Help! Updated to macOS 10.12.4, MBP randomly shuts off

[Hollie]

Hello,

I registered at this forum just to post a thank you for this tip.

Story: replaced the battery in my 6 years old late 2013 15" Macbook Pro Retina with a replacement battery from iFixit. The device is running High Sierra with latest updates. After stress testing the battery to calibrate it (8 terminals with `yes > /dev/null`, display on high brightness) all was looking fine.

That is, unless the next day when I tried to use the laptop for regular work. It was shutting down multiple times at the most inconvenient times, without storing the work I was doing first... Bummer.

I could not believe the device got broken by carefully replacing the battery. After going through the regular SMC + NVRAM resets, and some more advanced troubleshooting trying to find the cause for the halting, luckily I found this thread.

The first workaround with the Python script rang a bell. Remember I had no issues with the device shutting down while running the battery calibration test when the CPUs were being stressed. Sounded quite like the reports from people who told their computer was running fine as long as the CPUs did not throttle down.

Yesterday my device that had been working for the last 6 years without a hickup, was shutting down all the time. After removing the thunderbolt kext as instructed in this thread yesterday evening and recharging the battery to 100%, my laptop has been running without issues again all day.

So: a big thanks to all the people contributing to this thread. Really appreciated very much!

Lieven.

 

[JRD-]

My 2003 MacBook Pro has been shutting down so frequently, have not been able to work with it. I finally found a super quick solution that worked so far for me here as have listed below ...


Disable FireWire & Thunderbolt Networking
This optimization can help free up bandwidth in the firewire bus and allow Digidesign FireWire devices to work more efficiently.

1. Open System Preferences.
2. Click ‘Network’.
3. On the left hand sidebar, click on FireWire/Built-In FireWire/Thunderbolt FireWire/Thunderbolt Bridge (may not be present depending on computer model).
4. Click on the drop-down menu for ‘Configure IPv4’ and choose Off.
5. Click Apply and restart your computer.
   
   
   
   
   

 

[Gokuvsfish]

Hi Everyone,

Wanted to share my thanks for this thread, it’s been keeping me productive for almost a year. However…

I updated my 2014 MacBook Pro to 10.15.2 yesterday, and the terminal trick no longer seems to be working. I’ve tried renaming all of the thunderbolt kexts and my MacBook still shuts down randomly. Not sure if I’m doing something wrong this time or if it’s something new with 10.15.2, but just wanted to share my new issue.

I did decide to go back to Mojave, which was easier since I made a seperate APFS partition just in case. Happily back on 10.14.6 and so far no problems.

Thanks again and good luck!

 

[amnesia106]

Hi Everyone,

Wanted to share my thanks for this thread, it’s been keeping me productive for almost a year. However…

I updated my 2014 MacBook Pro to 10.15.2 yesterday, and the terminal trick no longer seems to be working. I’ve tried renaming all of the thunderbolt kexts and my MacBook still shuts down randomly. Not sure if I’m doing something wrong this time or if it’s something new with 10.15.2, but just wanted to share my new issue.

I did decide to go back to Mojave, which was easier since I made a seperate APFS partition just in case. Happily back on 10.14.6 and so far no problems.

Thanks again and good luck!

Yes same problem here...

 

[amnesia106]

Mac random shutdown on 10.15.2

old thread: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/help-updated-to-macos-10-12-4-mbp-randomly-shuts-off.2039446/page-12 The terminal move workaround isn’t working on 10.15.2 - now we have the same problem after a long time again... crazy sh** It is possible to get down to 10.15.1? €...

forums.macrumors.com

 

[des011]

I'm getting shutdowns again on Catalina 10.15.2 (19C57).
I've successfully used the kext deletion / renaming trick for over a year last successful on 10.15.1.

Can people please report in, as I assume I'm not alone here.

 

[MWJ]

I was having the same issues with random shutdowns and the thunderbolt trick worked until 15.2. I downgraded to Mojave and the disabling of the thunderbolt no longer worked. After nearly a month with this problem and countless calls to support, Apple replaced my logic board and both of my speakers...I wasn't aware of a problem with the speakers though. I just received my fixed MacBook Pro 15 inch 2014. Im typing this response on it now, and thus far...no shutdowns. This is a hardware issue folks. Renaming/disabling the thunderbolt essentially is delaying inevitable hardware failure. It's a faulty capacitor on the circuit going to the AMD chip on the logic board. Apple did replace both parts for me free of charge(speakers and logic board)...I am grateful for how they responded. However, I'm not certain that the actual defect was addressed. There are known issues with the logic boards manufactured in several MacBook Pro models sold from 2012-2014. My advice is to speak to support...be calm and courteous....they may remedy your problem without cost even though you're far past warranty; at this point, you have nothing to lose.

