Random Shutdown on Macbook Pro (15" mid 2014)

Hi all, thank you for this thread, I was thinking that I am the only one with this issue...

MBP mid-2014, after updating to Sierra first issues with the screen, right now on High Sierra random shutdowns all the time... Interesting like in other cases, using external display does not cause the shutdowns. First problems appeared only unplugged later - also during charging. Exactly the same symptoms as can be found on outluch website.

I follow outluch tip and hoping for the best. I m in Sweden right now, doing my thesis project, in the store they said it will take them 3 weeks to check what is happening so I cannot afford it.

I will keep you updated.

And yes, would love to join a petition to solve this problem by Apple.

Hi Piotr, in our experience with two MPB 2014 don’t bother with taking it to the store or so called genius, they will totally ignore the issue, waste your time and at worst tell you to buy a new motherboard. The NoCrashMBP app is cheap ($10) and totally works. But it takes a bit more power so it is better if you are plugged in. I am not sure why APPLE is completely ignoring this issue. I guess that is what happens when you get so big.

I guess many of the people here (like me) affected by the MBP design flaw didn't really try to draw the attention of the company. We just found a workaround for the hardware issue by disabling a mandatory Thunderbolt driver, which causes a higher power consumption due to a logic error, which prevents the power system from going idle. Alternatively, we put some load on the system by connecting an external device or running a useless app in background. These days Apple support is pretty busy with the massive replacements of the iPhone battery by the people who ****** off by that sneaky CPU throttling. We could put even greater stress on Apple by bringing our affected MBPs to every Apple Store nearby and refusing to replace the logic board until they admit their fault and provide a free replacement. Of course, it's quite a waste of time, but such an exercise can be combined with a regular mall shopping once a month. At least the issue should get a high profile due to an increased number of claims.

I guess that the thousands of people who already paid for a new logicboard also contributies to Apple not adressing this problem. Its quite the scandal. I think some sort of petition/group would work better than individual action

Yeah, I got an email within a couple minutes of posting that it was being removed because it was an “unconstructive rant or complaint”. Not sure if they’re just watching for certain terms or if was manually taken down, but I’m concerned regardless.

You've identified the issue correctly, as far as my experience can tell you. I tried running the "yes > /dev/null &" script, but wasn't happy about how it maxed the CPU.

I found this cheap fix. https://realmacmods.com/product/macbook-pro-nocrash-utility/

For $10 it runs in the background keeping things running. Battery life is somewhat affected, but not terribly.

The root of this is a software bug that some years of MBP's don't like.

I have the exact same problem with my MacBook Pro Retina 15 mid-2014. No crash log guys at the apple store were a great help most useless group of people i have seen this problem seems to be an on going problem since the 2011 macbook pro every year great work apple think its about time to contact the accc see what they have to say

I had the exact same issue.

I'm running NoCrashMBP. So far so good. Is it still working for everyone else? I hope we get an official fix for this.

Is this solution better Home | Random Shutdown on Macbook Pro or should I just stay with NoCrashMBP?

I am running NoCrashMBP and it’s working well. Highly recommended! By the way, my MBP shut down 4 times while I was trying to buy NoCrashMBP. I plugged in a spare monitor via Thunderbolt and the laptop stayed running long enough to purchase, download and install. I added NoCrashMBP to the startup menu (as suggested), restarted and it’s like a new laptop again, hooray

so I had the same problem and want to add my mustard.

At first, in november, I found the nocrashmbp fix but was annoyed by the CPU load and consequently bad battery life. I also used the turbo-boost switcher because I thought this was somehow triggered by cpu load and frequency/multiplier switching and maybe would be a way to fix it from triggering so hard, but no luck.

