MacBook Pro with macOS Sonoma crashes frequently and randomly.

I installed 14.2 and there is some improvement, but still frequent crashes; now seem to be overnight. I also noticed some improvement by changing the screen saver from the OS Sonoma to the OS Ventura graphic. I'm not sure what this did, but it's a little better. But still a real operational problem. Plus Sonoma is much slower to load and run.

It just gets worse and worse!! Ok, all the hard drives disconnect and there are crashes but now a new one is Mail not responding !?!??!

Apple you bunch of dip sheeets try to make **** better not worse! Are we to now dread updates?

All, I too have been experiencing this. Started with Sonoma (14.0)..and always the ****** "AMDFrameBufferVIB:: SetPowerState timeout or panic". For sure always happened within 2 hours of going to sleep, and then randomly while under use.

I had hardware certified as perfect at Apple store, erased disk and did fresh install of 14.1 and then later 14.2 same issues. Then I installed 14.2.1 last night (right after it was released, and still same issue). My mbp is late 2018 15.6 with Intel/T2.

So, here is a copy of comments I put each time I send the error report to Apple.

Regards,

-Ravi

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Dear Apple Support,

This is vexing..ever since I upgraded to 14.0 I have been having this “AMDFrameBuffer timeout” issue. I can squarely point to the OS because, had my macbook checked at Apple store and they certified the hardware as fully functioning. Then I erased the disk and installed fresh copy of 14.1 (i.e no apps or data)…and it still kept crashing with same error. This is a Apple-certified macbook with erased disk and fresh install of GA 14.1.

Then you guys released 14.2…I upgraded thinking that it may fix the issue…no…same story.

Then last night 14.2.1…and I was really hopeful…same story again.

Guys..I know Apple is still leaps ahead of Windows….but PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE do not let that even be a reference…for God’s sake, you all are part of Apple created by none less than Steve Jobs…please act like it! Bring back the greatness of Apple!

Regards,

-Ravi

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Everyone on here is going down a futile rabbit hole. Sonoma just doesn’t work - particularly with M1. Only fix - wipe everything after backing up to iCloud and external HD and load Ventura which worked fine. Apple have lost the plot. Many of us are paying outside contractors to fix this when it’s Apple’s responsibility. Truly - it’s a disgrace. My suggested fix is the only way. THE ONLY WAY

I’m generally finding that Sonoma is to blame, but the issues are caused by things specific to a given user’s set up, such as various ways you can use an external drive , Finder settings, screen sharing, settings, and even storage and memory configurations, etc. For example: Electric Light Factory found there’s a major memory leak when you set the Finder to larger icon views. Something that people who are in visually impaired, or just like big icons, should be able to use perfectly fine. However, Apple seems to have very little quality control these days, and misses things like this.

Myself, I have been reporting to Apple. Example is the fact that I can’t go to the Applications folder on my Mac Mini, and my Mac Studio’s screen sharing agent and Dock crash a lot, so I switched over to remote management, but I noticed that the remote management agent was using 600% of my CPU today, while I wasn’t connected through another computer.

Any issue I’m having on every computer running Sonoma is accessing external drives, especially those with folders with medium to large numbers of files, deeply nested folders, have incredibly slow access times. As a test, I test, I disconnected a USB 3.1 8TB RAID from my Mac Studio, then plugged it into my 2008 MacBook (that only has USB 2.0), and all of the files and folders are much faster on that old thing. Raw trans speeds were slower, but when you take into account file in the Finder, lock up for several minutes, and copying and modifying files, and Sonoma freezes up often, overall the 2008 MacBook running 10.8 mountain lion (which wasn’t even officially supported on that computer) much better.

Jesus more upgrades more problems... now after waking from sleep (and the usual issue of hard drives disconnecting and Time Machine no longer working) the mail app will not respond, so I have to restart it; aren't updates meant to fix stuff?

That would explain a lot of the why I don’t see any issues and what I have been asking for on many similar threads. I can’t file bug reports if I don’t know how to make it crash.

I have no need to make icons larger as I don’t use them. I open everything through Spotlight or list view sorted by Date Added.

I’ve never had a problem with Screen Sharing, though it is always viewing the M1 from MBP.

