Some Users Experiencing System Crashes on macOS 10.15.4, Especially During Large File Transfers

[MacRumors]

A sizeable number of Mac users are experiencing occasional system crashes after updating to macOS Catalina version 10.15.4, released a few weeks ago.

The crashing issue appears to be most prominent when users attempt to make large file transfers. In a forum post, SoftRAID described the issue as a bug and said that it is working with Apple engineers on a fix for macOS 10.15.5, or a workaround.

SoftRAID said the issue extends to Apple-formatted disks:

There is a serious issue with 10.15.4.

It shows up in different scenarios, even on Apple disks but is more likely when there are lots of IO threads. We think it is a threading issue. So while SoftRAID volumes are hit the hardest (its now hard to copy more than 30GB of data at a time), all systems are impacted by this.

In our bug report to Apple, we used a method to reproduce the problem with ONLY Apple formatted disks. Takes longer to reproduce, but that is more likely to get a faster fix to the user base.

Other users on macOS 10.15.4 have experienced crashes after waking their Mac from sleep, with affected systems suffering a kernel panic and rebooting to the Apple logo, according to comments shared on the Apple Support Communities, MacRumors Forums, Reddit, and Twitter.

After updating to macOS 10.15.4, users may also experience continuous spinning up and spinning down of connected hard drives when a Mac is supposed to be asleep, which could result in damage to the drive, according to Jeremy Horwitz.

We've reached out to Apple for comment and we will provide an update if we hear back.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1246577468036841472

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https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1243530005965127686

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1246470077026717704

Article Link: Some Users Experiencing System Crashes on macOS 10.15.4, Especially During Large File Transfers

 

[spymousetruck]

Yawwwn. So this finally gets coverage. It's been happening since 10.15.0: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250717203

Apple has been in touch with a number of reporters (myself included) and it seems they haven't been able to find the root cause behind these kernel panics. TL;DR: Happening to those with external displays; sleeping causes mac to crash. Also those with external USB drives / devices most likely to panic. The only way is to prevent the mac from sleeping (there are tools out there that do this). I've had this going on since 10.15.0. My new MBP Pro 16" crashes all the same (with external monitors) but ever since I installed an app that prevents the Mac from going idle, it hasn't crashed once.

 

[The JTizzle]

There is a whole thread on this is the 10.15 forum FYI.

 

[MakeAppleAwesomeAgain]

Yesterday I did something I haven't done in 15 years of using macOS, having used every major release and patch release. I've downgraded my MBA '13 to Mojave. It became unusable with Catalina. The process sucks, I'm still reinstalling and configuring stuff but I guess it's worth it. Since 10.15.4 it couldn't even wakeup without crashing, last week I got a full system freeze when I was just editing a document and this weekend I had a kernel panic. SSD is fine, I've ran memtest for hours, there nothing wrong with this Macbook. I've been running 10.15 since it came out and it's by far the worst macOS release ever. Lion and Yosemite were heaven compared to Catalina.

 

[otternonsense]

Not the only problem I've been personally having after updating to 10.15.4. My external monitor stopped connecting right after the installation, and had to do an SMC reset to fix it. It still doesn't always connect.

I've also been having this issue that my cursor/keyboard sometimes remain unresponsive for several seconds after waking up from sleep.

Edit: all of these sporting the supposedly latest and greatest 16” MBP

 

[decisions]

It’s happened to me once or twice.

Usually I wake to find the computer running very slowly with kernel_task taking up something like 300-800% CPU. The computer says it’s at 1% battery and will not charge when plugged in. Restarting does not help, you need to to truly shut down and then reboot and luckily that’s all that has been needed thus far to solve these panics.

 

[ArdvbB]

I experience crashes (feezes) since the introduction of Catalina. Both on my iMac (2015) and my MacBook Pro (2014). They both will not shutt down properly on most occasions. Tried everything, nothing seems to work.

 

[jezbd1997]

Yesterday I did something I haven't done in 15 years of using macOS. I've downgraded my MBA '13 to Mojave. It became unusable with Catalina. The process sucks, I'm still reinstalling and configuring stuff but I guess it's worth it. Since 10.15.4 it couldn't even wakeup without crashing, last week I got a full system freeze when I was just editing a document and this weekend I had a kernel panic. SSD is fine, I've ran memtest for hours, the Macbook is fine. I've been running 10.15 since it came out and it's by far the worst macOS release ever. Lion and Yosemite were heaven when compared to Catalina.

I have a 2015 Air and upgraded to Mojave from Sierra back when that was released and it was a disaster.
Battery 1/4 of what I got on Sierra was the main issue, I'd wake up in the morning with a dead battery after it was fully charged.
Went through the process of downgrading which I'd never done before either, photos library, iTunes I found some workarounds luckily to keep those working.
Staying on Sierra for the foreseeable future unless I need to upgrade to a new Mac

 

[cosmos]

I was thinking of upgrading from Mojave until I was snapped back into reality by this article.

