MBP kernel panic when connecting to external monitor

Removing third-party kernel extensions is a good first step.

I can see that the only third-party extension that you had loaded at the time of the panic was com.usboverdrive.driver.hid, which could be the culprit.

For an exhaustive list of third-party kernel extensions, launch Terminal and enter:

kextstat | grep -v com.apple

The extensions will be located in /Library/Extensions.

If that doesn't work, I'd suggest trying the steps listed in Apple's relevant Support article.

If your Mac restarts and a message appears - Apple Support

Cheers.

You could run Rember if you want to check your memory. If Rember does not detect anything that does not prove you are good memory, just that Rember did not create a situation that caused the memory to fail. Which could be because the memory is not failing. Only a failure report is useful information.

http://www.kelleycomputing.net/rember

.

Quit as many apps and background tasks as you can (such as menu bar items) so more RAM is available for testing. Booting into Safe mode http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1564 can also free up more RAM for testing, by not loading any 3rd party additions you may have installed.

.

Set Loops: [X] Maximum

and run overnight

You could run the Hardware diagnostics

https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/use-apple-diagnostics-mh35727/mac

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

They are not as good as Apple's in house diagnostics, but they are availble

Random thoughts.

• You have found a situation in Mojave that does make a mistake?
• You are having memory issues, and a bit in a kernel lock is getting flipped making the code think the lock had already been unlocked.
• If a Thunderbolt 2 cable connection is being used, Thunderbolt is a bus interface, so maybe the Thunderbold connected device is putting strange signals on the bus
• If DisplayPort over USB is being used, then the USB bus has been known to cause issues if the device fails or the cable is faulty.
• HDMI is less likely to cause bus errors, but I will not rule it out.

Think about what you can change. Cables. Adapters, ports you plug into, a different monitor (as an experiment), using a different port to connect a monitor (again as an experiment). Assumes you have another monitor in the house, or can borrow one from a friend. I'm not suggesting spending any big money, but see if you can change something and observe the change (or no change) in behavior. Keep notes.

Please post one or more panic reports

Finder -> Go (menu) -> Go to folder -> /Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports

Command-Shift-Period will show invisible files. Look for files that end in the word .panic or .contents.panic and post them in an Additional Text box

Press Command-Shift-Period to hid the Finder invisible files again.

thread_invoke: preemption_level -1, possible cause: unlocking an unlocked mutex or spinlock

This kind of panic is generally caused by 3rd party kernel extensions. In this case attempting to unlock an internal kernel lock that is already unlocked. macOS does not generally make that kind of mistake.

I've had this app for many years without problem, but maybe the update to Mojave from El Capitan makes it problematic.

This is very likely. A new OS can bring many new changes, and kernel extensions interact with the OS at a very low level.

Btw, I have several other extensions -- in the library -- but they aren't active right? So I should only focus on the USB overdrive one?

Make sure you don't remove the other extensions. If these weren't listed by the aforementioned Terminal command, then they were pre-installed by Apple in macOS.

Best of luck!

I agree with Solid-State Me that the likely candidate is the USB Overdrive kernel extension. The unlocking of a already unlocked kernel lock is only something that is going to happen in the kernel address space, and generally macOS does not generate these errors, but 3rd party kernel extensions are often the cause of kernel panics.

Years (and years) ago I was a USB Overdrive kernel extension, and at the time it was great.

These days I use BetterTouchTool

https://folivora.ai

Which allows me to customize my mouse, trackpad, keyboard, toutchbar, and my new favorite feature, an extremely useful clipboard manager I can bind to any key, mouse, trackpad gesture. . Not free, but not expensive either, and it is the most useful utility I have on my Mac.