 

[psychodalien]

Did anyone check if the same problem exists in Bootcamp?

 

[MWJ]

Bootcamp did seem to work fine, but windows uses different driver protocols then does Mac OS. As I shared in my previous post, this is very likely a hardware issue.

 

[psychodalien]

Bootcamp did seem to work fine, but windows uses different driver protocols then does Mac OS. As I shared in my previous post, this is very likely a hardware issue.

So if it's a hardware issue then it should also be present in Windows, isn't it?

 

[des011]

I'm getting shutdowns again on Catalina 10.15.2 (19C57).
I've successfully used the kext deletion / renaming trick for over a year last successful on 10.15.1.

Can people please report in, as I assume I'm not alone here.

Ok seems the python script is still working fine as an alternative on Catalina 10.15.2 (19C57), I never used this approach before, prefered the kext trick instead.
But now I'm using the python script and this method with automator here (page is sometimes slow to load)

 

[eagletg]

Hi Everyone,

This thread has been amazingly helpful in keeping my MacBook Pro 2013 happy. Thanks to all that have contributed up until this point.

Things have been great until the latest Catalina update was applied, 10.15.2 (as indicated above). The problem has returned. Basically, I noticed it most when utilizing Google Chrome, the screen would go black (but was still powered-on/lit), sometimes fans would spin up, after 30 or so seconds, the machine would hard power down. Nothing indicated in any of the system logs/console.

I found information on Reddit regarding removing/renaming the IOThunderboltFamily.kext in addition to AppleThunderboltNHI.kext, but that did not seem to correct the issue for me.

I decided to try the nuclear option and rename everything containing "Thunderbolt" in the /System/Library/Extensions folder.

So far, this seems to have helped. I've been up and running on this machine far longer than I've been previously since installing 10.15.2.

Here's what my /System/Library/Extensions folder looks like now:
Extensions$ ls -ld *Thunderbolt*
drwxr-xr-x@ 3 root wheel 96 Sep 26 00:03 AppleThunderboltDPAdapters_kext.bak
drwxr-xr-x@ 3 root wheel 96 Sep 26 00:10 AppleThunderboltEDMService_kext.bak
drwxr-xr-x@ 3 root wheel 96 Sep 26 00:01 AppleThunderboltIP_kext.bak
drwxr-xr-x@ 3 root wheel 96 Sep 25 23:54 AppleThunderboltNHI_kext.bak
drwxr-xr-x@ 3 root wheel 96 Sep 25 23:58 AppleThunderboltPCIAdapters_kext.bak
drwxr-xr-x@ 3 root wheel 96 Sep 26 00:11 AppleThunderboltUTDM_kext.bak
drwxr-xr-x@ 3 root wheel 96 Aug 24 19:10 IOThunderboltFamily_kext.bak

Naturally, this is probably overkill. If I get some time, I may try to narrow down (likely via trial and error) which exact KEXT is now causing the issue in 10.15.2. For now, it's working for me and seemingly hasn't disabled anything "important" that I've noticed yet. Time will tell.

Edit: Six hours later, not a single crash. Been using the machine basically all day.

 

[MWJ]

So if it's a hardware issue then it should also be present in Windows, isn't it?

No...not necessarily, Windows drivers adhere to different protocol and the hardware defect may not be triggered.

 

[Антон Джига]

Hi Everyone,

This thread has been amazingly helpful in keeping my MacBook Pro 2013 happy. Thanks to all that have contributed up until this point.

Things have been great until the latest Catalina update was applied, 10.15.2 (as indicated above). The problem has returned. Basically, I noticed it most when utilizing Google Chrome, the screen would go black (but was still powered-on/lit), sometimes fans would spin up, after 30 or so seconds, the machine would hard power down. Nothing indicated in any of the system logs/console.

I found information on Reddit regarding removing/renaming the IOThunderboltFamily.kext in addition to AppleThunderboltNHI.kext, but that did not seem to correct the issue for me.

I decided to try the nuclear option and rename everything containing "Thunderbolt" in the /System/Library/Extensions folder.

So far, this seems to have helped. I've been up and running on this machine far longer than I've been previously since installing 10.15.2.