 

[zooby]

My new MBP 16 that arrived three days ago keeps restarting too

 

[Mick-Mac]

Lion was the worst ever OS X release - Catalina the 2nd worst. Apple's software QC is just awful these days.

 

[mannyvel]

Interestingly enough the previous mojave build fixed an issue i had where large amounts of disk access caused interrupt handling problems; the mouse cursor would be jerky and sound playback was severely distorted, requiring a reboot. Guess i won't be installing this update.

 

[anshuvorty]

Although not related, I will add that my 16-inch MacBook Pro refuses to wake up its internal display in the following scenario AT ALL TIMES:

• Clamshell mode
• connected to USB-C dock
• disconnect the laptop from the USB-C dock while the laptop is in clamshell mode.

When you raise the lid, after you do this, everything else works - TouchBar, backlit keyboard, trackpad, speakers, but NOT the monitor. The monitor is just black.

The only solution I have found is to restart the machine. I don't mind because boot-up time is fast and I can get back to doing work, but it is just annoying.

 

[rictus007]

They don’t crash .... that’s rude.... they stop responding

 

[MacFather]

Deleted.

 

[rmusto92]

Yesterday I did something I haven't done in 15 years of using macOS, having used every major release and patch release. I've downgraded my MBA '13 to Mojave. It became unusable with Catalina. The process sucks, I'm still reinstalling and configuring stuff but I guess it's worth it. Since 10.15.4 it couldn't even wakeup without crashing, last week I got a full system freeze when I was just editing a document and this weekend I had a kernel panic. SSD is fine, I've ran memtest for hours, there nothing wrong with this Macbook. I've been running 10.15 since it came out and it's by far the worst macOS release ever. Lion and Yosemite were heaven compared to Catalina.

I have 4 2018 Mac mini's, Catalina is unusable on all of them, it constantly drops 5GHZ wifi, I test with Catalina on the office machines and run Mojave on my personal Mac mini, Mojave is 100% solid and stable.

 

[GnarlsBailey]

I was having the same issue on 10.15.4 ... kernel panics every single time my 16-inch MacBook Pro went to sleep. Updated to the 10.15.5 beta and haven't had a single kernel panic since.

 

[jonnysods]

Its this stuff that makes me wish they would go back to the 1.5+ year OS cycle. I know they are stuck because they like to do them all at once - but the pressure to put features into each build causes issues. Imagine 1.5-2 years of rock solid Mojave development and fixes, then come out with Catalina, and have time to perfect it.

 

[ThisBougieLife]

My laptop crashed and restarted yesterday. First time that has happened since I bought it in November. Hope it was due to 10.15.4 and not a stupid T2 kernel panic thing.

 

[chrono1081]

Oh interesting. I thought it was web pages I had open or something. A few times my machine would be off when I'd go to use it in the morning.

 

[BootsWalking]

The "I'm a Mac" thing hasn't aged very well.

 

[oldmacs]

Its this stuff that makes me wish they would go back to the 1.5+ year OS cycle. I know they are stuck because they like to do them all at once - but the pressure to put features into each build causes issues. Imagine 1.5-2 years of rock solid Majave development and fixes, then come out with Catalina, and have time to perfect it.

Agreed! The release cycle is too short. The previous year's OS is just starting to become solid when the new version comes out and it gets no more updates

 

[Lazy]

I have a 2015 Air and upgraded to Mojave from Sierra back when that was released and it was a disaster.
Battery 1/4 of what I got on Sierra was the main issue, I'd wake up in the morning with a dead battery after it was fully charged.
Went through the process of downgrading which I'd never done before either, photos library, iTunes I found some workarounds luckily to keep those working.
Staying on Sierra for the foreseeable future unless I need to upgrade to a new Mac

After more than a year of post-release repair, Mojave seems fine. If you were to try a test install on a separate disk you might find it ok.

 

[Joniz]

I have Mojave on my 2013 11” MBA, and while it’s not perfect, I feel good that I never updated to Catalina.

Best thing I’ve done was to run the command line to tell Catalina updates to firetruck-off on all our Mojave Macs.

 

[davidhunter51]

I've had this problem for several years on multiple OS's back to Yosemite. If I mount two NAS devices (over 1GB ethernet on managed switch) and copy folders from one to another in Finder, and have more than a few of those going at the same time, with gigs of data and possibly thousands of files, my MacPros often kernel panic and reboot. If I use an app like Chronosync to do this, I have no problems. I just wish macOS had a way of warning the user when too many threads are about to push it into a kernel panic.