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M4 Series Crashing

throAU

throAU

macrumors G3
Original poster
Feb 13, 2012
9,466
7,670
Perth, Western Australia
OK... we all know the M4s are fast.

However, in the interests of disclosure: My 14" M4 Max is currently the least stable Mac I've ever owned.

I'm sure it will get fixed with updates, but I have had 3-4 hard crash/reboots in the week I've had it. It has not really interfered with work, I haven't lost anything (as I'm not doing long renders, etc. - most of my work is terminal/light document based), but.... still. A couple have been failure to wake from sleep.

Generally the same sort of error... watchdog timeout, which leads me to believe it's the Mac re-starting itself due to going into some sort of infinite loop or other driver problem. Doubt it is hardware fault related and think I've heard of others having similar issues. When actually doing stuff it seems fine, every time I've noticed it crash has been when idle or asleep/wake from sleep.

Thread for others to share their experiences, and perhaps update as things stabilise so that those who WILL be impacted by stability problems can decide whether or not the upgrade is worth it yet.


If random crashing WILL impact your workflow due to disrupting long duration workloads, it may be worth holding off a bit just yet!


Update : most recent theory: Thunderbolt 5 bugs. Hopefully sequoia 15.2 fixes it.

M4 pro/max seem to have issues. Base m4 no reports of similar so far.

Not it isn’t data imported from old machine or related to running apps.
 
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My guess it’s likely due to macOS Sequoia rather than a hardware issue. This is why I’m holding off updating my M2 Air. Of course with M4 you’re stuck with Sequoia. Hopefully Apple is working quickly to get those bugs fixed!
 
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russell_314 said:
My guess it’s likely due to macOS Sequoia rather than a hardware issue. This is why I’m holding off updating my M2 Air. Of course with M4 you’re stuck with Sequoia. Hopefully Apple is working quickly to get those bugs fixed!
Click to expand...
I think it's a combination of both. I was/am running Sequoia on M1 Pro and Intel ice-lake (2020 Air) and zero crashes like this. They're 100% rock solid on Sequoia, on those Sequoia seems to be one of the more stable recent releases to me - better than Sonoma and WAY better than big sur.

I suspect it's just new hardware and drivers that aren't fully baked yet.
 
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If you need a computer for serious purposes like business, then it’s always good not to buy something that just came out or update to an operating system that just came out. Often you’ll see businesses wait months after an operating system is updated before they update.

If it’s just for personal use you can always return it, but it’s not good when your money is being impacted by malfunctioning equipment. I thought about buying the base model M4 mini but I’m really in no hurry. It’s not like they won’t be for sale six months from now.
 
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russell_314 said:
If you need a computer for serious purposes like business, then it’s always good not to buy something that just came out or update to an operating system that just came out. Often you’ll see businesses wait months after an operating system is updated before they update.

If it’s just for personal use you can always return it, but it’s not good when your money is being impacted by malfunctioning equipment. I thought about buying the base model M4 mini but I’m really in no hurry. It’s not like they won’t be for sale six months from now.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I did go into this eyes open (long term PC builder, played these hardware games before :D). Brand new hardware almost always has quirks. My M1 Pro had a couple of crashes in the first couple of weeks but I think they were basically fixed by the time the first macOS update hit it.

Didn't expect it to be instantly perfect, but I did want to expense one ASAP for tax depreciation purposes (can only claim its depreciation for X months of the year prior to June rollover) - luckily if this thing is out of action I have plenty of other machines I can use :)
 
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I’ve seen zero issues with my M4 Pro in the last 3 weeks or so. My guess is some app you have running is causing it; once the dev figures it out & releases an update (or once you figure out which one & uninstall it) you’ll be good to go.
 
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So far, my M4 Pro hasn’t crashed in the last couple of weeks. Not helpful beyond that data point.

Hopefully updates sort it for you.
 
So, ran Apple Hardware Test, no issues. Been using it all day, no issues. Do suspect it is GPU driver related, possibly when I'm running lmstudio in the background and the machine sleeps. It may not be m4 related, as I wasn't running lmstudio on my m1 based machine.

