EtreCheck reports a kernel panic today. Also, I can't resintall macOS Monterey.

betaneptune wrote:

But I can't downgrade from 12.6.8 to 12? I have to erase the drive and restore from Time Machine?

Yes. If you really want to do that. However, the operating system is on cryptographically sealed, read-only snapshot. If reinstalling the operating system did fix anything, that would indicate that you have a serious hardware failure.

That'll take many hours! Even First Aid runs take about 3 hours, due to having to check about 2 dozen "snapshots."

It shouldn’t take that long. If it is due to the snapshots, then delete them. However, Disk First Aid on a modern Mac is a waste of time. It regularly reports errors. That doesn’t necessarily mean anything is broken.

Another reason to reinstall the OS was the FCLM (Final Cut Library Manager) app doesn't work right.

In what way? It would be best to explore that in more detail. The most likely explanation is that the app is simply buggy. Software quality these days is very poor.

So I wanted to see if a simple reinstall would fix it before upgrading to Ventura.

Anything you’ve said so far is irrelevant on this point. No matter what problems you’ve had, I can guarantee that Ventura will only make them worse.

Should I upgrade to Ventura and hope for no more kernel panics?

There is nothing in Ventura that will fix any kernel panics. Regardless of what is causing them, you will only have more.

Bring the Mac in to the local Apple Store for them to diagnose the hardware because of the one or more kernel panics?

Hardware failures are the most common cause of kernel panics. If you do have a problem, then obviously getting it fixed would be best. It’s still under warranty after all.

Erase the disk, reinstall macOS, do all the updates, then restore all my data from Time Machine? It'll likely take many, many hours! (I have two slow TM drives and Backblaze for offsite backing up.)

It shouldn’t take that long. You can always do a backup to a new drive or SSD. That being said, I don’t see any reason to assume that erasing and restoring from backup would help. Time Machine backs up everything and restores it. If there is some file system error causing these problems, a restore will restore those problems.

If you think you have some kind of corruption, an erase and reinstall would fix that. In many cases it can fix problems like corrupted databases, preferences files, cache files, etc. But this only happens if you don’t restore. Restore will restore the problems. If the restore really does take hours, those will be wasted hours. A proper wipe and rebuild will take days or weeks, but would be more effective.

I recommend more clearly identifying what specific problems you are having. They may be normal. This may be as good as it gets.

betaneptune wrote:

I tried to reinstall macOS Monterey. I get a screen that shows two volumes: Macintosh HD and Preboot. I click on the HD one, and it says, "The volume cannot be downgraded." Say what?

You do not mentioned what method was used to Reinstall Monterey

Use macOS Recovery on a Mac with Apple silicon - Apple Support (CA)

It would suggest running while in Recovery Mode >> Repair Disk << before attempting the Reinstallation

Worst case scenario >> Erase your Mac and reset it to factory settings - Apple Support (CA)

betaneptune wrote:

The Apple web page about how to use safe mode suggest reinstalling macOS as the only possible fix.

See Use safe mode on your Mac - Apple Support

where it says, "If nothing else works, reinstall macOS. " I thought it gets a new copy over the internet. In fact, something I read recently says you need a stable internet connection. Maybe that's a verification of purchase thing?

I know. I've got to remove any references to that document in EtreCheck. Many of the things it recommends are extremely bad ideas. It is useful for interactions on how to run Safe Mode. Safe Mode itself is useful for getting the internet working again and confirming that some 3rd party system modification really is causing problems.

But this statement, "update macOS and your apps before using safe mode. This is more likely than any other step to resolve the kind of software issue that safe mode can help identify" is categorically false.

FCLM was recommended by a power user in the Final Cut group. It works for him. I don't know why it doesn't work for me. I did get some use out of it. Deleted some render files en masse, when it worked better. Also got a list of exports, including those to YouTube. Now I know how to do that in FCP itself!

I don't know anything about FCLM, Final Cut, or anything else related. I'm simply stating that if you are having problem with any particular app, you should always start by clearly stating what said problems are so that people understand what you are talking about. Maybe they will need to point you to other people who have more knowledge about that app. Maybe it's normal. Maybe not. But reinstalling either the operating system or the app is always a total waste of time.

The only exception to this rule is when you don't restore from backup. Sometimes, that will fix problems if said problems are due to a very specific kind of data corruption. It's a catch-22, but that's the way it is. Regardless, skipping that first step of identifying and describing the actual problem is a bad ideal 100% of the time.

Ventura will make the problems worse? How? Is this the new normal, that upgrades make things worse?

