Daily crashes and reboot issues after upgrade to Mojave

[AshFriedrich]

After upgrading my mid-2012 13" MBP (2.9GHz i7, 16GB RAM, Intel HD Graphics 4000) from Yosemite to Mojave 10.14.6 it now crashes on me at least once a day. The app I'm in becomes unresponsive and a few seconds later I can't move the mouse. Then it reboots and shows me either the "?" folder icon or a no entry sign for a time varying between 5-15 minutes before it suddenly boots normally (without any interaction by me).

In verbose mode I get these messages during the time it tries to boot:



Right after a crash I can't boot to normal recovery, it directs me to internet recovery instead. After I have booted once normally I can boot to normal recovery just fine. There I have done first aid on the disk and it checks out ok.

I have tried resetting SMC and PRAM.

Yesterday when the screen froze and I thought it was going to crash on me as usual but it mysteriously recovered. I don't know if this was related but Console gave this output at the freeze:



I have used Disk Warrior in the past to resolve strange errors similar to this but seeing as Mojave has reformatted my drive to APFS which is not yet supported by Disk Warrior then I have no clue what to do.

Does anyone has any idea how to fix this or tips on how to diagnose this further?

 

[chipchen]

Have you reinstalled Mojave yet? Seems to be the next obvious step. Either create a bootable USB (faster) or boot to recovery mode (slower).

 

[mick2]

The boot log shows 2 separate read errors when loading kernel cache. I'd be looking at either a corrupt installation of Mojave (try a clean reinstall as suggested by @chipchen above), or a failing HDD/SSD. For te latter, i'd backup immediately, then run fsck / Disk Utility / Apple hardware Test utility periodically to ascertain the state of the SSD.

 

[mbosse]

The boot log shows 2 seperate read errors when loading kernel cache. I'd be looking at either a corrupt installation of Mojave (try a clean reinstall as suggested by @chipchen above), or a failing HDD/SSD. For te latter, i'd backup immediately, then run fsck / Disk Utility / Apple hardware Test utility periodically to ascertain the state of the SSD.

That makes sense, you also can download and test for 15 days free of charge DriveDX - this gives you a precise statement on the status of your hard drive. Please post the screenshot here.

Magnus

 

[Audit13]

Could it be a defective sata hard drive cable?

 

[Fishrrman]

Audit is onto something in reply 5 above.

The 2012 13" unibody MBP is notorious for having the internal ribbon cable (to the drive) go bad.
When it does, the MBP will do all sorts of strange things -- slow down, crash, hang, maybe not boot at all.

The solution is to just replace the ribbon cable, which is easy and cheap.
Go to ifixit.com to see the procedure and get the part number.

 

[AshFriedrich]

Thank you all for replies!

Could it be a defective sata hard drive cable?

I totally forgot about this! I've replaced this cable twice already - it's now 2 years since last time. The SSD is 1.5 years old.

ascertain the state of the SSD.

That makes sense, you also can download and test for 15 days free of charge DriveDX - this gives you a precise statement on the status of your hard drive. Please post the screenshot here.

So 65,535 data transfer errors and 96 I/O errors... I'm not sure exactly what it means but it seams like a lot and both descriptions also suggest the data cable.

I will definitely order a new ribbon cable! So strange that a physical part can be worn out like that. Thank you all!