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

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? So I can't reinstall macOS if I've done macOS updates? And what about the Preboot volume? What is that? It said 0 KB available. Doesn't sound good!


And about the kernel panic. The machine did freeze strangely. Started with Firefox, I think. I had dozens of tabs open! I suppose that doesn't help things. Never ever got red in the memory pressure graph. The beach ball came on and first spun only over FF, but then spun over everything. The ball often froze and stuttered as it was "trying" to spin. I had seen this before and thought it was from Final Cut Pro 10.6.8. So I downgraded to 10.6.6. Things seemed to stabilize until today.


I was going to reinstall macOS Monterey anyway, as I've had other strange things happen from time to time: Rarely the tabs or header of Finder or the main Mail window would turn red! Often the Time Machine panel suddenly hides itself under everything else. Sometimes it shows strange things. So I thought it's time. But I can't downgrade from 12.6.8 to 12? I have to erase the drive and restore from Time Machine? That'll take many hours! Even First Aid runs take about 3 hours, due to having to check about 2 dozen "snapshots."


Another reason to reinstall the OS was the FCLM (Final Cut Library Manager) app doesn't work right. So I wanted to see if a simple reinstall would fix it before upgrading to Ventura. But given all this, what to do? Should I upgrade to Ventura and hope for no more kernel panics? Bring the Mac in to the local Apple Store for them to diagnose the hardware because of the one or more kernel panics? 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.)


The machine is barely a year old!


EtreCheck report attached.


macOS 12.6.8 (Monterey)

24" M1 4-port 2021 iMac


TIA!

iMac (M1, 2021)

Posted on Sep 9, 2023 3:09 PM

Reply
37 replies

Sep 10, 2023 2:23 AM in response to betaneptune

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)


Sep 10, 2023 2:55 AM in response to P. Phillips

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?


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


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.

Sep 10, 2023 3:03 AM in response to betaneptune

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





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

Sep 10, 2023 8:33 AM in response to Barney-15E

Barney-15E wrote:

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

I started after doing a shutdown.



How often does it panic?
Have seen one, or is it just from the report.

Not very. Was doing it more when I had Final Cut Pro 10.6.8 installed. But it did it again yesterday. Sorry, I'm not sure.


Oh, I definitely saw it go down, as I already described. I think it started while I was working in Firefox. I think I was shutting it down because either response to typing was slow, or maybe I was nervous about memory pressure being so high (still never read! I have never seen it red on this Mac).

Sep 10, 2023 8:39 AM in response to P. Phillips

What do you mean, it only backs up the home folder? What good is it then? Most of my stuff is in the Documents folder and all the folders within it. Also, I can recover from those deeper folders. So it must be backing them up, too. But my data aren't being backed up? What?


It is not at all clear what you're saying here. So if things are as you say, and I erase the disk, install macOS, I've lost all my data except the few files in my home directory? I can see it not backing up the OS. But not backing up my data?

Sep 10, 2023 8:49 AM in response to betaneptune

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.

Sep 10, 2023 8:52 AM in response to P. Phillips

Got a bunch of allocation errors in some of the snapshots. More coming. One problem is I can't make screenshots in Recovery mode, I don't think.


One thing curious


warning: disabling overallocation repairs by default; use -o to override


So can I run the same fsck command, adding the -o? Maybe that will fix everything and I can avoid what appears to be a major headache with erasing the disk and setting everything up from scratch again. And see my other post from late this morning. Only my home folder? I see deeper folders when I enter Time Machine. What are you talking about? I can see skipping the OS, but I see all of my data and can recover files when I need to. Please clarify. Going back to recovery mode. Oh, the container disk doesn't show up in Recovery mode, even though it says to use it.




Sep 10, 2023 12:28 PM in response to Barney-15E

Well, I ran "First Aid" on everything working from in to out, down to up, like it says somewhere in one of the Apple webpages.


So I ran it on Data and it gave me this:


asdf

zxcv

So I ran it on the Container. It seemed to check several "disks" and I got this:

asdf

zxcv

asdf



zxcv

asfd



zxcv

asdf



zxcv


Just to be sure, I ran First Aid again on Data and it came up clean.


Barney-15E wrote:



The entire Data Volume is backed up.

Is your Documents folder not in your home?

OK. It wasn't clear from P. Phillips' post. He said the OS and data are not backed up. Just the home folder. But isn't the home folder part of the data? I guess the "Both" he put in there meant that it doesn't back up both, but does back up one of them. I would have said it no longer backs up the OS, but still backs up the Data.


Yes, the Documents folder is in my home. You see, I "grew up on" OpenVMS. In OpenVMS we call them directories, not folders. Directories in a given directory are called subdirectories. The directory and all the subdirectories in it (and their subdirectories, etc.) are called a directory tree. In fact, there even is a utility called DELTREE. I just can't get used to a folder being everything in it and all the subfolders under it, i.e., the complete folder tree! Where in OpenVMS we call it a directory tree. Which even makes sense in Unix, where the top folder is called root!


