MacBook Pro with macOS Sonoma crashes frequently and randomly.

There is an old joke about a guy who is proud of his new tailored suit, until a friend points out that one leg is riding high. The tailor says he needs to shift his weight to fix the problem which leads to a sleeve appearing off-balance, which the tailor insist now requires another shift of position. The joke goes on as long as you like, and ends with someone seeing the man walking down the street observing that he must have a really good tailor for making the suit fit so well given the man’s obvious severe physical disability. 

The original Mac had unprotected memory. A really simple app programming error could result in it eating away at the RAM, chomping through the display memory and the audio card until the computer would give that cheary sound that meant it was hosed and then it would reboot.

That was a long time ago. The adoption of the UNIX kernel protects the OS from rogue applications.

When multiple users apply the standard Apple OS upgrade and experience the same extreme behavior, this is Apple‘s fault. Users should not have to do anything to fix it, except install the patch Apple provides to remedy the mistake. Apple does extensive pre-release testing these days - we no longer have had to wait for word of safe versions. It's their hardware - the M1 is not "obsolete". It's their software. Somehow, this time Apple messed up making sure it plays well together.

I spoke to Apple support today. They know the issues. All of the suggestions above are just delayed smoke and mirrors. It is an OS issue and none of this will get fixed until they update Sonoma. It is their usual game.

I used the apple support chat (for the first time) and my pleasant contact was not aware of the problem. Only suggestions were safe mode, reinstall Sonoma or wipe the machine and install Ventura. They promised to report the problem. I referenced this discussion and the larger Reddit thread.

it wouldn’t hurt to have everyone here do the same.

Having written code gives me a good deal of sympathy for Apple here, especially with evidence that this problem is widely variable. Dillon's Mac dives 5-7 times a day. Mine goes under water about every 5 days. If it was affecting everyone's Mac like Dillon's, it would be top of Apple's radar.

All the more reason for everyone in this audience to report it through Apple's official channel, if you've not already done so. I've always wished chats like this qualified as "official", but realize it is difficult to keep up with them.

Re: RMFenwick

Yes that is one of the patterns. Some say turning off the screen saver works. I haven't had luck with that. Thought the issue was hooking my monitor to CalDigit's Hub - but I just had another crash. As far as I can tell this is an OSX issue and will only be solved by apple. I'm going to try Apple Care for a fourth time and see if they've escalated this issue yet. I'm kind of running out of ideas.

People are so naive giving Apple an upper hand in breaking things and getting away… oh boy I can’t believe how people are assuming Operating System (macOS) crashes can be caused by some application settings. On top of that, Apple doesn’t give me option to unsubscribe from this thread making sure I never comment on another threads in future. Apple’s version, if you comment on any of my threads, we will spam you with unnecessary responses.

Folks, being loyal doesn’t mean becoming blind. I am a full Apple house, an Operating System developer, trust me Apple have screwed up Sonoma stability. Crashes happen because something try to write into a protected memory, in this case it being the macOS itself. It’s possible they will fix it in 14.1 release, but never acknowledge.

can someone please tell me how do I unsubscribe from this thread?

mhompesch1 wrote:

Thanks much for the clarification, I hope it's helpful for many users that are on this thread.

Few words of caution: What works for you might not work for everyone who is experiencing this issue.

While this may qualify as a 'fix', it wouldn't qualify as a solution with a view on the underlying root cause (which most certainly is a buggy MacOS / Sonoma).

In no world (except for the Windows universe maybe...) should an operating system be crashing because it can't handle operational load or exceptions created by an app or a piece of hardware. By doing what you have done, you've obviously been able to eliminate factors that contributed to the load that Sonoma can't handle....but....you / no one should have to do that...and wouldn't have to, if Apple would not have released an OS that obviously has a quality problem.

Why is it that many of us (likely the vast majority of users) don't have any problems with Sonoma crashing?

I suppose it could be some obscure hardware configuration that only affects a tiny portion of the qualified Macs.

Complaining here won't identify that fact to Apple. You should be contacting Apple Support and hopefully they will collect enough information to isolate that obscure issue so that it can be fixed.

You should understand that Sonoma for x64 environment - Intel and AMD, is different from Sonoma for ARM. Apple had been writing MacOS for x86/x64 since 2006, or at least a few years earlier, as the first Macs with Intel arrived in 2006, so has a long experience in that, > 14 years. First was Tiger, now it is Sonoma. The OS is written specifically for a given chip.

Apple M chips - Arm based system on a chip (SoC) came in 2020. Testing must've been few years before, and writing MacOS for it. The first M1 chip Mac came with Big Sur. And, you were the experiments. Some users were happy, some were not. MacOS for ARM went on from Big Sur, Monterey, Ventura to Sonoma. For most, who come here, it appears to be a troublesome OS. You'd have to keep on testing and give feedback, if of course, you want the MacOS for ARM to be good on your M chip Macs.

My original comment was removed. Apple is going to remove all mention of b / e / t / a / s, even if it’s a detriment to them by not letting me say that the next B word stopped the crashing for me, however, accessing external drives, particularly subfolders, still very slow. If you have a critical system that is constantly crashing, it’s probably worth trying out the B word.

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

//--------

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

//----------------------

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

Yeah I am having this problem as well on my M1 14 inch 2021 running Sonoma 14.2.1 and the version immediately prior. It happens most frequently when watching video, whether in Apple TV (the image hangs to the extent where I can't even back out to view the Finder and get to Force Quit, so I have to restart), or just plain old Quicktime player.

I sometimes use an external monitor and one weird feature of the crashes is that sometimes the main monitor (my laptop's) remains frozen but I can continue working on the second monitor which is operating as a mirror. However it's a little slow if I do that, so I often end up having to restart anyway. Very buggy system.

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.

I have turned off Time Machine, which has lessened the issue of other external disks unmounting (though not completely). There have been fewer crashes. This of course is a stupid solution Apple!

HOWEVER, Mail is now acting odd; it's open but I cannot do a thing, I have to restart it to get it to function. This may be connected to when it's used in split window view, not sure yet.

Also, the search function no longer works, I believe there may be a fix for these but quite frankly I am fed up of doctoring this not fit-for-purpose OS.

I too have been having this issue with Sonoma every day since begining of October 2023 - my mbp is a 2018 Macbook Pro 15" with Intel chips and touchbar.

I put it to sleep the previous night, and in the morning, when I wake it, it restarts, prompts for password (twice now, with Sonoma), and then pretty much restarts with always same error message that starts with "AMDFrameBufferVIB::SetPowerState"...and then the error log with last started kext "BHIDKeyBoard"..etc.

For the benefit of everyone else here, let me say that I have tried everything, to no use. Hardware checked OK at Apple store. Then I erased disk fully, and reinstalled Sonoma (at the time it was 14.1), removed all peripharals (just couple of ext monitors), and did nothing else. My laptop still crashed with same errors and same repro patterns. This led me to conclude that it is related to OS only. Since then, I restored my laptop back from timemachine, updated to 14.2.1 and of course still same issue every day.

I have to say, during the days of 14.0 and 14.1 and even 14.2, in addition to the daily crash-on-wake problem, the OS would also hang randomly through the day causing me to restart. However, with 14.2.1, this problem is gone. So, once I get past the every morning crash-on-wake problem, (then rearrange ALL the windows), I am good to go till I manually put it to sleep again.

I am hoping 14.3 will be the one to make Jobs proud again...but lets see.