Yes - Ventura will make the problems worse. How? By repeatedly changing the behaviour of the operating system in ways that the original developers of 3rd party apps, and even much of Apple's own software, never expected. This is the new normal. It's a non-stop barrage of new bugs, social media security paranoia, and updates. People are addicted to software updates. They don't care about the pain the updates bring. They don't care that the updates never seem to actually fix any bugs. They just need that next fix.

There are a couple of solutions. Wait until Apple released the next update and then camp out on the previous version. It will still get most security updates, and will still contain lots and lots of bugs, but it will be stable and you'll be better able to manage it to do what it was you bought the computer to do. The other option is to buy a new computer, install each update, and continually test all of your 3rd party apps and work. That way, you always have a functional computer and a back. If you are a professional and need your Mac for your livelihood, I strongly recommend the 2nd option.

Yeah, maybe I'll take it in to the local Apple Store. But I don't want to have my disk erased and have to load everything back on.

As I said, that is a virtually guaranteed fix. If it still has the problem after that, the problem is almost certainly hardware and Apple can fix that. But once all of your 3rd party apps and corrupt data is removed, if the computer runs fine, then the Apple genius has done their job. The problem's gone. Make sure you don't turn around and reinstall it.

...to be continued...

betaneptune wrote:

Final Cut Library Manager gives the wrong sizes, at least on external disks. Then the Delete Render Files, and optimized and proxy and flow files can't be done. If I open one of the libraries listed with the wrong size, it fixes the size and I can proceed. But the whole point is that you can delete render files en masse! 

I don't know anything about that app. I recommend you contact the developer. Perhaps your external drives have some sort of unusual or unexpected formatting.

The last update was v 3.97 and was copyrighted 2014. So in 9 years, I'm the only one who has this problem?

I don't think that date is accurate. I downloaded the app and looked at it. It is properly constructed. It is a universal binary. It was last updated a couple of months ago. I see an awful lot of junk apps. Final Cut Library Manager looks pretty good.

The only thing that is risky about it is the fact that it is an add-on to someone else's product. But looking at the developer's web site, they seem to be doing a good job testing with Final Cut Pro and proactively informing users about compatibility issues (or a lack thereof). This developer looks like they would be very helpful and responsive.

Time Machine (I mean the System Preferences TM) often goes to the bottom of the windows stack. Even when it's been on top for a while, it will suddenly vanish. And it will occasionally get a messed up display.

Sometimes I get solid red over the top of Mail or the tabs on Finder.

I don't know about those problems. At least the solid red sounds like GPU video RAM corruption. That's not uncommon with apps that make very heavy use of the GPU.

I think the Time Machine problem is related to your video settings. It looks like you have high contrast set or something. Maybe change that back to the default and/or review your display calibration. For all Apple's talk about accessibility, they do tend to favour tiny grey text on a grey background. I think that's what you're seeing, or not seeing.

Ventura will make things worse? Then what's the point of upgrades? I should stay on Monterey as long as possible?

All good questions. If your current setup is working well for you, why would you want to change it? If you know of specific bugs or annoyances and know positively that an upgrade will fix those, then it might be worth the upgrade. But never assume that any upgrade is going to magically fix anything. Except for really major problems, I see no evidence that Apple makes any effort to fix bugs at all. They are continually adding features to iOS and then porting those the Mac. But the only way that most bugs ever get fixed is when Apple does major rewrites like they did with System Settings in Ventura as part of their ongoing effort to turn macOS into iOS.

If you are interested in keeping up-to-date, and you need your computer for your livelihood, I strongly recommend having more than one and doing the regular testing procedure I described above.

Boy I hate that 5000 character limit!

The entire Data Volume is backed up.

Is your Documents folder not in your home?

Reinstalling the OS won’t likely solve anything as it cannot be modified. The only way it might have some utility is if there is some disk corruption.

Can you post one of the panic logs? You may find one in /Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports. The name will start with Kernel and has a .panic extension. Open it, select all and copy. Paste into an Additional Text box.

Last time that didn't go well (when the hard drive portion of the Fusion Drive up and died). My Movies and Music folder trees were incomplete and in the wrong places. And it was slow. Oh, there were problems with the disks I was trying to restore to! 'Twas quite a nightmare!

That was typical with the older iMacs and Fusion Drives. The newer computers are much less problematic. On these computers, problems are more likely caused by 3rd party system modifications and software bugs from Apple and 3rd party developers.

