Exposé Causing Sierra to Crash and Logout

I found this thread as I was having this symptom on my 2012 Mac Mini running Sierra. It started yesterday after I installed a few apps to get data off of a Galaxy S4 that had a destroyed screen. After viewing the responses on this thread and hearing that all issues seemed to occur with external USB devices-the proverbial light bulb went off. In my experience, issues such as this are often caused by incompatible third party kexts (kernel extensions).

So I rebooted in Safe Mode (hold down shift at boot up), one of the functions of which is to not load third party kexts, and Mission Control worked just fine. I did a little research and only one of the apps I had installed (Samsung Sidesync) installed a kext at all. So I used kextunload in Terminal to unload the related Samsung supplied kext and it solved the problem until I used kextload to turn it back on. I uninstalled Samsung Sidesync entirely and the issue is gone.

If that solution works for you, I recommend you attempt to work with the third party developer to solve the issue. Whether they will be willing and or able to do so is another matter entirely.

Another option you can try is in this article: How to test an issue in another user account on your Mac. This will allow you to check to see if the issue is user specific or system wide.
Cheers!

@stvwlkr - I am experiencing the EXACT same thing you are. Exactly as you described.

It is frustrating to LOSE what you are in the middle of working on! Even though you have backed it up, it is still such a WASTE OF TIME to get everything back to where you were while you were so abruptly interrupted. It is disturbing because it happens randomly, making it difficult to pinpoint the cause. I hope they are able to get to the bottom of this and fix it soon because it is not just an inconvenience but totally derails productivity and headspace because of all the context switching your brain has to do (you go from being in the flow with your work to getting jarred out of it and then yanked into re-setting everything in order to continue on). Augh!

I so regret upgrading to macOS Sierra because of this impact on my workflow... what major pain in the ***.

@sterling r - I accidentally clicked on Helpful but didn't meant to. What you proposed above did not resolve the issue. But thanks anyway for the input. 🙂

@stvwlkr - P.S. By any chance are you using an external monitor as well? And if so, is it via DisplayLink? The reason I am asking is because I also noticed that after installing Sierra, my mouse pointer loses its smooth motion and skips when it is on my external monitor. And when I drag Finder windows from the main display to the external display, the windows black out and then slowly materialize into what hey should be. So I'm definitely experiencing graphic issues.

I came across the following: http://support.displaylink.com/knowledgebase/articles/949426-known-issues-with-d isplaylink-on-macos-10-12-sier

So I've uninstalled DisplayLink and am seeing if that will have any impact...

Hi @stvwlkr - I have an Asus USB monitor as well. Here is the latest: I uninstalled DisplayLink and then later re-installed the most current version via their website. So far, this has only corrected the mouse skipping and my mouse is back to smooth motion on the external monitor, for which I am happy.

However, the issue of the sudden logouts still occurs randomly when Exposé is used. Hopefully there will be a fix soon so that we can still use our external monitors without problems like this, which as I mentioned above is a pretty big deal considering how it impacts our workflow and productivity.

I have exactly the same problem. I use a Macbook Pro 15" from 2015. I have my iPad connected as a second monitor using the app "Duet", connected via USB. After 5-10 times I use Exposé with the keyboard or the trackpad shortcut, I get the session to crash, asking me to enter my password then it reopens all the apps that was opened. It seems the issue happens mostly when you try to drag and drop a window from a desktop to another.

It is very annoying because I can't use my iPad as a second monitor anymore.

Same issue. I use Air Display with an older mac, but clearly the same problem.

Hi,

I have a 15" Mac Book Pro with Retina display. Recently (not 100% sure exactly if after installing OS Sierra) the mac either goes back to log in window or basically shuts down all by itself randomly 5 times a day. When I turn it on back again, it does not show a warning pop or anything. I also use DisplayLink usb adapter to connect to a second monitor, but the problem now occurs even if i dont have connected a second screen. Sometimes I can trigger the bug by launching control mission.

Please fix this !

We've got an Update of macOS Sierra and it doesn't even fix this issue. What's going on Apple?