Never crashes when in actual use under load, so it's not heat, etc. Really suspect it is GPU state save/restore during wake/sleep possibly related to lmstudio, but can't prove that.

I'm sure it will be sorted.


Oh and for the record - re the first post in this thread: "least stable Mac I have ever owned" is still an order of magnitude more reliable than any PC I've owned or built with components this new.
 
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While I haven't pulled the trigger on upgrading my MacBook yet, I did pick up the base M4 Mini, and it's been rock solid from the start. In fact, Sequoia as an OS has been rock solid across both Macs.
 
throAU said:
So, ran Apple Hardware Test, no issues. Been using it all day, no issues. Do suspect it is GPU driver related, possibly when I'm running lmstudio in the background and the machine sleeps. It may not be m4 related, as I wasn't running lmstudio on my m1 based machine.

Never crashes when in actual use under load, so it's not heat, etc. Really suspect it is GPU state save/restore during wake/sleep possibly related to lmstudio, but can't prove that.

I'm sure it will be sorted.


Oh and for the record - re the first post in this thread: "least stable Mac I have ever owned" is still an order of magnitude more reliable than any PC I've owned or built with components this new.
Click to expand...
What are you using your LMstudio for? Are the models loaded in RAM cache or do you see hardwired memory.
 
linking in this thread from the mini section

current thoughts are that it may be thunderbolt 5 usage, not wake from sleep. every time I've had the wake from sleep crash its been after I have undocked my machine from a thunderbolt dock.

People are seeing similar on the M4 pro minis, haven't had any reports from base m4 that I've seen yet so maybe its a thunderbolt 5 (specifically 5) driver problem.
 
dmccloud said:
While I haven't pulled the trigger on upgrading my MacBook yet, I did pick up the base M4 Mini, and it's been rock solid from the start. In fact, Sequoia as an OS has been rock solid across both Macs.
Click to expand...

This also lines up with the post I just made above. Base m4 machines have tb4. Sequoia has been 100% solid for me on M1 Pro MacBook Pro.

So I don't think its core OS, it's something new in the m4 pro/max and thats basically... thunderbolt 5. everything else is in other machines (including the iPad Pro m4 which isn't crashing like this) in reduced count (new cores, new gpu cores, etc.).


I have also noticed which could be related, that my Time Machine disk will never auto mount on this machine unless it is detected during boot. i.e., plugged in, power up, it will automatically mount and Time Machine works.

if I am powered up and then connect it, I need to mount it manually in disk utility.

Something definitely finicky/buggy/unfinished with thunderbolt on these machines.
 
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TechnoMonk said:
What are you using your LMstudio for? Are the models loaded in RAM cache or do you see hardwired memory.
Click to expand...

I'm running. few models for general knowledge/medical/coding knowledge. not seriously, just playing at the moment. Models I have installed:

Screenshot 2024-12-06 at 8.42.34 pm.png


they load into wired memory. At least, I watched "wired" count up as the model loaded. This is with the Gemma 16GB model freshly loaded.

Screenshot 2024-12-06 at 8.43.41 pm.png
 
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FreakinEurekan said:
I’ve seen zero issues with my M4 Pro in the last 3 weeks or so. My guess is some app you have running is causing it; once the dev figures it out & releases an update (or once you figure out which one & uninstall it) you’ll be good to go.
Click to expand...

LogicalApex said:
So far, my M4 Pro hasn’t crashed in the last couple of weeks. Not helpful beyond that data point.

Hopefully updates sort it for you.
Click to expand...

Are either of you guys using external peripherals plugged into the thunderbolt ports? More specifically, external SSDs or hard drives?
 
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throAU said:
I'm running. few models for general knowledge/medical/coding knowledge. not seriously, just playing at the moment. Models I have installed:

View attachment 2459408

they load into wired memory. At least, I watched "wired" count up as the model loaded. This is with the Gemma 16GB model freshly loaded.