Here's what my /System/Library/Extensions folder looks like now:
Extensions$ ls -ld *Thunderbolt*
drwxr-xr-x@ 3 root wheel 96 Sep 26 00:03 AppleThunderboltDPAdapters_kext.bak
drwxr-xr-x@ 3 root wheel 96 Sep 26 00:10 AppleThunderboltEDMService_kext.bak
drwxr-xr-x@ 3 root wheel 96 Sep 26 00:01 AppleThunderboltIP_kext.bak
drwxr-xr-x@ 3 root wheel 96 Sep 25 23:54 AppleThunderboltNHI_kext.bak
drwxr-xr-x@ 3 root wheel 96 Sep 25 23:58 AppleThunderboltPCIAdapters_kext.bak
drwxr-xr-x@ 3 root wheel 96 Sep 26 00:11 AppleThunderboltUTDM_kext.bak
drwxr-xr-x@ 3 root wheel 96 Aug 24 19:10 IOThunderboltFamily_kext.bak

Naturally, this is probably overkill. If I get some time, I may try to narrow down (likely via trial and error) which exact KEXT is now causing the issue in 10.15.2. For now, it's working for me and seemingly hasn't disabled anything "important" that I've noticed yet. Time will tell.

Edit: Six hours later, not a single crash. Been using the machine basically all day.

Thanks for this solution! Stuck into the same problem with 10.15.2 update. Disabling all Thundebolt extensions helped in my case (Macbook pro 2014). Did you have a chance to figure out which Thunderbolt component causing the error?

 

[maciek1422]

I was having the same issues with random shutdowns and the thunderbolt trick worked until 15.2. I downgraded to Mojave and the disabling of the thunderbolt no longer worked. After nearly a month with this problem and countless calls to support, Apple replaced my logic board and both of my speakers...I wasn't aware of a problem with the speakers though. I just received my fixed MacBook Pro 15 inch 2014. Im typing this response on it now, and thus far...no shutdowns. This is a hardware issue folks. Renaming/disabling the thunderbolt essentially is delaying inevitable hardware failure. It's a faulty capacitor on the circuit going to the AMD chip on the logic board. Apple did replace both parts for me free of charge(speakers and logic board)...I am grateful for how they responded. However, I'm not certain that the actual defect was addressed. There are known issues with the logic boards manufactured in several MacBook Pro models sold from 2012-2014. My advice is to speak to support...be calm and courteous....they may remedy your problem without cost even though you're far past warranty; at this point, you have nothing to lose.

You were speaking or texting with support? You have official Apple Stores in your country? I have tried many times to get it repair, but they don't fix it. I have Late 2013, so I have it for 5,5 years I think, it's probably too long to get support. But maybe I will try again. It's still a nice laptop, but still having python script running is annoying...

 

[IMPie]

Hey guys,
I just wanted to post here to say thank you to everybody who contributed working out this issue and to share my story.

I own a late 2013 MBP (it was top of the line when I bought it, custom fit with all the best stuff available inside). I started experiencing the shutdowns a few weeks ago in Mojave, so I updated to Catalina (10.15.3) hoping it would fix it. No luck. So I cleaned the fans but still no luck. I installed a fan/temperature monitoring tool and a tool to force-choose which graphic card to use. When I had shutdowns, the temperature was always low and it did not matter which graphic card I was using.

So I brought it to Apple, they run some test. They said it failed some test, but after a good clean (they said it was completely full of dust), it passed the tests so they just gave it back saying it was fixed as it was an overheating problem (only had the battery to replace). Thankfully, all of this free of charge. Unfortunately I know it could not be an overheating problem as I run temperature test on the sensors... but still I felt optimistic. It run fine for a day, but the next day after some use... it started shutting down again.

So I did a new google search and finally found this thread. I tried the python script first and it seemed to work, but I wanted a better fix so I renamed the .kext file (not easy in Catalina: you need to do it in recovery mode, I followed this thread).

This was yesterday in the afternoon. Have been using it quite a bit since and NO SHUTDOWNS! I hope I'm not celebrating early, but I'll let you know if that will be the case.

So once again thanks to everybody who experimented with this issue so I didn't have to clean install or do other annoying and time-wasting stuff!

On a side note I am wondering... what if I had my logic board replaced (as the Genius Bar suggested initially)? Would it be fixed? Is this a hardware or software issue? Maybe a hardware/software incompatibility issue?

 

[Антон Джига]

Hey guys,
I just wanted to post here to say thank you to everybody who contributed working out this issue and to share my story.

I own a late 2013 MBP (it was top of the line when I bought it, custom fit with all the best stuff available inside). I started experiencing the shutdowns a few weeks ago in Mojave, so I updated to Catalina (10.15.3) hoping it would fix it. No luck. So I cleaned the fans but still no luck. I installed a fan/temperature monitoring tool and a tool to force-choose which graphic card to use. When I had shutdowns, the temperature was always low and it did not matter which graphic card I was using.

So I brought it to Apple, they run some test. They said it failed some test, but after a good clean (they said it was completely full of dust), it passed the tests so they just gave it back saying it was fixed as it was an overheating problem (only had the battery to replace). Thankfully, all of this free of charge. Unfortunately I know it could not be an overheating problem as I run temperature test on the sensors... but still I felt optimistic. It run fine for a day, but the next day after some use... it started shutting down again.

