Lisa@OakFlats

Q: MacBook Air keeps shutting down by itself and gives a CPU Panic Report. Fixable or Warranty repair?

My MacBook Air keeps shutting down by itself, when it's asleep or on, even in active use? Some big long Panic report comes up and I have no idea what any of it means, what's wrong with it? It's been doing this 4 or 5 times a week for 2 months now. I've read similar questions here but don't understand the answers. It's almost always plugged in to power, my 2 year warranty is current until August 2016, 6 months ago the mother board was replaced and I was told it's like new again. So what's happening? Do I need a warranty repair again? I tried to copy & paste the report but I keep getting a message saying my question has invalid characters?

MacBook Air (13-inch, Early 2014)

Posted on May 15, 2016 8:39 AM

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Q: MacBook Air keeps shutting down by itself and gives a CPU Panic Report. Fixable or Warranty repair?

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  • by OGELTHORPE,

    OGELTHORPE OGELTHORPE May 15, 2016 10:59 AM in response to Lisa@OakFlats
    Level 9 (52,313 points)
    Mac OS X
    May 15, 2016 10:59 AM in response to Lisa@OakFlats

    Check to see if your MBA has had a kernel panic.  If so log and post it per these instructions:

     

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

     

    It may offer a clue to your problem.

     

    Ciao.

  • by Linc Davis,Helpful

    Linc Davis Linc Davis May 15, 2016 8:42 PM in response to Lisa@OakFlats
    Level 10 (207,963 points)
    Applications
    May 15, 2016 8:42 PM in response to Lisa@OakFlats

    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.

  • by Lisa@OakFlats,

    Lisa@OakFlats Lisa@OakFlats May 15, 2016 8:17 PM in response to Linc Davis
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Notebooks
    May 15, 2016 8:17 PM in response to Linc Davis

    Thanks so much for your help. I hope I've done this right - I have a massive headache already.   http://pastebin.com/j9WyAGsb

  • by Linc Davis,Helpful

    Linc Davis Linc Davis May 15, 2016 8:41 PM in response to Lisa@OakFlats
    Level 10 (207,963 points)
    Applications
    May 15, 2016 8:41 PM in response to Lisa@OakFlats

    The panic is caused by a kernel bug. To work around it, please turn off the firewall in the Security & Privacy preference pane.

  • by Lisa@OakFlats,

    Lisa@OakFlats Lisa@OakFlats May 15, 2016 8:41 PM in response to Linc Davis
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Notebooks
    May 15, 2016 8:41 PM in response to Linc Davis

    Do I keep the Firewall turned off all the time? Do I need the Firewall for protection? What can happen if it's off all the time?

  • by Linc Davis,Solvedanswer

    Linc Davis Linc Davis May 15, 2016 8:44 PM in response to Lisa@OakFlats
    Level 10 (207,963 points)
    Applications
    May 15, 2016 8:44 PM in response to Lisa@OakFlats

    The short answer is that you don't need the firewall. The long answer is below.

    This is a comment on why you might, or might not, want to use the built-in Application Firewall.

    The firewall blocks incoming network traffic, regardless of origin, on a per-application basis. By default it's off, and when turned on, it allows applications digitally signed by Apple, and only those applications, to listen on the network. It does not block outgoing traffic, nor can it distinguish between different sources of incoming traffic, nor does it filter traffic by content.

    No matter how it's configured, the firewall is not, as some imagine, a malware or privacy filter. If that's what you expect it to do, forget it. All it will do is bombard you with pointless alerts.

    Consider some scenarios in which you may expect the firewall to be useful.

    1. You enable file sharing, and you allow guest access to certain folders. That means you want people on your local network, but not outsiders, to be able to access those shared folders without having to enter a password. In the default configuration, the firewall will allow that to happen. The router prevents outsiders from accessing the shares, whether the application firewall is on or off. But if your computer is portable and you connect it to an untrusted network such as a public hotspot, the firewall will still allow access to anyone, which is not what you want. It does not protect you in this scenario.

    2. You unknowingly install a trojan that steals your data and uploads it to a remote server. The firewall, no matter how it's configured, will not block that outgoing traffic. It does nothing to protect you from that threat.

    3. A more likely scenario: The web browser or the router is compromised by an attacker. The attack redirects all web traffic to a bogus server. The firewall does not protect you from this threat.

    4. You're running a public web server. Your router forwards TCP connection requests on port 80 to your Mac, and the connections are accepted by the built-in web server, which is codesigned by Apple. The application firewall, still configured as above, allows this to happen. An attacker hacks into the system and tries to hijack port 80 and replace the built-in web server with one that he controls. The good news here is that the firewall does protect you; it blocks incoming connections to the malicious server and alerts you. But the bad news is that you've been rooted. The attacker who can do all this can just as easily turn off the firewall, in which case it doesn't protect you after all.

    5. You're running a Minecraft server on the local network. It listens on a high-numbered port. You, as administrator, have reconfigured the firewall to pass this traffic. An attacker is able to log in to a standard account on the server. He figures out how to crash Minecraft, or he just waits for you to quit it, and then he binds his own, malicious, Minecraft server to the same port. The firewall blocks his server, and because he's not an administrator, he can't do anything about it. In this scenario, the security is genuine.

    6. Here is a more realistic scenario in which you might have reason to enable the firewall. Your MacBook has sharing services enabled. You want those services to be available to others on a home or office network. When you're on those networks, the firewall should be off. When you move to an untrusted network, you can either turn off all the services, or enable the firewall with a non-default configuration to block them. Blocking is easier: one click instead of several.

  • by Lisa@OakFlats,

    Lisa@OakFlats Lisa@OakFlats May 15, 2016 8:52 PM in response to Linc Davis
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Notebooks
    May 15, 2016 8:52 PM in response to Linc Davis

    OK. I'm just a private home user, so I'll take your word for it that I don't need the Firewall majority of the time. Are there any times in particular that you recommend I turn it on?

  • by Linc Davis,

    Linc Davis Linc Davis May 15, 2016 9:02 PM in response to Lisa@OakFlats
    Level 10 (207,963 points)
    Applications
    May 15, 2016 9:02 PM in response to Lisa@OakFlats

    I believe I answered that question above.