System Freezes

[MevetS]

I have a curious issue. Every once and a while, my system will freeze for a minute or so. By this I mean that the no input will be accepted via my keyboard, a Satechi Compact Keyboard, nor via the Apple Trackpad V1 (the cursor remains stationary). Music will continue to play. Video will continue to play. After the 'minute' the system becomes responsive again.

I am running Catalina 10.15.7. And I'd be happy to provide additional info about my system configuration and software I use. I've not been able to discern a common set of conditions that trigger the freezes.

Any suggestions on how to trouble this will be welcomed.

Thanks in advance.

 

[CC88]

A bluetooth related issue? So you can't have mouse and keyboard working.

 

[MevetS]

A bluetooth related issue? So you can't have mouse and keyboard working.

Perhaps. I've a USB keyboard I'm using with my Windows laptop as I work from home. Next time the Mini freezes I'll try using the USB keyboard. Thanks.

 

[MevetS]

The system did the freezing thing again and I was able to plug in a USB keyboard and it worked while the Bluetooth keyboard and trackpad did not. Thus we see that Bluetooth is dropping and then resuming a minute or so later.

 

[hagjohn]

Bluetooth sucks on the mini's (2018 at least) and Big Sur doesn't seem to fix the issue (public beta anyway).

 

[brandair]

I experience this issue infrequently, too. My uneducated guess is that the SSD is trimming but that is really just a guess. I do not use Bluetooth most of the time.

 

[MevetS]

Bluetooth sucks on the mini's (2018 at least) and Big Sur doesn't seem to fix the issue (public beta anyway).

Yes, the issues have been well documented. Bummer Big Sur doesn't improve things.

I had significantly worse issues, described elsewhere on these forums, but they were (mainly) solved when I retired several Firewire drives that were holdovers from my MacPro 2010 system, and I removed a four port USB dock.

I'm very fortunate that I rarely experience any Bluetooth issues, and every port on my Mini is in use, and then some. And I have multiple Bluetooth devices, including a Windows laptop (with Logitech MX Master 3 Bluetooth mouse), two iPads, an iPhone as well as my wife's iMac, two MacBook Airs, and a Chrome Book in the same home office in these Covid times. Add to the mix the cable modem, a WiFi NAS, a WiFi weather station hub, the occasional Raspberry Pi, and a cordless phone and there is plenty of radio traffic and potential interference.

And fortunately, this is an annoyance rather than the show stopper it is for other folks. An excuse to get up and walk around as I sit a desk all day.

But it seems my Bluetooth issues have not been completely solved.

 

[MevetS]

I experience this issue infrequently, too. My uneducated guess is that the SSD is trimming but that is really just a guess. I do not use Bluetooth most of the time.

Curious. How would one go about verifying that?

 

[Boyd01]

My uneducated guess is that the SSD is trimming but that is really just a guess. I do not use Bluetooth most of the time.

I don't have these "freezes" on my 2018 i7 Mini, but maybe it's related to the size of the SSD and the amount of free space? I have the 2tb SSD and it is about half full. I use a new (space grey) Apple bluetooth keyboard with numeric keypad and also have a magic mouse 2 (which is connected, but I actually use a USB mouse most of the time).

 

[brandair]

I don't have these "freezes" on my 2018 i7 Mini, but maybe it's related to the size of the SSD and the amount of free space? I have the 2tb SSD and it is about half full. I use a new (space grey) Apple bluetooth keyboard with numeric keypad and also have a magic mouse 2 (which is connected, but I actually use a USB mouse most of the time).

I experienced these occasional freezes on the Mac Mini 2018 Mojave with 512GB SSD / 32GB RAM, which I recently sold. Since yesterday a Mac Mini 2020 Mojave with 2TB SSD / 64GB is sitting on my table, but to early to tell if the issue is still there.

According to the few sources available on Apple and SSD TRIM, trimming happens during booting and when repairing the disk with Disk Utility. But if this is or still is true is another question.

Maybe my recent installation experience might be helpful for others, and maybe there is a relation to the system freezes. My proven standard routine for efficiently downgrading and cloning to Mojave from the preinstalled Catalina was a nightmare on the new Mac Mini and took me 3 days to solve. Deleting the Catalina partition and installing the base Mojave system was involving but worked fine after reboot.

Then I rebooted the MM 2020 into Target Mode and deleted the mounted APFS base system and cloned my Mojave system and user files with CCC. My Mojave APFS partition worked perfectly on the previous Mac Mini. Upon reboot the MM 2020 got stuck at the Apple logo and I was not able to fix this. Even updated the T2 bios via my Big Sur Beta 4 stick, installed the latest Mojave updates, used Apple Diagnostics, quick-checked RAM, etc.