Most of my stuff is on external drives now, though. With my Fusion drive hard drive death, all was on it. 'Twas a 3 TB drive. So things should go a lot faster this time. Still a lot of time, I think!

External drives are great for backups and archives, but they are not really safe and reliable. With newer computers, they are one of the top causes for kernel panics. When we say kernel panics are often caused by "hardware failures", sometimes we mean external hardware.

A new drive means more money. Esp. for an SSD. I've already spent a ton on this thing and its peripherals.

Did you ever hear the story about the oil changes on a BMW? Apple makes premium products that carry a premium price tag. You didn't take this route to save money.

Oh, the First Aid runs went much faster than I expected. I guess that's the advantage of Recovery mode and the M1 chip thing. But I recall First Aid running on my SSD external drive a while back took a long time on each snapshot -- with the M1! Well, a rare happy surprise yesterday!

It's the internal SSD. The new ones are just crazy fast. Funny how the world works. All of the latest Macs have absurdly fast internal SSDs. They are at least twice as fast as the fastest external SSDs on the market. And you would never be able to find those SSDs. They are ten times as fast an any external SSD that you can actually buy.

And yet, with these new computers, it seems that everyone is just obsessed with using and booting from external drives. They balk at the price tag that Apple charges for the larger SSDs and opt for the smallest one that Apple sells. They figure it is better to spend more money for the fastest possible configuration, then spend a little extra to make it run 10x slower and less reliably, than to spend just a little bit more and just get a bigger internal SSD.

But I recently found out that if the SSD goes bad, you have a brick!

That is true, but it rarely happens.

Days or weeks? What is a proper wipe and rebuild?

Erase the hard drive and reinstall the operating system. Don't restore from backup. Ideally, enable all iCloud settings on the old computer first. If you do this, you can setup a new environment in only a few minutes.

But the more data that you don't have in iCloud, the more trouble it will be to manually copy it over to the new computer. You'll need to manually reinstall any 3rd party apps. You may need to manually configure them too. That means you'll have to keep the original installers handy. Most people don't do that. This is where the days or weeks timeframe kicks in.

Anyway, I did get all the errors cleaned up on my startup drive. Doing the run on the container did the trick!

But did that fix anything? I'm sure the errors will be back. Apple's new APFS is prone to such things. Apple suffers from these constant Apple bugs just like everyone else.

So hopefully I'm in good shape except for that stupid FCLM program. If it works for me like it works for their other customers, no one would ever buy it.

But you have to buy most software because you can use it and realize that it doesn't work very well. If you buy from recommendations made in the past, those recommendation may not be valid with current versions of the app, running on current versions of macOS with current Mac hardware. Change changes things.

A restore will cause problems with the OS?

A restore won't cause any problems, but it won't fix them. I suppose if all of your problems were caused by one specific database cache file, and that specific file just happens to be a true volatile cache file and not a persistence file (meaning it is intended to be automatically rebuilt, if needed), than a restore might help. But that is extraordinarily unlikely. In theory, a Safe Mode restart will clean out those kinds of volatile cache files. A Safe Mode restart is also unlikely to fix anything, but it is a lot faster and less risky than a wipe and restore.

I've read in this thread that backup now doesn't back up the OS, only the data. Had that when I was trying to recover from my hard drive dying on my old Mac. 

I believe there was a statement above that a Time Machine backup only backed user files. That is not accurate. Time Machine backs up everything. I'm not entirely sure if you can restore the entire system with just Time Machine anymore. With all the new volumes, write-protection, and cryptographic sealants, Apple really wants people to install the operating system by itself and then restore data.

But that's still a moot point. The operating system isn't ever going to get corrupt unless there is a physical failure of the hard drive or logic board (or due to severe user vandalism). If that happens, a restore isn't going to help.

It may be that, if you are experiencing some kind of corruption, that corruption might be at the "system" level. It isn't part of the operating system, but it also isn't a user file. These kinds of files aren't write-protected or sealed. They can, and do, get corrupted. But in most cases, the corruption is caused by some 3rd party system modification, hacking tool, or software piracy tool. So if you do a full restore, you will be restoring that.

To be honest, from everything that you've said, I don't see any problem of any kind. So you had dozens of Firefox tabs open. That overloaded the CPU, blanked out part of your display, turned some parts red, and eventually panicked. Maybe use Safari instead. Maybe use bookmarks or reading list instead of keeping open tabs. For problems with your well-maintained 3rd party app, you've got a developer sitting there waiting for your support e-mail.

betaneptune wrote:

betaneptune: External hardware causes kernel panics? I've never heard of this with PCs, VAXes running OpenVMS, Stratus, Unix. Why?

