Random Shutdown on Macbook Pro (15" mid 2014)

Well, after a few days of successful use of Sierra, my MBP 15" Late '13 started shutting off. So I'm confirming the issue is irrelevant to the macOS revision. I'm successfully running High Sierra now with the Thunderbolt driver disabled, as recommended by @outluch3.

I'm thinking the "fix" is just a side-effect of disabling the extension, which can stop working on any future OS update. I have no Thunderbolt peripherals and the normal current of the Thunderbolt controller is 0A reported by iStat Menus. When AppleThunderboltNHI.kext is removed, the current is stable at 0.28A, which might indicate some erroneous activity in the Thunderbolt driver. I noticed that the total system power consumption has also increased with the extension removal: it's about 9.5W when no significant activity is observed by Activity Monitor, CPU frequency is 800 MHz, GPU frequency is 750 MHz, and the screen brightness is minimal (1 dot). When the extension is enabled, the total power consumption is about 7.5W.

It means that the Thunderbolt workaround might be similar to what NoCrashMBP is doing - increasing the power consumption by about 20%. It might be an indication of a faulty power regulator in the affected MBP models.

Is it possible that apple fixed our problem in a background stealth big brother way? I have been running without nocrash_mbp for 2 days now with no crash. And fans seem to act normally now. Anybody has the same thing happening?

Couldn't this issue with MacBook Pro be the result of CPU throttling similar to what was recently revealed for iPhone? My MPB started shutting off at the battery cycle count above 500. Perhaps the CPU frequency got lowered when idling due to the battery wear, which cases a low-voltage shutoff.

Did anyone who experienced this issue change the laptop battery recently?

That is a very good point as the problem seems to show up a couple of years down the road. Again, my big question is WHY doesn’t APPLE looks into the issue, since it looks like we know the problem? Anyone from Apple reading those blogs?

Guys, I had EXACTLY the same problem. When connected to an external display AND an ethernet-to-thunderbolt adaptor, I never had any shutdown, but just working with my laptop I got random shutdowns. This was introduced in High Sierra tho. As I can't extract the responsible driver (it seems to be the culprit), I downloaded that little app called NoCrashMBP, it's a simple script that keeps CPU working. Definitely works. I didn't have even a single shutdown since I'm using it. Shame on Apple. This is the way they take care about professional people nowadays.

Same issue as described above. I'm on my 3rd genius bar visit after twice they claimed to have run diagnostics and resolved it. I've done the full battery of tests you can do on your own. They've stress tested it and ran their own diagnostics on it twice and clean reinstalled the OS on their own (after I did it on my own before bringing it in and it didnt resolve it) and nothing has resolved it. I'm not sure what to tell them so they don't keep running diagnostics and giving me false alarms. I get it's difficult to see and reproduce. Sometimes it will stay oj for hours but without fail it starts randomly shutting down all over again. Getting very frustrated with their service.

We’ve been there. The so called Geniuses are useless. Apple is just ignoring the issue. Nothing fixes it but this NoCrashMPB app that stop the random shutting down but kills your battery time. I am starting to believe that ALL MacBook Pro 15” 2014 are doing this. Anyone has any idea on what can be done for Apple to actually start looking into it and find a simple fix?

Yes, I also think so, I have been dealing with this stupid issue for 6 months now, calling, texting and going to the stupid genius bar and useless waste of time. It's as if they are ignoring this issue. We really need to do something about this.

Hi Everybody,

Me too I have the same issue with MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2014).

Bootcamp Windows 10 is working great, no issue.

(This alone, tells me it is not a hardware issue, but rather a MacOS software issue)

When I connect the Thunderbolt / Ethernet connector, it is working great, no issue.

(it does need to have an Ethernet connection, just the connector is enough)

The last release of High Sierra 10.13.3, does not solve it. Still the issue.

Here is a food for thought:

1 - When we do a clean install of El Capitan, and check the content of the file:

/System/Library/Extensions/IO80211Family.kext/Contents/PlugIns/AirPortBrcm4360.k ext/Contents/Info.plist

we have the lines :

<key>IONameMatch</key>

<array>

<string>pci14e4,43ba</string>

<string>pci14e4,43a3</string>

<string>pci14e4,43a0</string>

<string>pci14e4,4331</string>

<string>pci14e4,4353</string>

</array>

2 - When we check the content of the same file on High Sierra :

<key>IONameMatch</key>

<array>

<string>pci14e4,4331</string>

<string>pci14e4,4353</string>

</array>

3 - When we start on Bootcamp / Windows 10 and check the version of the Wifi Hardware we see

Device PCI\VEN_14E4&DEV_43A0&SUBSYS_0134106B&REV_03\80E600FFFF00000100

which is pci14e4,43A0

4 - One possible interpretation of this :

The MacOS Wifi driver on High Sierra, does not manage the hardware pci14e4,43a0

but only pci14e4,4331, pci14e4,4353

which could explain the crashes.

What do you think ?

Thanks guys.

Hi Dennis,

Interesting! And thanks for pointing out the differences.

I solve the problem by disabling the Thunderbolt Ethernet Driver, by following the procedures:

1) reboot with CMD+R pressed.

2) open Terminal

3) sudo csrutil disable

4) reboot in normal mode

5) sudo mv /System/Library/Extensions/AppleThunderboltNHI.kext

/System/Library/Extensions/AppleThunderboltNHI.kext.BAK

6) reboot with CMD+R pressed

7) csrutil enable

8) reboot and forget about problem

Now I could not use the Thunderbolt Ethernet (which is quite troublesome when I must connect to the Ethernet). My interpretation is that there are some problems with the Thunderbolt Ethernet Driver. When I do not connect the cable, the driver may check for something related to Ethernet and crashes the OS, while I'm connecting the Thunderbolt Ethernet, everything goes fine.

No matter I turn on or off the WiFi, it stays the same. So I think it may not related to the WiFi.

Hi Jonathan,

Fantastic, it is working, thank you for finding a way to get around this.

This way I do not have to keep the Thunderbolt / Ethernet adapter.

I have to admit, that I am glad I had this issue, this way I discovered we can install native Windows 10 on a MacBookPro, which is useful for web development when we need to test a website on Internet Explorer or Microsoft Edge

Best

Dennis

Exactly, this is why Apple should fix this issue, because if it becomes wide spread on social media that Windows 10 is more robust and works better than MacOS even on a MBP, it will not look good for Apple.

Hi Dennis, could you please humour some non technical MBP owner and let me know: this fix you have here does it de-activate Thunderbolt completely or just the Ethernet driver part? I.E. will I still be able to plug in some Thunderbolt drives on my MBP once I’ve applied the fix?

Your help is so very much appreciated.

Hi Cocomoko,

I just tested with Thunderbolt / VGA and Thunderbolt / Ethernet

When we disable /System/Library/Extensions/AppleThunderboltNHI.kext

- Thunderbolt / VGA is still working good,

- Thunderbolt / Ethernet is not working anymore.

I do not know for other types of Thunderbolt adapters.

The best is to test it with your Thunderbolt adapter.

Best

Dennis

I wall say otherwise, which is that when I disable the AppleThunderboltNHI.kext, my Apple Thunderbolt Cinema Display will not work. I have to reenable the file when I want to connect to my display. Fortunately, I never had shutdown issues when connect to the external display.