View attachment 2459410
Click to expand...
Not sure if LM studio added MLX support, trying running these models outside of LM studio and test.
 
throAU said:
OK... we all know the M4s are fast.

However, in the interests of disclosure: My 14" M4 Max is currently the least stable Mac I've ever owned.

I'm sure it will get fixed with updates, but I have had 3-4 hard crash/reboots in the week I've had it. It has not really interfered with work, I haven't lost anything (as I'm not doing long renders, etc. - most of my work is terminal/light document based), but.... still. A couple have been failure to wake from sleep.

Generally the same sort of error... watchdog timeout, which leads me to believe it's the Mac re-starting itself due to going into some sort of infinite loop or other driver problem. Doubt it is hardware fault related and think I've heard of others having similar issues. When actually doing stuff it seems fine, every time I've noticed it crash has been when idle or asleep/wake from sleep.

Thread for others to share their experiences, and perhaps update as things stabilise so that those who WILL be impacted by stability problems can decide whether or not the upgrade is worth it yet.


If random crashing WILL impact your workflow due to disrupting long duration workloads, it may be worth holding off a bit just yet!
Click to expand...
Did you migrate stuff in from a previous Mac? If it was me I'd try making a new user account, rebooting and logging into only that account to see what happens. You don't even have to tie it to your Apple ID, just leave it totally vanilla and see if it crashes when you work. If it does crash, you know it's something in the system or a hardware thing. If it doesn't crash, strong likelihood there's something amiss in your main user account.
 
throAU said:
Are either of you guys using external peripherals plugged into the thunderbolt ports? More specifically, external SSDs or hard drives?
Click to expand...

I am not. My only real use for externals is storage and that's all stored on my network and accessed over WiFi 6E.

TechnoMonk said:
Not sure if LM studio added MLX support, trying running these models outside of LM studio and test.
Click to expand...

LM Studio does have MLX support. I have been experimenting with Qwen Coder 32B in MLX.

Screenshot 2024-12-06 at 1.47.12 PM.png
 
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throAU said:
So, ran Apple Hardware Test, no issues. Been using it all day, no issues. Do suspect it is GPU driver related, possibly when I'm running lmstudio in the background and the machine sleeps. It may not be m4 related, as I wasn't running lmstudio on my m1 based machine.

Never crashes when in actual use under load, so it's not heat, etc. Really suspect it is GPU state save/restore during wake/sleep possibly related to lmstudio, but can't prove that.

I'm sure it will be sorted.


Oh and for the record - re the first post in this thread: "least stable Mac I have ever owned" is still an order of magnitude more reliable than any PC I've owned or built with components this new.
Click to expand...
I don't think it is related to sleep state with LM Studio. I have let my machine sleep, including lid close, while LM Studio is running with models loaded and even while they are computing tokens. I haven't experienced any crashes when using LM Studio...

Well I did experience one, but that was my own doing. I was running LM Studio and Msty at the same time both with large models loaded so I overloaded the RAM requirements and the MacBook locked up then rebooted. But I'll chalk that up to user error...

What exactly are you doing with LM Studio at the time of the crash from sleep and I can try to replicate it on my machine.
 
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I had something similar on my Intel MBP this morning, I think watchdog was mentioned in a panic that occurred with core 1
 
ignatius345 said:
Did you migrate stuff in from a previous Mac? If it was me I'd try making a new user account, rebooting and logging into only that account to see what happens. You don't even have to tie it to your Apple ID, just leave it totally vanilla and see if it crashes when you work. If it does crash, you know it's something in the system or a hardware thing. If it doesn't crash, strong likelihood there's something amiss in your main user account.
Click to expand...
Was clean install


As to what I’m doing when the machine crashes - basically just opening it. If it’s going to crash it’s within maybe 15-20 seconds. Whether lm studio is running or not.

Otherwise it is stable for days.

Per above and the mini thread it looks like it is related to thunderbolt 5. No one with Thunderbolt 4 has reported similar behaviour yet, m4 pro/max specifically seem to be getting reports. No base m4 yet which has tb4
 
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