Then buy a new Vax or Stratus and run Final Cut Pro on that.

Just kidding. 😄 Everyone knows external hard drives for Vaxes are unreliable because it's a huge consumer market and most of those cheapo external drives are only designed and tested for HP-UX.

etresoft: Did you ever hear the story about the oil changes on a BMW?

betaneptune: No.

The story is that they cost $10,000 and require removal of the engine. It's an urban myth, or maybe it is a Porsche or some other expensive car. The moral of the story is that the owners don't mind because they bought the car to spend money and to be seen spending money.

betaneptune: Well, if the Apple website would tell you that the M1 SSDs run at about 2500 MB / sec and that external SSDs might give you 800 MB / sec., then maybe more people would fork up the extra $400 to get from 1 TB to 2 TB. Only 3 times as fast, BTW.

The SSD on modern Macs runs at about 5,000 MB/sec and the best an external SATA SSD can do is 500 MB/sec. With a little research, you can find SSDs that go faster, sometimes much faster. But those are expensive and hard to find.

betaneptune: And "rarely" is still a bit scary.

OK then. It never happens. Not even once. Is that better? Geesh...

Esp. since you can't boot from an external drive.

Of course you can. It's just a hassle. The procedure has been made difficult in an effort to dissuade those people who didn't do that research above.

You need to get a whole new logic board, or maybe even a new computer. Unless you get the $60/yr revolving warranty. That should cover a logic board, I would think. But still a big time sink and a lot of effort! Well, a lot to do, at the very least.

It's not 1983 anyone. If your internal SSD fails, you are absolutely, positively going to need a new logic board.

You didn't mention the time to recover from backup. It's been a long time since I've seen a good 16 page argument about the relative merits of bootable backups for instant recovery from hard drive failure. And you know it's always instantaneous. Ask any hard drive cloning fan and they'll agree - instant.

Regarding rebuilding from a clean disk:

Install the OS.

Manually re-install 3rd party apps.

Restore your data from the backup without restoring the apps from the backup.

Is that right?

No. It's wrong. In this 3 page thread, you happened to say in an aside, "(Turns out the FCLM problem is due to two particular external drives. The kernel panic(s)? IDK.)" [parentheses in original].

If you've made the determination that there is a problem with your external drives, then that's the problem. Disconnect those drives. You don't need to erase the internal or install another operating system. Chances are, it will fix the kernel panics too.

betaneptune wrote:

I booted by holding the power button until I got Options or something. Ended up with the recovery screen. Four options, one of them was Reinstall Monterey. I'll have to go through it again if you need more specific and accurate detail.

I suppose you can install from a boot thumb drive (flash drive?), but wouldn't it just give the same problem?

 About Startup Security Utility and Must Enable from Recovery Mode the ability to boot from External Drive Before Attempting 

The reference you gave does not suggest running "Repair Disk".

It ( I ) would suggest running while in Recovery Mode >> Repair Disk << before attempting the Reinstallation

• Disk Utility: Repair or erase your disk. In the Recovery app, select Disk Utility, then click Continue. To return to the Recovery app, choose Disk Utility > Quit Disk Utility. See Erase and reinstall macOS and Repair your internal storage device.

I got a message saying I can't downgrade, so I don't see what "Repair disk" has to do with it. I know from doing it before that it will take hours.

I do recall reading something about erasing the disk and restoring from Time Machine. My Time Machine disks are very slow. They are hard drives on USB 3.2, 5 Gbits/sec. I'm leaning toward just upgrading to Ventura and hoping FCLM actually reads all the FCP libraries and I don't get any more kernel panics and the odd things I mentioned already. I want to make sure I'm not missing an easier, quicker option.

Time Machine Backup Ceased making a Full Backup of Both the Operating System and User Data somewhere around macOS 11 Big Sur

It ONLY backs up your user account folder ( home folder ) and nothing more

They are still directories in Unix, but in macOS they are folders. I’m not sure how pedantry will solve your problem, though.

The panic log you posted isn't familiar or useful. I was looking for a Page Fault or other memory related clues as I think from your descriptions it may be a RAM problem. Apple Diagnostics might find an error in the RAM. Otherwise it is useful at finding the cause of a kernel panic.

When you started in Options, did you start from shutdown or just restart. Try it from shutdown if you didn’t.

How often does it panic?

Have seen one, or is it just from the report.

It doesn't back up the operating system, just user data, settings and apps.