Q: MacBook Pro mid 2012 shuts itself down

These instructions must be carried out as an administrator. If you have only one user account, you are the administrator.

Launch the Console application in any of the following ways:

☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)

☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.

☞ Open LaunchPad and start typing the name.

In the Console window, select

          DIAGNOSTIC AND USAGE INFORMATION ▹ System Diagnostic Reports

(not Diagnostic and Usage Messages) from the log list on the left. If you don't see that list, select

          View ▹ Show Log List

from the menu bar.

A GPU restart report has a name that begins with "Kernel" and ends in ".gpuRestart".There is a disclosure triangle to the left of the list item. If the triangle is pointing to the right, click it so that it points down. You'll see a list of reports. A crash report has a name that begins with the name of the crashed process and ends in ".crash". A panic report has a name that begins with "Kernel" and ends in ".panic". A GPU restart report has a name that begins with "Kernel" and ends in ".gpuRestart". Select the most recent of each. The contents of the report will appear on the right. Use copy and paste to post the entire contents—the text, not a screenshot.

I know the report is long, maybe several hundred lines. Please post all of it anyway.

If you don't see any reports listed, but you know there was a crash or panic, you may have chosen Diagnostic and Usage Messages from the log list. Choose DIAGNOSTIC AND USAGE INFORMATION instead.

In the interest of privacy, I suggest that, before posting, you edit out the “Anonymous UUID,” a long string of letters, numbers, and dashes in the header of the report, if it’s present (it may not be.)

Please don’t post other kinds of diagnostic report—they're very long and rarely helpful.

These instructions must be carried out as an administrator. If you have only one user account, you are the administrator.

This procedure is a diagnostic test. It makes no changes to your data.

Please triple-click anywhere in the line below on this page to select it:

syslog -k Sender kernel -k Message CSeq 'n Cause: -' | tail | awk '/:/{$4=""; print}' | pbcopy

Copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C.

Launch the built-in Terminal application in any of the following ways:

☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)

☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.

☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Terminal in the icon grid.

Paste into the Terminal window by pressing the key combination command-V. I've tested these instructions only with the Safari web browser. If you use another browser, you may have to press the return key after pasting.

Wait for a new line ending in a dollar sign ($) to appear below what you entered.

The output of the command will be automatically copied to the Clipboard. If the command produced no output, the Clipboard will be empty. Paste into a reply to this message.

The Terminal window doesn't show the output. Please don't copy anything from there.

There may have been a kernel panic.  Look at these instructions and if there was one, post it:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201753

It may provide a clue.

Ciao.

Terminal  gave an output that no such file or directory.

Please post a screenshot that shows what you did. Be careful not to include any private information.

Start a reply to this message. Drag the image file into the editing window to upload it. You can also include text in the reply.