not finding its drive available.

That being said, I had attached my Time Machine backup, from an Intel Mac mini, to my M1 Mac mini, when first setting up, but has since remained disconnected.

However, I made sure I removed the, now nonexistent, drive from Time Machine.

I have had no problems with either Mac mini, both running Big Sur, spontaneously restarting or rebooting.

Admittedly, your statement that the spontaneous restarting or rebooting occurs even while running in Safe Mode is troubling.

How have you been booting your M1 MacBook Air into Safe Mode (the M1 Macs require a different procedure than the Intel Macs)? Can you be certain you were running in Safe Mode?

(I have tried a few times to boot my Intel Mac mini into Safe Mode, but I don’t think it was ever successfully.)

If you are certain you were in Safe Mode when you had similar behavior, then another recommendation is to create a new user, and log into that new user.

Be aware that as you run third-party software, or add-on third-party hardware, under that new user, you will be “corrupting” that user account the same as your current account.

Oh. Additionally: while you admitted to plugging in an external USB drive, have you ever plugged in any USB Hubs?

A Mac guru clued me in. I was shocked. Turns out Big Sur does not show post-restart Panic report to non-admin users. None of my users run as admin. (It's not unusual for a hard restart Panic to leave nothing in logs, all the clues are in the post-restart report that's not shown to non-admin users. See: Big Sur does not display a Panic report to non-admin users

Here's a write-up of the Fast User Switching spotlight bug: https://tech.kateva.org/2021/02/big-sur-bug-mail-search-corespotlightd.html.

I turned off FUS and removed every trace of Google software and the M1 Air has not crashed since. Eventually I'll turn FUS back on.

faughnan:

While the system will «not display a Panic report to non-admin users», the «Panic report» is still logged, and available to «admin users» (which includes those that know the login of any «admin user»).

(Back in the day, I, too, used to not run as an administrative user. I would only log in as an administrative user as necessary.

Then, macOS adopted a technique used in DEC VMS that allows for only temporary admin status, as necessary.

With that, I run using such temporary admin credentials. These are what macOS calls “Administrator” accounts, vs. purely “Standard User” accounts.

However, even “Standard User” accounts can invoke temporary Admin privileges, on an as needed basis, provided the user knows the login Username/Password for any “Administrator” account.)