Restart due to a problem on Catalina

I ALWAYS asked for a panic report (which happen to get stored in the DiagnosticReports folder). And without a panic report it is difficult to analyze why your Mac is crashing.

The VPN is unlikely to be the cause of your panics (not impossible, but unlikely). My only comment about your VPN is that unless it is used to gain access to an employer's network, they generally are services that collect your networking information and sell it, unless you are paying for the VPN service, and they have a public policy that says they do not collect and do not sell your data.

If you cannot find a panic report, then please provide an EtreCheck report

https://etrecheck.com

You ONLY need the Free version, you DO NOT need to pay to generate a text report.

Post your EtreCheck report in an Additional Text box

The EtreCheck report will at least list any 3rd party kernel extensions you may have installed on your system, or if you are running some known 3rd party apps that have been known to trigger kernel panics. But it is not as good as actually seeing the kernel panic report.

Installed apps can cause crashes and kernel panics. Also hardware problems can cause them as well. It is not a matter of whether something is "allowed" or not, it is more a matter of if it conflicts with something in the MacOS or another installed item.

Download Etrecheck, grant full access, and post its output here using the "Additional text" button below. Others have suggested this already but I don't think you have done this. Etrecheck lists (anonymously) everything that is installed and that may provide a clue to your crashes or panics.

" ... unless you know of a App I am running ..." No one here knows what you have installed or are are running until you post the output of Etrecheck.

My employer mandates Catalina on all Macs and we have several thousand of them running Catalina and we don't see such crashes or panics. So either you have something incompatible installed, or there is a hardware issue. Etrecheck will help determine which it is.

The only time I have experienced a macOS panic, without a panic report, was when I had processes consuming excessive amounts of virtual memory (100’s of gigabytes).

you could keep Applications-> Utilities-> Activity Monitor-> View (menu) -> All Processes-> Memory (tab) running, and look for processes consuming lots of memory, or lots of the same process consuming lots of memory.

To see if a browser is consuming lots of memory, switch the View to Hierarchical

looking at the Activity Monitor display is something you have to do throughout the day, as it is going to be at its worst only just before the panic. Looking at it just after booting, or just once after launching, is unlikely to tell you much.

and that is assuming this is an excessive virtual memory consumption issue, which it may not be.

also having the EtreCheck output might help people with analysis. There is nothing personal in the report. You can search the forums for “EtreCheck” and find thousands of examples.

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.

Hello macfrombrampton,

We're glad you thought to ask Apple Support Communities about the issue you're having with your Mac restarting and displaying the alert that it restarted due to a problem. The steps in the following guide should help with this: If your Mac restarted because of a problem

Let us know how it goes.

Cheers.

Without a panic report (see BobHarris' instructions) no one can tell what your problem is. You have other stuff installed, WireShark, Bear, two versions of Firefox running at once, etc. but it's just speculation about what caused your crashes without the panic info.

macfrombrampton wrote:

I have run a hardware test and a drive check using Apples diagnostic and no faults where found. why would I install a third party software Etrecheck to get panic logs that Apple operating system does not contain in its own system logs? What is your employers name that mandates Catalina ?

Etrecheck would enable people reading the Discussions to try to find something installed that could be causing the panics.

You won't run Etrecheck. So no one can see what you have installed. So that remains an open question.

You said your hardware is fine (note that the Apple Hardware Test is fairly limited and might not identify something intermittent). So I guess your conclusion is that Catalina itself is to blame? So what is your question here? Apple's MacOS is now Big Sur and a new one is coming along soon. So if you don't like Catalina, feel free to provide Apple feedback but Apple is no longer changing it (aside from security updates), and if you need to get away from Catalina, you then have a choice between moving up to Big Sur or going back to Mojave (Apple has detailed instructions for how to do either of these).

Panics are often hardware related. How old is your Mac? Which model is it? Is it configured as it came new? Are you the only owner? Has the original memory or internal drive been changed, or has the machine been open ever for any repairs or other work with the hardware? This info is all relevant to the condition of the hardware. What external devices are attached? Hubs, docks, etc. can sometimes cause panics if faulty or incompatible with the MacOS, or if a driver is out of date. Are any external drives connected when the panics occur?

The U.S. government agency we work for requires Catalina (with all security updates) or higher, for IT Security reasons. I can't provide more detail than that. My location has ~ 3000 Macs, all on Catalina. I have seen very few reports of kernel panics from these users in our internal forums, but some were reported back when we were on Mojave. We are waiting to move to Big Sur but some internal engineering tools we use are incompatible with Big Sur so we are waiting for them to be updated or replaced. Our experience has been that Catalina is very stable. In fact our IT Department may elect to keep us on Catalina until the successor to Big Sur is released, Catalina has been so stable.

