Hi all,
I've only recently encountered this issue on a MacBookPro8,3, running 10.10.1. I first discovered that the laptop had seemingly failed to go to sleep while I was using it unplugged for a short period (and had plugged it back in to top off the charge). The machine refused to wake from sleep, and I could feel that there was a lot of heat being vented by the (very active) fans.
After a forced power cycle, I had enough stability to notice the console messages, before I got the dreaded beeps of doom (and corresponding flash of the sleep light) and a frozen machine (kernel panic without the grey screen) and a subsequent forced reboot. The laptop had happily powered, passed POST, and was at the desktop (actually having restarted all my apps), so I was fairly sure it wasn't a memory issue, but wasn't about to rule out memory or logic board issues.
I then got stuck in a reboot cycle, where the machine kept rebooting, getting to the desktop, re-establishing connections, and reloading apps, before beeping, freezing, and force-rebooting.
Getting worried that the machine was headed for an early demise, I'd managed to load this discussion thread in Safari prior to one of the intermediate forced shut-downs, and wondered what might have been different to cause the issue.
In my case (may not be the same for everyone), the different thing that had happened to the machine over the last few days was connection to a weak Wi-Fi network (not one I control). Two iPads (different generations) sat next to the laptop showed one bar of strength, at best, or no connection whatsoever, but the laptop kept showing a full-strength connection. Normal internet and other network-related tasks seemed to work fine (most of the time), if slow at times. I had my doubts about the actual reliability of the internet connection, but didn't think it would influence the machine so badly (which had been rock-solid up to that point).
On the next reboot, I turned off the Wi-Fi as soon as I could, and the machine happily continued to start up, and I had every indication that my stability was back. I switched to an alternate internet connection (3G USB dongle) and have had zero issues since.
Of note, I have had the System Update process hung for a number of days (I sleep my system rather than shut it down), including moving the system across multiple Wi-Fi, fixed, and 3G dongle network connections. It has only been on the flaky Wi-Fi network that I had any system stability issues (and resultant crashes).
Where is this story headed?
- Firstly, it seems that there's a potential kernel issue with the networking or Wi-Fi stacks (leaning towards Wi-Fi), particularly with flaky connections (perhaps an issue at one of the lower layer connections) and the software update side of the system.
- While my experience may not be the same as yours, consider removing ALL network connections from your machine next time it forces a reboot, including physical links. Once the system is back up and stable (if possible), reintroduce network connections one at a time until the failures happen again. That will show up the connection that is failing or having the strange issues.
- Sit back and wait for Apple to patch.
Of course, you experiences may vary, but years of operating Apple products have taught me that sometimes there are many different and complex symptoms for the same relatively simple underlying issue.
