2018 MacBook Pros crashing with "Bridge OS" error

[Howard2k]

2010 and 2011. They are both long gone, I hauled them off to the recycle service last year. My 2007 finally died this year, last OS was El Capitan and it never crashed, PS finally died so it's gone too. It was a great iMac.
I use Logic Pro a lot. I have nine years invested in that DAW. It's the best DAW I've ever used and I was fully prepared to pull the trigger on a new iMac Pro, but now that I know the same crashes are happening on it, I am convinced it's a system wide problem, ( I have no proof, just a gut feeling and two crashed iMacs) I've been 9 months downtime now for recording, so I'm a little upset(lol). When I read all your threads i pretty much knew I had to walk away from Apple. I've poured over every article and forum I can find. No fix on the horizon and cricket noises from Apple. The only way to reach Apple is buy a Dell. I hate Windows, but my son, who's way smarter than me, is running Ableton Live on Win10 and he says it's rock solid, so time for this old dog to learn new tricks. I used MSFT from 1983 to 2007, switched to MacOS, had a great run for nine years and now that run is over. If Deadmau5 can run Ableton on Win, so can I.... a lot of studios are going back to Windows 10 as well, so I know it's not just me having a problem. Apple doesn't care, I'm now convinced....
I hope you solve your problem, thanks for sharing your info, you saved me from a $5000 nightmare......

Is Deadmau5 your son?

 

[M.Rizk]

How do you upgrade Bridge OS? And Apple better not leave High Sierra out of an update!!! I am in a professional recording studio environment and we don’t upgrade to the latest OS as soon as it comes out. It would kill much of the software we use.
[doublepost=1534560630][/doublepost]
I am sorry you went through mess too. I’m so upset with Apple right now.
[doublepost=1534562523][/doublepost]Here's my "goodnight kiss" everyone. It's about my 15th Kernel panic of the day on the iMac Pro... I don't know how the Apple engineers are sleeping at night. If Steve Jobs was still alive at least a handful of them WOULD NOT be! View attachment 776547

You have to install Mojave then roll back to High Sierra. The MBP won’t be able to roll back the firmware to the HS version.

In order to not lose any data, there is a guide posted by Apple to install Mojave beta on another partition/volume and dual boot.

 

[Scythe]

Can you dig in and see if yours is AppleSMC as well? You can find how to look it up here:

https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...bridge-os-error.2128976/page-31#post-26358890



Hahaha. We should design and sell a hat / t-shirt on Cafe Press

Yep, traced it back to AppleSMC thread.

 

[iMacDragon]

the T2 seems to manage SMC now, so this seems quite likely.

 

[ricky1989]

How do you upgrade Bridge OS? And Apple better not leave High Sierra out of an update!!! I am in a professional recording studio environment and we don’t upgrade to the latest OS as soon as it comes out. It would kill much of the software we use.
[doublepost=1534560630][/doublepost]
I am sorry you went through mess too. I’m so upset with Apple right now.
[doublepost=1534562523][/doublepost]Here's my "goodnight kiss" everyone. It's about my 15th Kernel panic of the day on the iMac Pro... I don't know how the Apple engineers are sleeping at night. If Steve Jobs was still alive at least a handful of them WOULD NOT be! View attachment 776547

IF you have a spare drive around, install Mojave public beta onto that external drive should force upgrade the BridgeOS to v3.0 without affecting your current workflow. (Not sure if there are ways to downgrade the BridgeOS though).

 

[dspdoc]

IF you have a spare drive around, install Mojave public beta onto that external drive should force upgrade the BridgeOS to v3.0 without affecting your current workflow. (Not sure if there are ways to downgrade the BridgeOS though).

Does anyone know if this is an actual fix? If it is, why doesn’t Apple just release this Bridge OS as a supplemental update to High Sierra?

 

[csurfr]

Does anyone know if this is an actual fix? If it is, why doesn’t Apple just release this BridgeOS as a supplemental update to High Sierra?

*Actual fix* probably not. As Mojave is still in beta, it’s likely the BridgeOS will change many times before GM. The version in beta 7 has a different build than beta 6.