We have four Macs in our household running Catalina. Three are MacBook Pros obtained in 2019 or 2020, and one is a 2013 MacBook Air. None of the MacBook Pros have EVER had a panic, and the 2013 MacBook Air has never had one since its internal SSD was replaced and Catalina was installed. Kernel panics are not normally experienced in Catalina and when they do occur, they can usually be traced to incompatible software installed, faulty hardware, or incompatible hardware attached.

So far you have posted repeatedly with reports of kernel panics, and have also reported many problems with your clean re-installs of the OS. None of that sounds normal. You have a 2012 Mac, which Apple considers "obsolete," and the repeated panics sounds indicative of hardware failing. I suggest that that you find an Apple Authorized Service Provider and have them thoroughly test all your hardware (these service centers have access to in depth diagnostics that go far beyond the Apple Hardware Test). While they have your Mac, you can also have them do a proper clean install for you since you have been having trouble with that as well.

macfrombrampton wrote:

Previously before I reinstaled Catalina I was having problems with L2tp built in VPN. I tried racevpn a free VPN and when I connected Catalina freezed then restarted. I then tried reconnecting again and it connected but data was not passing through the VPN but through my network. This suggest a fault with catalina l2tp built in VPN as this occurred before. and a built in clinet should not freeze or restart the operating system.

Was this an erase/reformat new install, or did you simply reinstall Catalina over the previous installation? If it was a reinstall overlaid on top of what you previously had, or if it was an erase/format new install and then you migrated over your previous setup/files, either way you could have inherited the old problems you were having earlier.

macfrombrampton wrote:

I realize the process show 0.0 % but there is no reason for them to appear as I do not use Safari. Also I am bringing out strange oddities I cannot explain on this new install in attempt to get an possible answer.

Another strange thing I noticed is when I install an application from the App store it asks for my password for every item I download within a 10 minute period. My prior operating system would rarely ask me for my Apple ID password.

So far, nothing you have brought up (in this thread as well as your many other threads) seems "strange" or "odd." Except your kernel panics but since you won't reveal how you have configured your Mac, no one will likely be able to figure that out for you. In your other posts you have talked about modifying the system and it is quite possible that has caused the panics, or maybe it is faulty hardware or some device you have connected. Again, it's hard to tell without any information about what you have installed or what you have migrated over after your "clean install."

The password for App store purchases and installs is a setting that is configured in System Preferences, Apple ID, Media and Purchases. You have a choice of a variety of ways to require or not require a password. Prior operating systems might have had different defaults, or had a different setting specified. You seem to have installed the OS multiple times, multiple ways, and different installations may come up with different defaults, so the fact that your previous install behaved differently is not indicative of anything significant. Just go into System Preferences and adjust the setting if it isn't to your liking.

You also seem very focused on processes that are using 0.0% cpu. You might try restarting your Mac and NOT opening Safari to see if they have then gone away (once Safari is opened those processes may continue), but even if they are there, Safari is part of the OS and 0.0% has no impact. If you don't like it, send feedback to Apple. I doubt Apple will make it a priority if you do -- I mean 0.0% is 0.0%.

Your Airplay questions have been answered many times before. For example, https://discussions.apple.com/thread/252772806?answerId=255392183022&page=1

In previous posts you discussed using VPN, anti-virus, Bitdefender, Intego, and other software.

You also mentioned in other posts using a 2012 MacBook Pro. It is quite possible that the hardware is wearing out on a 2012 MacBook Pro. It might or might not be detected in the Apple Hardware Test, but AHT does not check everything not does it detect intermittent hardware errors well. A 2012 Mac is considered "obsolete" by Apple and past its expected life. (That said, I am still using Macs from 2008, 2010, and 2013 ...but the 2008 and 2013 ones have had to have internal drives replaced after the original ones failed.).

You can continue playing with your Safari processes that are using 0.0% of your cpu, if that is what you wish to do. They have nothing to do with your panics, crashes, etc.

To determine whether your hardware is failing, or if you have installed something that is causing panics, you should post the output from Etrecheck. As has been suggested at least half a dozen times. But you have never done this. Or continue posting about insignificant items like the Safari processes, but your significant item are the panics, which should be very rare or never under Catalina, yet you have them constantly. I think it is failing hardware (2012 Mac) or stuff you installed but I suspect none of us nor you will ever really know because you have taken no concrete steps to provide information that may shed light on the issue.

So you typed ifconfig and don't understand the output. What is the problem you are trying to solve? In the five pages of this thread, the only problem you have mentioned is kernel panics, and since you get them with a clean install, it is likely your 2012 hardware is failing. I suggested weeks ago that you take the hardware to a qualified service shop and have it checked. You may need a new Mac.

As for the cpu value exceeding 100%, that happens when there are multiple cores, 2 cores can reach a combined total of 200% and so forth. It has been that way for more than 10 years ...

Then it could be a virtual memory over commitment problem. The system will get very slow near the end, as it is spending so much time paging and swapping in attempt to give processes access to RAM.

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.