Catalina Freezing

[cfinelli12]

Hey everyone, I’ve never seen quite a problem like the one I’m experiencing right now and would love to hear any thoughts on what the cause may be.

We have a user who reported kernel panicking on a brand new out-of-the-box 2019 13” MacBook Pro. We gave her a brand new one and sent the other back for repair.

About a week later, she reported more kernel panicking on the brand new one we just gave her. We felt at this point it was something she was installing/using. We provisioned her ANOTHER brand new machine but this time pre-installed ALL the necessary software and updated it to 10.15.3 (from 10.15.2) before giving it to her. A week later, more kernel panics were reported, on her THIRD machine.

At this point I’m stumped. Nothing was EVER plugged in to the machine except for the charger and it only was used for 1-2 days because she was traveling. Additionally, we received a few similar reports of this freezing from other Catalina users with out-of-the-box brand new 2019 16” MBPs and other 2019 13” MBPs.

What could be causing this issue? Catalina? I know this isn’t Apple’s best OS, but these users are experiencing 3-4 freezes/shutdowns PER DAY. We also tried updating CarbonBlack security with no luck. Thanks in advance

 

[ApfelKuchen]

Do you know how to analyze logs? Open Console and see what they have to tell you.

Is it "freezing" (becomes non-responsive and requires a manual restart) or kernel panics (system spontaneously shuts down/restarts, dialog box afterwards: "your computer shut down because of a problem")? Your post's headline says one thing, the description says something else.

Considering the age of the machines, it's not likely to be hardware-related kernel panics. Considering you're having multiple users with similar issues, chances are it's going to be something in your organization's software/services environment. Reviewing the logs will help point you in the right direction.

 

[cfinelli12]

Do you know how to analyze logs? Open Console and see what they have to tell you.

Is it "freezing" (becomes non-responsive and requires a manual restart) or kernel panics (system spontaneously shuts down/restarts, dialog box afterwards: "your computer shut down because of a problem")? Your post's headline says one thing, the description says something else.

Considering the age of the machines, it's not likely to be hardware-related kernel panics. Considering you're having multiple users with similar issues, chances are it's going to be something in your organization's software/services environment. Reviewing the logs will help point you in the right direction.

Thanks for your reply! No kernel panics, apologies for the confusion. The crash logs are empty. Just freezing & having to force restart.


Are there logs that I could view to point me in the right direction of the cause?

 

[ApfelKuchen]

System log is the main one... lots of activity to sort through. If you look in the menu bar for Console you'll find an option to filter Errors and Faults. You'll probably find a fair number of items color-coded in yellow. You may want to focus on events in red.

 

[cfinelli12]

UPDATE:

CarbonBlack was the culprit. Although the update for it was pushed out, it didn't actually install on endpoints for additional ~24 hours when they check in. Once machines were updated, no more freezing was reported.

 

[eelpout]

I have a 2015 MBP that has started to freeze as well, no kernel panic, everything just suddenly locks up and I have to hold down the Power key to get it to reboot. Never updated any drive or RAM. Stock.

I'm on 10.15.4. I think it started happening after going to 10.15.3.