I don’t have any issues with the Applications folder, but if you mean via screen sharing, I don’t have a need to do that so would not have noticed.

I’ve always assumed SMB access is slow. I don’t know what fast would look like.

There is another post where the OP has very good documentation on slow external drive access, and is worse for APFS HDD. I don’t remember if HFS+ is affected at all.

Finder has always had a problem with large number of files and deeply nested folders. It really isn’t a suitable file browser for those situations; never has been. If it is worse in Sonoma, maybe they tried to fix that.

2020 M1 MacBook Air

Hundreds (probably thousands) experiencing same problems. Since Sonoma update perpetual crashes. Totally useless and unstable. After two weeks of this I had to pay someone $300 to clear Sonoma out and reload Ventura - since when no problems. Class action?

All I want is for Apple to acknowledge that Sonoma didn't work out and fit it asap with a new OS that works like Ventura did. Unfortunately a class action will only enrich the lawyers and probably not fix the problem.

Yes you’re right of course. But they have to take responsibility for releasing a corrupted and/or faulty update. As we’ve read Apple don’t acknowledge this at all - AppleCare deny it and try and blame apps. Genius bars (if they are available - in my location not) can’t fix it. So, in my case, I had to pay an outside contractor to do it even though my MacBook Air still under AppleCare. Apple are never going to admit a downgrade to a previous update is the fix! Therein lies the responsibility. Futile though it may be.

Honestly, you could've saved yourself $300. All you had to do was watch a simple 15 minutes YouTube Tutorial that explains how to reinstall macOS Ventura. I also cleared out Sonoma and reinstalled Ventura. There has been no errors for a while until it started crashing again. Eventually I went back to Sonoma hoping their next update fixes the problem. That's all you can do now. Just wait till the next version of the software fixes the errors.

Are you saying that your computer crashes with Ventura as well? What Mac model/processor/memory does it have?

My Mac Studio/M2 Max/32GB has recently started to mis-behave a couple of weeks after I wiped and reloaded it with Ventura. I've had to forcibly power it off and back on a couple of times.

I only bought it at the end of October 2023. My previous experience with Intel Macs has been exemplary but I'm beginning to regret buying this one.

I can relate to Ferhan01. I have an Intel late 2018 15.6" mbp with 32GB RAM and 6-core i7 chip, and it actually started crashing on the last version of Ventura...and each version of Sonoma made it worse..although now, 14.2.1 has gotten better but still having same crash behaviour as the last version of Ventura.

The consistent crash has always been in this scenario: Regardless of external monitors, or wiped hd with fresh install of OS, if I put it to sleep manually, or set the "display to switch off after X minutes", it would just go dead in few hours, and I had to power it back up, upon which it would always show me a crash trouble report that said "AMDFrameBufferVIB::SetPowerState" panic etc.

Currently, I am on Sonoma 14.2.1 and I am able to work around it by setting "switch off display" to never. So the mbp never sleeps, and so never crashes. This is working out quite well. Although, occasionally, every other night or so, I pity my mbp, and manually put it to sleep, expecting fully to have a crash next day, and indeed it does crash as expected with the same error log, but I live with it.

My daughter who works for Apple (cyber security group, nothing to do with OS) is home for the holidays, and she keeps arguing vehemently for Apple, makes for good holiday fun. I am excitedly waiting for 14.3 (apparently in January?) and hoping that will fix the crash on wake problem.

I'm having this problem with my iMac, not my MacBook. It lasted a few days last time, then seemed to correct itself, now today, it's doing it again. So annoying and there isn't a fix for it. Enough to make me want to rethink my choice of computers with my next purchase. Anyone found a fix out there yet? I agree with the thought it's likely a Sonoma problem because I never had it until the Sonoma update was done. I can print from Calendar on anything but lists, and that's what I NEED. Come on, Apple, get your p__p in a grove!

Things got better on my 2019 MacAir with 14.2 and when I switched the screen saver to the Ventura one. I consciously did NOT load 14.2.1, but it auto loaded and now it's worse. Need to figure out how to stop auto updates from apple.

Mail also now often locks up and I did to quit and restart.

Argh.