However, my 2018 hasn’t crashed in probably a week, and I nstalled the latest beta a couple of days ago. Everything is still working fine. And as a bonus, my UltraFine has been waking with the machine as well, when previously it was about 50/50.

I have not tested Mojave with power nap / notifications while screen is asleep to see if that issue still still exists or not.

 

[dspdoc]

*Actual fix* probably not. As Mojave is still in beta, it’s likely the BridgeOS will change many times before GM. The version in beta 7 has a different build than beta 6.

However, my 2018 hasn’t crashed in probably a week, and I nstalled the latest beta a couple of days ago. Everything is still working fine. And as a bonus, my UltraFine has been waking with the machine as well, when previously it was about 50/50.

I have not tested Mojave with power nap / notifications while screen is asleep to see if that issue still still exists or not.

But the issue is I cannot update to Mojave. It will break my studio. I need a Bridge OS update to High Sierra.

 

[csurfr]

But the issue is I cannot update to Mojave. It will break my studio.

I totally understand. You’re caught in the middle here. However, as someone mentioned earlier, you might be able to install Mojave to an external drive as if you were going to dual boot, and then just boot back into HS. Mojave should still install all of the new firmware on whichever machine you choose to attempt that on.

 

[dspdoc]

I totally understand. You’re caught in the middle here. However, as someone mentioned earlier, you might be able to install Mojave to an external drive as if you were going to dual boot, and then just boot back into HS. Mojave should still install all of the new firmware on whichever machine you choose to attempt that on.

You cannot dual boot/boot from an external drive on the iMP without first going in and turning all the boot security off in recovery mode, which from personal experience can sometimes be a nightmare to get turned back on and send you into an endless boot loop.

 

[csurfr]

You cannot dual boot/boot from an external drive on the iMP without first going in and turning all the boot security off in recovery mode, which from personal experience can sometimes be a nightmare to get turned back on and send you into an endless boot loop.

I know about the boot security settings in recovery, but I'm not aware of a boot loop because of it. All I have read is that those that didn't turn it off and wiped the container have had those problems because of the T2 chip.

 

[dspdoc]

I know about the boot security settings in recovery, but I'm not aware of a boot loop because of it. All I have read is that those that didn't turn it off and wiped the container have had those problems because of the T2 chip.

I’m am very much open to any suggestions on how to best wake up from this total nightmare.

 

[csurfr]

I’m am very much open to any suggestions on how to best wake up from this total nightmare.

If you haven’t returned the MacBook Pro and are still within that window, it can’t hurt to try it out on there and see what happens. Unless, of course, you have a custom config that takes a week or two to ship.

Are you certain that Avid won’t run in Mojave?

 

[dspdoc]

If you haven’t returned the MacBook Pro and are still within that window, it can’t hurt to try it out on there and see what happens. Unless, of course, you have a custom config that takes a week or two to ship.

Are you certain that Avid won’t run in Mojave?

I have returned the MBP for a refund. I’m down to just the iMP now. And there’s no way I’d install Mojave in the studio. It wouldn’t just break Pro Tools, but many other things I’d imagine. What I want to know is where is this supposed “fix” that I heard one person on here talking about? I hope everyone does realize how long Apple has let these T2 Kernel panic issues go. From the research that I’ve done it has been a long long time.

 

[csurfr]

I have returned the MBP for a refund. I’m down to just the iMP now. And there’s no way I’d install Mojave in the studio. It wouldn’t just break Pro Tools, but many other things I’d imagine. What I want to know is where is this supposed “fix” that I heard one person on here talking about? I hope everyone does realize how long Apple has let these T2 Kernel panic issues go. From the research that I’ve done it has been a long long time.

I don’t blame you for not wanting to install the beta on your iMP, which is why I had suggested the MbP. The only possible solution (if you can even call it that) is to toss Mojave on an external drive and see if that helps.

I’ve been a dev for a long time now, and unless there is something obvious, the devs and engineers have to track down the problem and figure out a solution. It’s not as simple as “fix it”. When you are writing an app, backend for a website, etc, where one change can have multiple repercussions across the board.

It’s super easy for the end user to freak out and scream “fix this now”, because we have no idea what is behind the curtain. Thousands of lines of code are running that one chip alone. It takes time. And for those that say “Apple (or whatever company) didn’t test this or that before launch”...well, that’s just hyperbole. Companies are in business to make money. Period. And pissing off customers doesn’t help with that.

