Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

2018 Mac Mini Random Restarts Has Become A 2020 Mini Random Restarts Problem - Thoughts?

S

streich3

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 13, 2013
10
0
I've been following discussions on this topic for about 2 years with the 2018 Mini and wanted to share a new development, hopefully getting some input.. I've been helping a friend with his 2018 Mini since day one. He ordered it like the first week it came out in Oct 2018. Everything was great for about 1.5 years. Then mid 2020 there were the random restarts in the middle of the night. Updating to Mac OS 10.15 around August 2020 seemed to have fixed the problem. Lo and behold, about 3 weeks ago, the random restarts resumed now on Mac OS 11. I had him upgrade to the latest 12.x. It did not fix the problem. I offered to clean install OS 12 but I said why don't you bring it to the Apple Store and let them run a diagnostic test. They kept it for 3 nights and let it run. Nothing came back defective in the diagnostic tests - they could not reproduce the random restarts in the 3 days they had it.

So they proposed to do a clean install of OS 12.x (my friend had backups so that wasn't an issue). Or a $210 trade in credit on a 2020 M1 Mini. He opted for the later. Lo and behold, I was shocked to hear today that it restarted randomly in the middle of the night twice since Thursday. The M1 Mini. The problem has to be one of the peripherals .... right?

-There is an HP monitor connected via HDMI
-Logitech speakers connected to the audio out
-A Mac Ally mouse connected to USB A
-a logitech web cam occasionally connected to USB A
-A brother printer connected via a USB C adapter
-a WD external drive occasionally connected via USB C adapter
-an Ethernet cable
-a 2010 Apple wireless keyboard

Is it possible to look at the logs to isolate the problem? Which device is causing this?
 
Seems like it must be something specific to his setup, my 2018 Mini has never done this. Does he have the Mini set to sleep? Mine is set to never sleep, the display just shuts down after a couple hours. Generally speaking, I shut it down at the end of the day, but recently I have been processing huge amounts of geodata 24/7 using GIS software in a Windows 10 virtual machine. No problems there.

Also, does this happen when he is asleep or has he actually witnessed one of these "random restarts"? If he has not seen it happen, perhaps it's some kind of power glitch that causes this? Does he have it set to automatically restart after a power failure in the Energy Saver preferences? If so, perhaps un-check that option and see if it just turns off overnight instead of restarting.
 
Unplug all the peripherals except for the ethernet, keyboard and mouse. If the device doesn't randomly reboot after a couple of days and 1 device and wait a couple more days. Keep doing that until you figure out what device is causing the issue.
 
  • Like
Reactions: ignatius345
"2018 Mac Mini Random Restarts Has Become A 2020 Mini Random Restarts Problem - Thoughts?"

My thoughts:
It's NOT the Mini(s), nor is it the Mac OS.

Rather, it's either something you have running on it (3rd party), or some kind of hardware (or hardware combination) that you have connected to it. Perhaps a combination of both.

Fishrrman's obvious suggestion:
IF it's only having random restarts at night,
then...
Shut it down at night, and reboot in the morning.
It can't restart if it's shut down.
 
Boyd01 said:
If it's a peripheral device, then why does it only crash/restart in the middle of the night? Seems like it would also crash while it's in use.
Click to expand...
Yes it only happens at night, meaning when its asleep. We will try unplugging different devices, adapters before sleep to do a little trial and error.
 
Seems like the simplest fix would be to simply not let it sleep. Just turn it off at night or have the display sleep and leave it on. That's what I do, there have been many problem reports here related to the Mini sleeping. Also, does he have "power nap" enabled? If so, I'd try un-checking that if he wants it to sleep.
 
I've been having the same problem with my 2012 mini for a while now. Found that if I either a)disconnect the network or b)quit my browser before putting it to sleep, it wakes up fine... go figure. (running mojave)
 
  • Like
Reactions: Boyd01
My 2018 mini has shut down randomly a few times - once a few days ago as I was typing an email on it.

There was no Apple crash report or log, but I did find TG Pro reported "Last Shutdown/Sleep Forced - BridgeOS (T2 chip) initiated shutdown".

It's a bit of a concern, but I still have warranty in case it's a logic board, or... whatever.
 
watakoola said:
My 2018 mini has shut down randomly a few times - once a few days ago as I was typing an email on it.

There was no Apple crash report or log, but I did find TG Pro reported "Last Shutdown/Sleep Forced - BridgeOS (T2 chip) initiated shutdown".

It's a bit of a concern, but I still have warranty in case it's a logic board, or... whatever.
Click to expand...
In this situation I definitely think you can get it serviced under warranty. The t2 security chip is causing the problem.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back