MacBook Pro crashes at night when entering sleep mode - kernel panics - sleepimage corrupt?

Did it panic while allowing it to sleep in Safe Mode? The purpose of starting up in Safe Mode is to see if it still panics in Safe Mode. If the cause is from third party kernel extensions, Safe Mode disables them. If you don’t have panics while in Safe Mode, the panics are likely caused by the third-party kernel extensions.

DocOrtho wrote:

I haven't tried that yet. I've been able to fix it so far by recreating the sleep image. But I'll keep it in mind, thanks!

It won’t fix anything. It is meant to isolate the problem to either hardware or to third-party kernel extensions. If the latter, you can uninstall them or see if there is an update.

DocOrtho wrote:

I will try that and give a report in a few days!

After thinking about your problem, unless it corrupts the sleep image frequently, you wouldn’t know if it prevented the corruption or not.

EtreCheck can show if you have any kernel extensions installed. If you do, you can decide whether to uninstall or look for updates.

It sounds like your system is having Kernel Panics. Post several of the Kernel Panics here so we can examine them for possible clues. Kernel Panics are located in "/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports" with file names containing kernel and/or panic. If there are no such files in that folder, then check the "Retired" subfolder.

FYI, more than likely you have a hardware issue with this laptop. This exact model laptop has an extremely high rate of failure for its Logic Board. Plus hardware issues are most likely to show up when the system wakes up or powers on. You are just temporarily covering up the problem.....at some point this "fix" will fail and by then the computer may no longer be able to boot.

I hope you have good backups of your computer because you are probably going to need them very soon.

Forgot to mention you would need to use the "Additional Text" icon which looks like a piece of paper on the forum editing toolbar in order to post the Kernel Panics since the main forum editing window has a 5K character limit.

However, your laptop has been experiencing "GPU Restarts" which is a one of the common problems with this particular model laptop which indicates a hardware issue is the most likely cause of the problem, especially when combined with the problem occurring when waking up the laptop from sleep.

Personally I don't recommend spending any money on repairs to any Intel Mac, but especially not this specific model, for multiple reasons.....you have already encountered the main reason twice now......faulty Logic Boards. The money spent on repairs is better put towards a new laptop.

“Inactive“ means it was not loaded when Etrecheck ran. It does not mean that it is nonfunctional. Most background processes do not run continuously. They run “on demand“ and if they weren’t running at the time of the scan, they will be listed as inactive.