If you can’t (or won’t) wait it out then your only option is to use a different solution. The surface studio is an interesting iMac alternative. I’ve seen them at multiple tech companies here in Seattle.

 

[dspdoc]

I don’t blame you for not wanting to install the beta on your iMP, which is why I had suggested the MbP. The only possible solution (if you can even call it that) is to toss Mojave on an external drive and see if that helps.

I’ve been a dev for a long time now, and unless there is something obvious, the devs and engineers have to track down the problem and figure out a solution. It’s not as simple as “fix it”. When you are writing an app, backend for a website, etc, where one change can have multiple repercussions across the board.

It’s super easy for the end user to freak out and scream “fix this now”, because we have no idea what is behind the curtain. Thousands of lines of code are running that one chip alone. It takes time. And for those that say “Apple (or whatever company) didn’t test this or that before launch”...well, that’s just hyperbole. Companies are in business to make money. Period. And pissing off customers doesn’t help with that.

If you can’t (or won’t) wait it out then your only option is to use a different solution. The surface studio is an interesting iMac alternative. I’ve seen them at multiple tech companies here in Seattle.

Thanks for this. As much as I hate to admit it, I am strongly considering jumping ship from Apple completely. And when I say completely I mean no more iPhones, iPads, MBPs, Macs, Watches, nothing... Leaving the Apple ecosystem.

Being an Apple lover for 24 years it sincerely breaks my heart to be at this point. I know a lot of people would chime in and say, "oh well you're overreacting because Apple has always had issues". While this is true, yes Apple has always had some issues, but nothing like it has been in the past few years. It is as though Apple has lost its way, or rather is steering in a different direction completely, which I believe to be the case. All they seem to care about is the damn phone. This is mind boggling to me when you are talking about a TRILLION $ company. They have enough money to make EVERY product and piece of software great. Not just the phone.

I now fully understand how Tim Cook has gotten the nickname "bean counter". He is so obsessed with keeping shareholders happy that nothing else matters. I am sooooooo sick of looking at his Twitter and seeing photos of him galavanting all over the world like he is somehow nothing more than a spokesperson or face for Apple (if Apple were going to pick someone to be just a "face" that would NOT be the one I would pick ). Meanwhile, back at home base users like us are yelling and screaming about issue after issue (not little dinky issues either mind you). It just makes me picture Steve Jobs in a room full of engineers yelling and cussing, tipping tables over, saying FIX THIS NOW! Where is that passion in Tim? Where is that passion in Apple at all anymore?

 

[SDColorado]

If you can’t (or won’t) wait it out then your only option is to use a different solution. The surface studio is an interesting iMac alternative. I’ve seen them at multiple tech companies here in Seattle.

I really like the Surface Studio, but it is definitely more an iMac alternative than an iMac Pro alternative. Also, like the Surface Book 2, getting a little long in the tooth and in need of an update. But I may jump to one next year if they release the Surface Studio 2. I would love to see a Surface Book 3 update as well.

 

[csurfr]

Thanks for this. As much as I hate to admit it, I am strongly considering jumping ship from Apple completely. And when I say completely I mean no more iPhones, iPads, MBPs, Macs, Watches, nothing... Leaving the Apple ecosystem.

Being an Apple lover for 24 years it sincerely breaks my heart to be at this point. I know a lot of people would chime in and say, "oh well you're overreacting because Apple has always had issues". While this is true, yes Apple has always had some issues, but nothing like it has been in the past few years. It is as though Apple has lost its way, or rather is steering in a different direction altogether, which I believe to be the case. All they seem to care about is the damn phone. This is mind boggling to me when you are talking about a TRILLION $ company. They have enough money to make EVERY product and piece of software great. Not just the phone.

I now fully understand how Tim Cook has gotten the nickname "bean counter". He is so obsessed with keeping stock holders happy that nothing else matters. I am sooooooo sick of looking at his Twitter and seeing photos of him galavanting all over the world like he is somehow nothing more than a spokesperson or face for Apple (if Apple were going to pick someone to be just a "face" that would NOT be the one I would pick ). Meanwhile back at home base users like us are yelling and screaming about issue after issue (not little dinky issues either mind you). It just makes me picture Steve Jobs in a room full of engineers yelling and cussing, tipping tables over, saying FIX THIS NOW! Where is that passion in Tim? Where is that passion in Apple at all anymore?

