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Anyone else experiencing crashes on the M4 Pro Mini?
- Thread starter bobjonesco
- Start date
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Hi,
I’m experiencing the same issue with my Mac Mini M4 Pro (48GB, 1TB).
I get a crash almost every day, mostly in the morning when I wake up the computer.
I suspect it might be related to SSD or external storage management, though I’m not certain. I say this because, after short sleep sessions (for example, when I leave to eat), I often reopen my session and see multiple notifications saying that the external SSD or my Time Machine drive has been disconnected.
I never experienced a crash when I was directly using it. Only after sleep.
I’m planning to request a return label from Apple and hope for the best.
Additional information:
- Lulu firewall
- NextDNS profile
- Backblaze
- External SSD: Samsung T7 with the latest firmware
I’m experiencing the same issue with my Mac Mini M4 Pro (48GB, 1TB).
I get a crash almost every day, mostly in the morning when I wake up the computer.
I suspect it might be related to SSD or external storage management, though I’m not certain. I say this because, after short sleep sessions (for example, when I leave to eat), I often reopen my session and see multiple notifications saying that the external SSD or my Time Machine drive has been disconnected.
I never experienced a crash when I was directly using it. Only after sleep.
I’m planning to request a return label from Apple and hope for the best.
Additional information:
- Lulu firewall
- NextDNS profile
- Backblaze
- External SSD: Samsung T7 with the latest firmware
Same here pretty much (M4 Max MacBook Pro) which is why I'm not too concerned: widespread, similar symptoms after sleep points to a software issue to me. Something isn't being put to sleep/woken properly due to a kernel/driver bug is my bet. MacOS 15.2 should hopefully fix it.
Would be interested to know if anyone has seen these crashes on either an M4 (non pro/max) mini or MacBook - because we know the iPads aren't having these issues.
That would point even more towards a macOS bug, rather than some CPU design flaw or production issue, etc.
Then again it could be thunderbolt 5 controller related, and the base M4 doesn't have thunderbolt 5 so.... I have definitely noticed it seems more likely if I've been docked to my thunderbolt (3) dock, disconnected, sleep and then wake it.
That would point even more towards a macOS bug, rather than some CPU design flaw or production issue, etc.
Then again it could be thunderbolt 5 controller related, and the base M4 doesn't have thunderbolt 5 so.... I have definitely noticed it seems more likely if I've been docked to my thunderbolt (3) dock, disconnected, sleep and then wake it.
Not sure TBH, and I think it's (MAYBE) more likely a symptom of the machine having the capability of using thunderbolt 5 (i.e., new version of thunderbolt controller with new software driver). machine sleeps, new driver doesn't quite re-initialise things properly after wake up.
In terms of "new things" (and thus, new drivers to potentially have bugs) that we haven't seen in other devices yet, thunderbolt 5 is the big one.
You can certainly try!
I also had crashes with this ominous "SOCD report detected: (AP watchdog expired)" on my Mac Mini M4 Pro 14/20.
Only two in the last 3 weeks.
But I also suspect the Thunderbolt 5 ports as both crashes occurred accessing the external USB SSD (Samsung T7). One time starting a game I have on this external drive and one time plugging in the drive while the Mac Mini was sleep mode (drive did something 10 - 20 seconds and then the Mac mini was unresponsive for about 30 seconds and then restarted). Now the external drive is connected all the time, no troubles since then.
While regular usage I didn't have troubles until now. Hope it will stay this way.
Only two in the last 3 weeks.
But I also suspect the Thunderbolt 5 ports as both crashes occurred accessing the external USB SSD (Samsung T7). One time starting a game I have on this external drive and one time plugging in the drive while the Mac Mini was sleep mode (drive did something 10 - 20 seconds and then the Mac mini was unresponsive for about 30 seconds and then restarted). Now the external drive is connected all the time, no troubles since then.
While regular usage I didn't have troubles until now. Hope it will stay this way.
Yeah thinking a bit more about this - when I was using thunderbolt it was via TB3 dock (but TB5 port on the MBP M4 max), everything plugged into the TB3 dock was via USB.
So, its not the end device protocol that matters, but at least for me with only thunderbolt 5 ports, the thunderbolt 5 port or controller being involved.
I'm not sure how the USB4/TB4 ports are routed internally on the Pro mini - whether they are direct off the SOC or as a sub interface off the TB5 controller - if they're on a seperate controller maybe you might have more luck with less crashes using the USB4 ports. If they're "hanging off" the tb5 controller internally it probably won't make any difference.
Really interested to know if any base M4 Mac people are experiencing this issue - I really suspect not as Apple would have been using TB4 on the iPad Pro with m4 for months at this point - that driver is probably well and truly stable by now. sure, IOS vs. macOS, but the software control of the hardware would be almost identical now I'd wager due to the same CPU, and changes to macOS kernel moving in that direction with M series.