I suspected bad RAM or T2 controller because the base system worked but not my much larger installation due to apps and user files. Booting in verbose mode revealed "Type 14=page fault" and later "General Protection Fault" errors, leading to endless "Attempting System Reboot" entries. Reinstalling from scratch and using Migration Assistant, which crashed at the end, resulted in a corrupt users registry, which could not be fixed.

Next, I deleted everything again and reinstalled Mojave from USB stick. Then again used Migration Assistant, but his time deleted all users in the base system which did already exist in my old system. Again, rebooting failed with the same errors.

Lastly and before returning the MM 2020 for repair, I had two options left: 1. check all kext extensions and frameworks in the /Library, and 2. download the latest Big Sur Beta and update the T2 chip to the latest BidgeOS.

I checked all kext files on app relation and installation date, and removed anything not needed specifically or of old date. One removed extension caught my particular attention: trim.kext by Oskar Groth AKA Cindory - installed by the Sensei app, which includes an SSD Trim Enabler.

And... this solved my misery - the clone booted instantly without a hitch! Lesson learned - always clean up the /Libary (the Libary at the top level) before cloning a system disk. "trim.kext" must have been the culprit because it injects code into a system extension at boot time, wasting 3 days of my life. I'm still mystified as to why the same system booting fine with the 2018 MM but crashed the MM 2020, though.

Anyhow, the MM is now running with the latest Mojave macOS 10.14.6 (18G6032) (including Security Update 2020-005 & Supplemental Update) and T2 firmware 18P50402b. Sleep works fine and no crashes so far.

 

[Boyd01]

I experienced these occasional freezes on the Mac Mini 2018 Mojave with 512GB SSD / 32GB RAM, which I recently sold. Since yesterday a Mac Mini 2020 Mojave with 2TB SSD / 64GB is sitting on my table, but to early to tell if the issue is still there.

Actually, there is no such thing as a "2020 Mini". The only thing that changed in 2020 was discontinuing the 128gb SSD and putting a 256gb SSD in the base model. The hardware is exactly the same as 2018 and Apple sold the exact same machine in 2018, it was just more expensive.

There's a long thread about the problems with Mojave on the 2018 Mini here

Mac Mini 2018 Kernel panic bug_type 210 after Security Update 2020-002

Hello everyone, since installing the Mojave Security Update 2020-002 I do get a message that my Mac Mini 2018 was restarted because of a problem even I shut it down normally. The Mac Mini 2018 was running fine for 3 months. The Apple Hardware Check does not show any errors. Also tried to reset...

forums.macrumors.com

 

[brandair]

Actually, there is no such thing as a "2020 Mini". The only thing that changed in 2020 was discontinuing the 128gb SSD and putting a 256gb SSD in the base model. The hardware is exactly the same as 2018 and Apple sold the exact same machine in 2018, it was just more expensive.

There's a long thread about the problems with Mojave on the 2018 Mini here

Mac Mini 2018 Kernel panic bug_type 210 after Security Update 2020-002

Hello everyone, since installing the Mojave Security Update 2020-002 I do get a message that my Mac Mini 2018 was restarted because of a problem even I shut it down normally. The Mac Mini 2018 was running fine for 3 months. The Apple Hardware Check does not show any errors. Also tried to reset...

forums.macrumors.com

I knew this but I'm just following Apple's product labeling scheme here. Well, there is a difference in fact - Mac Mini 2020 ships with Catalina, not Mojave. Ditto about the other thread to which I had contributed some posts. But thanks, anyway

 

[deksawyer]

I knew this but I'm just following Apple's product labeling scheme here. Well, there is a difference in fact - Mac Mini 2020 ships with Catalina, not Mojave. Ditto about the other thread to which I had contributed some posts. But thanks, anyway

So does your Mac say it's a 2020 model in About This Mac?

 

[IowaLynn]

Reading another thread about Bluetooth issues and how new component chips were used solved their problems, it is always possible that newer parts are used though they'll never tell you what or when there's been a revision of sorts. Even and often for cpu chips to see changes and firmware updates which can't all be handled by Apple firmware rolled into MacOS update.

I waited years util now to jump on the "latest" MacMini, making do with 2015 MacBook. Wanted to wait for Big Sur to be included

 

[brandair]

So does your Mac say it's a 2020 model in About This Mac?

Jeez, everybody even vaguely interested in a Mac Mini will know by now that both 2018 and 2020 models are exactly the same hardware. Captain Obvious galore today. And what do the retailers and Apple stores label the Mac Mini today? Exactly - MM 2020.