I feel that most users can deal with bugs and random issues IF said company would come out and say “hey, we know about this, and we’re sorry it is happening. We are actively pursuing a fix.”

Unfortunately it’s about the bottom line, and they are so beholden to shareholders that often they are unable (or unwilling) to do that for fear of reprisal.

Just a little more transparency would make all of the issues a little easier to swallow.
[doublepost=1534607540][/doublepost]

I really like the Surface Studio, but it is definitely more an iMac alternative than an iMac Pro alternative. Also, like the Surface Book 2, getting a little long in the tooth and in need of an update. But I may jump to one next year if they release the Surface Studio 2. I would love to see a Surface Book 3 update as well.

I had a SB2 earlier this year when I was working on some .net. Great product, beautiful screen (truly, visual studio in dark mode looked fantastic). Sub-par power adapter, which couldn’t keep the machine charged during heavy use. Maybe they have changed that mid-cycle, but I’ve not read of it. If anyone would know if would be @Queen6.

 

[SDColorado]

I feel that most users can deal with bugs and random issues IF said company would come out and say “hey, we know about this, and we’re sorry it is happening. We are actively pursuing a fix.”

Unfortunately it’s about the bottom line, and they are so beholden to shareholders that often they are unable (or unwilling) to do that for fear of reprisal.

Just a little more transparency would make all of the issues a little easier to swallow.

It is this that is a bit hard to swallow. I mean they *knew* about bugs with the T2 chips from the iMac Pro even before they announced the MBP. What was the plan? Hey.. we know we have problems with the iMP, but maybe they won't manifest in the MBP? We knew the T2 chips have problems, but let's go ahead and release the MBP with them anyway and we can deal with it later? Not all machines have issues, so let's just sell them and let the 14-day return policy sort them out? I am just not sure it is a good look from a marketing standpoint, but then again.. they are the ones with the Trillion dollar company. So what do I know huh? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[csurfr]

It is this that is a bit hard to swallow. I mean they *knew* about bugs with the T2 chips from the iMac Pro even before they announced the MBP. What was the plan? Hey.. we know we have problems with the iMP, but maybe they won't manifest in the MBP? We knew the T2 chips have problems, but let's go ahead and release the MBP with them anyway and we can deal with it later? Not all machines have issues, so let's just sell them and let the 14-day return policy sort them out? I am just not sure it is a good look from a marketing standpoint, but then again.. they are the ones with the Trillion dollar company. So what do I know huh? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I mean, if we were to speculate, you have sort of nailed it.

I installed the Mojave beta, and while it is working great with zero issues in all of my daily use, I’m scared to death to try and go back to High Sierra. I have not read one post or article where someone was able to boot to internet recovery, wipe the ssd and then re-install High Sierra. If I still had my 2016 or 2017 this would be a non-issue.

None of the Apple support articles mention turning off the “secure boot” in recovery mode. That is something I have learned from here. I totally get user security and such, but the T2 chip seems to have made everything so much more complicated. And for what?

 

[dspdoc]

It is this that is a bit hard to swallow. I mean they *knew* about bugs with the T2 chips from the iMac Pro even before they announced the MBP. What was the plan? Hey.. we know we have problems with the iMP, but maybe they won't manifest in the MBP? We knew the T2 chips have problems, but let's go ahead and release the MBP with them anyway and we can deal with it later? Not all machines have issues, so let's just sell them and let the 14-day return policy sort them out? I am just not sure it is a good look from a marketing standpoint, but then again.. they are the ones with the Trillion dollar company. So what do I know huh? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Yes!!
[doublepost=1534608115][/doublepost]

I mean, if we were to speculate, you have sort of nailed it.

I installed the Mojave beta, and while it is working great with zero issues in all of my daily use, I’m scared to death to try and go back to High Sierra. I have not read one post or article where someone was able to boot to internet recovery, wipe the ssd and then re-install High Sierra. If I still had my 2016 or 2017 this would be a non-issue.

