My computer keeps shutting down, and the report says "panic." ??

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

Please launch the Console application in any one 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.

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 panic report has a name that begins with "Kernel" and ends in ".panic". Select the most recent one. The contents of the report will appear on the right. Use copy and paste to post the entire contents—the text, not a screenshot.

If you don't see any reports listed, but you know there was a 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.

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

When you post the report, you might see an error message on the web page: "You have included content in your post that is not permitted," or "The message contains invalid characters." That's a bug in the forum software. Please post the text on Pastebin, then post a link here to the page you created.

If you have an account on Pastebin, please don't select Private from the Paste Exposure menu on the page, because then no one but you will be able to see it.

You weren't looking in the right place. If the instructions are unclear, please specify what you don't understand.

Use these Apple instructions to log and post a kernel panic report:

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

Look for a header such as this: ***panic report***

Also download and post an Etrecheck report:

http://www.etresoft.com/etrecheck

Ciao.

One way is to load the Pastebin page in another window, then drag from the address bar of that window to an editing window on this page.

That kind of panic may be caused by a bug in OS X. I suggest that you upgrade to the current version ("El Capitan") in the App Store and see whether the panics stop.

Before upgrading, please check that all your most important third-party software is up to date and compatible with the current OS X. Very old versions of Microsoft and Adobe products, for example, may not be compatible. The developer's website is the best source for that information.

Incompatible third-party software causes almost all problems with OS X upgrades.

Finally, back up all data, and be sure you know how to restore if you don't like the results of the upgrade.

If you have a spare storage device with enough capacity, you can copy the startup volume to it in Disk Utility, then start up from it and upgrade. Then, if you don't like the results, all you have to do is change the setting in the Startup Disk preference pane and restart.