I was pretty annoyed by the fact that this problem would not occur on windows nor linux. I ran (older) versions of OSX from an external drive and got less crashes but they appeared again. With a new battery there was the same issues but I noticed that crashes mainly occurred on/right after high cpu loads (more often then on low loads). So I could reproduce the crashes by opening chrome(maybe 4-5 random tabs/no videos) and firefox(facebook). As soon as I scrolled 2-3 minutes on facebook it crashed. When I ran the same "test" with maximum fan speed I could scroll through facebook for 15 minutes (apart from the fact that on battery crashes occurred in less then a minute when the battery was lower than 90%). It never crashed on me when playing back videos, but I also could reproduce the error by watching resource demanding 4k-360° videos. Right after the video finished, or if I paused it there was a big chance of it to crash, but it was not as reproducible as the facebook-firefox trick.

So a few weeks ago I changed the thermal paste. It was pretty usable, I thought, tested it for two battery charges but the disillusionment came right after that and it crashed again. Now I found the thunderbolt-driver fix (had almost no hope because I tried so many things) and (knock on wood) since one week there were no crashes no more. So to sum it up, I think it's a combination of more than one reason (emergency heat shutdown and too low core-voltage). For confirmation I would like to re-activate the thunderbolt-driver and check if the crashes reoccur, but not until my semester is over, and I am done with the more important things. I really don't understand why apple does not roll out a "simple" firmware fix, which increases the lowest core-voltage to a reasonable value (like in the other os'es)...

Hi from South Africa

I have the same problem, Late 2013 15 inch MacBook Pro. Random shutdowns will Apple ever own up and repair this mess?

why do we have resort to all these complicated work arounds when the machine clearly has a factory fault.

just reverse the "renaming" command (step 5 of the procedure, mv (rename command) ...path/AppleThunderboltNHI.kext <- (file to rename) ...path/AppleThunderboltNHI.kext.BAK <- (new name, to prevent the file from being loaded)

So you would type:

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

to reenable the drivers

...
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.BAK

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

6) reboot with CMD+R pressed

7) csrutil enable

...

hi

I have tried this, mine still crashes. I tried the app NoCrashMBP also doesn't work.

will apple ever acknowledge this fault. Been thinking of selling my MBP but how much will I get for a defective machine.

I have a MacBook PRO 15” Late 2013 and I'm also taking account on this annoying issue. The shutdowns started when I had Sierra installed, as a solution attempt, I tried to update to High Sierra, but it hasn't made any difference, still got the issue.

Just before bringing it to the Apple repair center, I went through all the common steps taken in cases like that, I've reset NVRAM, PRAM, SMC, etc. Performed Hardware and Software diagnostics (all ok), performed memory test checks, heat checks, app checks, I've gone extensively through all this during 2 weeks, I could only confirm that it’s more often when running on battery power, other than that, I couldn’t find any relevant pattern, shutdowns seemed completely random. I also did a fresh system install, for El Capitan, Sierra and High Sierra, same issue.

So, after it all, I brought my MacBook to the repair center, they had my MacBook for almost 3 weeks, they’ve replaced my display, the battery, they also formatted my MacBook stating that they weren’t able to back up anything (strange huh?), and finally they did a fresh system install. Result: After picking up my MacBook, they said that the issue had been fixed. I've got home and used it for half an hour and: tadah! Black screen and shutdown! Can’t explain my feeling at that moment. I’ve been charged for every piece replaced, even for the system reinstall. Result: big money loss and no help.

I can't believe that the only thing we have is a workaround to disable drivers to create an additional load, that seems the same purpose of the loop script, both don’t seem a good solution in the long run. To make it worse, Apple doesn’t give any feedback about that and they seem to only care about customers using recent products. Also, authorized repair shops here in my country aren’t qualified to solve problems like this, they seem to only care about selling things, so basically my hands are tied.

Same issues here - mid 2014 15" MacBook Pro screen goes off, keyboard is still lit, fans kick on, shutdown. No kernel panics or anything in the logs. I notice the laptop getting quite hot prior to it shutting down. I've run the hardware test and brought it to the Apple Store, and they've run their hardware tests - everything comes back clean. They want $600 to replace the motherboard but I'm not sure I want to spend that on an older machine.

Disabling the ThunderBolt driver does work for the most part, but I can't use my Apple display unless I connect to it when powered off. It won't work if I plug in coming out of standby. It also crashes when unplugging from the display. That said, there's no crashing issues when plugged into an external display.