None of the Apple support articles mention turning off the “secure boot” in recovery mode. That is something I have learned from here. I totally get user security and such, but the T2 chip seems to have made everything so much more complicated. And for what?

And yes!

 

[ricky1989]

I don’t blame you for not wanting to install the beta on your iMP, which is why I had suggested the MbP. The only possible solution (if you can even call it that) is to toss Mojave on an external drive and see if that helps.

I’ve been a dev for a long time now, and unless there is something obvious, the devs and engineers have to track down the problem and figure out a solution. It’s not as simple as “fix it”. When you are writing an app, backend for a website, etc, where one change can have multiple repercussions across the board.

It’s super easy for the end user to freak out and scream “fix this now”, because we have no idea what is behind the curtain. Thousands of lines of code are running that one chip alone. It takes time. And for those that say “Apple (or whatever company) didn’t test this or that before launch”...well, that’s just hyperbole. Companies are in business to make money. Period. And pissing off customers doesn’t help with that.

If you can’t (or won’t) wait it out then your only option is to use a different solution. The surface studio is an interesting iMac alternative. I’ve seen them at multiple tech companies here in Seattle.

These days even if it is a major release, I would wait and see if there might be any potential crashes happens with the release. Apple's software used to be "it just works", now it became "see if it might work". This is significantly make a dent on the level of confidence long time Apple users/ Fanboys are used to. It hurts to see MacOS being rendered to the level of reliability of Windows (though, I believe Mac still has an edge over Windows).
I do hope the management class do see the need in putting back a complete MacOS team to make the product reliable and great again.

 

[dspdoc]

These days even if it is a major release, I would wait and see if there might be any potential crashes happens with the release. Apple's software used to be "it just works", now it became "see if it might work". This is significantly make a dent on the level of confidence long time Apple users/ Fanboys are used to. It hurts to see MacOS being rendered to the level of reliability of Windows (though, I believe Mac still has an edge over Windows).
I do hope the management class do see the need in putting back a complete MacOS team to make the product reliable and great again.

The problem with this is as @SDColorado said, they knew about T2 chip issues from 2017 and the iMac Pro. You don't take that knowledge and then go ahead and release the same exact crap in a new MBP with no fix. That is just throwing $h1t at the wall and praying it WON'T stick!

I agree, they need dedicated engineers for just macOS and the Mac...

And you hit on a point there, that Mac vs PC is now starting to become a lesser of two evils scenario, and I NEVER thought I would see the day.

 

[SDColorado]

I mean, if we were to speculate, you have sort of nailed it.

I installed the Mojave beta, and while it is working great with zero issues in all of my daily use, I’m scared to death to try and go back to High Sierra. I have not read one post or article where someone was able to boot to internet recovery, wipe the ssd and then re-install High Sierra. If I still had my 2016 or 2017 this would be a non-issue.

None of the Apple support articles mention turning off the “secure boot” in recovery mode. That is something I have learned from here. I totally get user security and such, but the T2 chip seems to have made everything so much more complicated. And for what?

Well, I have a replacement MBP on the way, arriving Monday, and have until the 28th to ship the current one back. They said they could extend that period if I needed. So, I could maybe try it and report back the result.

The T2 chip is a little funny when you consider Apple is also the company that had an 18th month old security bug and then later some sort of password bug where if you typed anything at all in as a "password hint" it would instead display your actual password, rather than the hint. Now they are ultra worried about security, even if they have to force it with a flawed chip?

 

[dspdoc]

Well, I have a replacement MBP on the way, arriving Monday, and have until the 28th to ship the current one back. They said they could extend that period if I needed. So, I could maybe try it and report back the result.

The T2 chip is a little funny when you consider Apple is also the company that had an 18th month old security bug and then later some sort of password bug where if you typed anything at all in as a "password hint" it would instead display your actual password, rather than the hint. Now they are ultra worried about security, even if they have to force it with a flawed chip?

Bingo! They are now overcompensating in one area and making things worse in the process.

I think it is a combination of that and the fact that they are trying to be sneaky about their transition to mold macOS and iOS tightly together. And also to drop Intel, opting for their own A 'whatever' chips. The T2 chip is the writing on the wall. They aren't fooling anyone