So I got confused.



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.

Weird. The Apple doc says to try it.

(See Use safe mode on your Mac - Apple Support.)

But it won't let me anyway.


asf



zxc


So, if I have to erase the disk to reinstall Monterey and then do all the updates and data restore and "God" knows what else, and now that the disk is clean, I think I'll just upgrade to Ventura soon.


Sep 10, 2023 12:33 PM in response to Barney-15E

Barney-15E wrote:


"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."


Here's the panic log. First, from EtreCheck:


{"files_to_attach":["\/Library\/Logs\/DiagnosticReports\/panic-base-2023-09-09-162338.000.panic"],"component_id":"1027414","log_path":"\/Library\/Logs\/DiagnosticReports\/panic-base-2023-09-09-162338.000.panic","panic_string":"SOCD report detected: (iBoot panic)"}


Or in code format:


{"files_to_attach":["\/Library\/Logs\/DiagnosticReports\/panic-base-2023-09-09-162338.000.panic"],"component_id":"1027414","log_path":"\/Library\/Logs\/DiagnosticReports\/panic-base-2023-09-09-162338.000.panic","panic_string":"SOCD report detected: (iBoot panic)"}



Here's the actual panic report:


panic-base-2023-09-09-162338.000.panic




Sep 10, 2023 1:44 PM in response to betaneptune

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.

Sep 10, 2023 2:07 PM in response to Barney-15E

You, in effect, asked why I got confused about folders. I answered, pedantry or otherwise. If someone says Data isn't backed up, but a folder is, what am I to think? So I asked for clarification. If they're essentially the same, why say it isn't backed up, and then only a few words later say it is, but under the guise of being called a folder? And how else could I have explained it? If I just said I got confused, that's incomplete and I would sound like an idiot.


Now, I'd like to be 100% sure if I am to erase my internal drive and depend on Time Machine backups. Last time I used a Time Machine backup to do a restore, it screwed up the Music and Movies folder (trees). I managed to recover, but it took some time and effort! Hopefully it's more robust now. (The hard drive in my previous Mac died, so I was forced to use Time Machine.)


Pedantry? One needs to be clear and precise when discussions like this arise. I just have trouble thinking a folder is actually a lot of folders.


Page faults are normal. They happen all the time. It means that the memory management system has to map a needed page into a process's working set. If the page is in the swap file, it needs to be read in to RAM, which is then called a "hard fault." So a soft fault is fetching (allocating to a process) a page already in RAM. (Is working set a strictly OpenVMS term? Well, it means the pages in RAM assigned to a process.)


After checking some documentation about mac memory (old documentation!), I found that they use the term page fault to mean what in VMS is called a hard page fault. Apparently, macOS doesn't call fetching a page that's already in memory, for a process that needs it. In OpenVMS that's called a soft fault.


You must mean a different kind of memory fault. I'm guessing you meant an error, some checksum didn't come out right, e.g.

Sep 10, 2023 2:46 PM in response to betaneptune

You, in effect, asked why I got confused about folders.

I didn't ask about your historical affinity for "directories" over "folders." You were misinformed about what is backed up. However, it was suggested that the home folder is backed up and you asked

What do you mean, it only backs up the home folder? What good is it then? Most of my stuff is in the Documents folder and all the folders within it.

I was wondering if you were doing something bizarre and had created a Documents folders somewhere else.

Now, I'd like to be 100% sure if I am to erase my internal drive and depend on Time Machine backups. Last time I used a Time Machine backup to do a restore, it screwed up the Music and Movies folder (trees). I managed to recover, but it took some time and effort! Hopefully it's more robust now. (The hard drive in my previous Mac died, so I was forced to use Time Machine.)

I've never had an issue with Time Machine messing up anything so I don't know what you should expect.

Pedantry? One needs to be clear and precise when discussions like this arise. I just have trouble thinking a folder is actually a lot of folders.

Page faults are normal. They happen all the time. It means that the memory management system has to map a needed page into a process's working set. If the page is in the swap file, it needs to be read in to RAM, which is then called a "hard fault." So a soft fault is fetching (allocating to a process) a page already in RAM. (Is working set a strictly OpenVMS term? Well, it means the pages in RAM assigned to a process.)

After checking some documentation about mac memory (old documentation!), I found that they use the term page fault to mean what in VMS is called a hard page fault. Apparently, macOS doesn't call fetching a page that's already in memory, for a process that needs it. In OpenVMS that's called a soft fault.

You must mean a different kind of memory fault. I'm guessing you meant an error, some checksum didn't come out right, e.g.

When I say "Page Fault" I mean the type of kernel panic reported (type 14, Page Fault). A panic log rarely contains any direct evidence. Without an obvious cause (like a loaded third-party kernel extension) you can only make generalities such as, Type 14 kernel panic (Page Fault) may indicate a memory problem, not necessarily RAM, but you can actually check the RAM. Most other hardware-related panics will not show anything in Apple Diagnostics.

Once again, all of the extra fluff isn't useful.

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

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