Then again maybe thunderbolt has nothing to do with it, its all speculation at this point, but speculation based on symptoms and "what's new".
edit: I have a crash thread for the MacBook m4s... based on the comments in this thread with the mini, I think we might be able to rule out the root cause as wake from sleep. I thought that may be involved as it was always after I opened the Mac after closing the lid, but that's generally always some time after I've either docked or undocked it.
If the people having crashes with the mini are purely based on thunderbolt connect/disconnect maybe sleep has nothing to do with it.
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Thanks for testing. Unfortunately TB5 only here (MacBook m4 max), but I can confirm that since I've been at home this weekend, where I do not use USB storage, I haven't had a crash despite many sleep/wake cycles, etc.
I have a 1TB Samsung T7 connected to a TB5 port. I use it for Time Machine backups and another partition for misc files. It's always connected and I have yet to experience any crashes.
Yeah while connected I've never seen issues. It's when you've disconnected, hence much more frequent probably on MacBooks as they move
I see. I have disconnected it once or twice. I'll try again and see if anything happens.Yeah while connected I've never seen issues. It's when you've disconnected, hence much more frequent probably on MacBooks as they move
I can semi reliably have a crash if I disconnect, sleep the machine (close lid), move it somewhere (e.g. commute home, relocate from my desk to a meeting room, etc.) and then within 30 seconds of waking it will regularly hard lock, reboot and then its totally fine.
I tried that with my Mini M4 Pro (disconnect, sleep, wakeup again). No issues here.
It may take more than once. it's not 100% of the time, maybe it's a case of after several disconnect/reconnect cycles it happens. I'm still figuring it out myself, all I can put it down to at the moment is that if I don't use the thunderbolt 5 ports - no crashes, ever. If I do... crash after I've made some use of them, usually (if its going to crash at all) within 30-60 seconds of wake up - then no more crashes until after I've used them again.
It's also my experience - I had "only" two of this ominous crashes within the last three weeks but every crash was related after connecting/disconnecting my external Samsung T7 SSD. Same as at your place throAU.
And every time I would like to unmount the drive in Finder I'm always getting the "Disk in usage" message. Problems seem to occur when unmounting it anyway. I also suspect driver issues or such, I don't believe in faulty hardware.
Nevertheless if the external drive stays connected no problems here. No crashes since.
Maybe the computer should be turned off before connecting/disconnecting drives? Maybe that helps?
And every time I would like to unmount the drive in Finder I'm always getting the "Disk in usage" message. Problems seem to occur when unmounting it anyway. I also suspect driver issues or such, I don't believe in faulty hardware.
Nevertheless if the external drive stays connected no problems here. No crashes since.
Maybe the computer should be turned off before connecting/disconnecting drives? Maybe that helps?
They're probably other unrelated crashes.
I'm not talking about a game crash or application crash back to the desktop. I'm talking hard lock where the machine freezes entirely and then either power cycles itself or needs to be manually hard powered off and rebooted via the power button.
Yesterday afternoon, I reconnected the SSD to the back of the machine (TB5 port) using a new USB-C cable (actually a TB3 cable), and I haven’t experienced a crash since then. BUT, I don’t think we can draw any conclusions yet. However, I also haven’t seen the “disk not ejected properly” message when waking it up from sleep… I’m lost
I can only tell until now when not connecting/disconnecting any external drive no crashes here. I ordered a new USB4-SSD, will report back as soon as I have it.
Edit: Got the USB4-SSD. Connected it on the back TB5 ports of the Mac Mini (recognized as PCI-Express device). Formated it as APFS. No troubles till now. Only that it's hot all the time, feeling a bit insecure about that.
Edit: Got the USB4-SSD. Connected it on the back TB5 ports of the Mac Mini (recognized as PCI-Express device). Formated it as APFS. No troubles till now. Only that it's hot all the time, feeling a bit insecure about that.
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+1 for power management as a possible pain point. I did follow through in swapping my 16" M1 Pro for a 14" M4 Pro and have had some problems in the transition. I've been on my M4 Pro for a week now and it seems to be eating its battery awfully fast so I started paying more attention.
That's when I noticed that my M4 Pro was hardly using its efficiency cores and going almost entirely on performance cores. Switching it to low power mode did little. It continued preferring performance cores. Even after quitting almost everything, performance cores continued firing off doing who knows what while I did nothing more than stare at a mostly blank screen.
I realized something was wrong at that point and rebooted. Everything's back to normal now. We're back to using efficiency cores instead of performance cores.
Yup, there are some rough edges left to be ironed out.
Aside from this, you were right about the smaller form factor. I'm enjoying it and I use my iPad mini as a side screen when I need more space, which is easier to do now that the laptop has a smaller footprint.
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