So I did a new google search and finally found this thread. I tried the python script first and it seemed to work, but I wanted a better fix so I renamed the .kext file (not easy in Catalina: you need to do it in recovery mode, I followed this thread).

This was yesterday in the afternoon. Have been using it quite a bit since and NO SHUTDOWNS! I hope I'm not celebrating early, but I'll let you know if that will be the case.

So once again thanks to everybody who experimented with this issue so I didn't have to clean install or do other annoying and time-wasting stuff!

On a side note I am wondering... what if I had my logic board replaced (as the Genius Bar suggested initially)? Would it be fixed? Is this a hardware or software issue? Maybe a hardware/software incompatibility issue?

Hey!

I have the same problem on my Macbook Pro 15" 2014.

In my case after Catalina 10.15.3 update all tricks with .kext file renamings stopped working So I started to use python script and everything is fine now.

I found unofficial service in Russia, they know this common A1398 MacBooks problem and could fix it for 150-200$ even with 6 months warranty. They didn't disclosed fully the fixing procedure to me, as I understand they change defective chips on logic board and it requires some soldering skills. On other forum I've read info that replacing all FDMF6808 chips with FDMF6708 should fix this issue, so I think this is connected.

As for me, I would prefer using python script or other software-level fix, logic board soldering sounds quite risky.

 

[michaelafcadio]

Some updates since upgrading to Catalina (10.15.3) from Mojave:

In Catalina, the root filesystem is mounted read-only, therefore you'll need to remount it read-write prior to moving/renaming the Thunderbolt drivers (e.g. sudo mount -uw /). However, I've found that it's easier and faster to do the renaming from Recovery Mode all in one shot, especially because in Catalina the startup disk is encrypted by default, which makes booting into Recovery slower.

Here are the steps I use for Catalina:

1) reboot into Recovery Mode with CMD+R pressed.

2) open Disk Utility and mount the startup disk (e.g., Macintosh HD) and take note of the mount point (e.g., /Volumes/Macintosh HD). You'll be prompted to enter your password to decrypt the volume in order to mount it.

3) quit Disk Utility and open Terminal from the Utilities menu

4) cd /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/System/Library/Extensions (or wherever the startup disk is mounted as noted in step 2 above)

5) rename the Thunderbolt drivers (I've found that I need to move/rename all of the AppleThunderbolt*.kext to avoid problems. Maybe this is overkill, but it works for me.):
mv AppleThunderboltNHI.kext AppleThunderboltNHI.kext.BAK
mv AppleThunderboltPCIAdapters.kext AppleThunderboltPCIAdapters.kext.BAK
mv AppleThunderboltDPAdapters.kext AppleThunderboltDPAdapters.kext.BAK
mv AppleThunderboltEDMService.kext AppleThunderboltEDMService.kext.BAK
mv AppleThunderboltIP.kext AppleThunderboltIP.kext.BAK
mv AppleThunderboltUTDM.kext AppleThunderboltUTDM.kext.BAK

6) reboot

 

[delboy27]

I was forced to retire my mid-2012 MBP last May due to the shut down even after the kext fix and bought a mid-2019 MBP as replacement.

However, while clearing out the office the other day I thought I'd charge the 2012 MBP up and see if I could salvage anything. Somehow it's now been working for a whole day with no shut down? I'm typing this message on it.

Wonder if there's anything to do with the complete depleting of battery? And I'm curious to find out if it could work on Catalina.

 

[michaelafcadio]

Wonder if there's anything to do with the complete depleting of battery? And I'm curious to find out if it could work on Catalina.

I kind of doubt that. I've drained my mid-2014 MBP Retina plenty of times and even had the battery replaced by Apple and it still locks up without the kext fix or the busy-wait loop to keep the CPU busy. Upgrading to Catalina didn't help for me.

 

[the_adamk]

Some updates since upgrading to Catalina (10.15.3) from Mojave:

In Catalina, the root filesystem is mounted read-only, therefore you'll need to remount it read-write prior to moving/renaming the Thunderbolt drivers (e.g. sudo mount -uw /). However, I've found that it's easier and faster to do the renaming from Recovery Mode all in one shot, especially because in Catalina the startup disk is encrypted by default, which makes booting into Recovery slower.

Here are the steps I use for Catalina:

1) reboot into Recovery Mode with CMD+R pressed.

2) open Disk Utility and mount the startup disk (e.g., Macintosh HD) and take note of the mount point (e.g., /Volumes/Macintosh HD). You'll be prompted to enter your password to decrypt the volume in order to mount it.

3) quit Disk Utility and open Terminal from the Utilities menu

4) cd /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/System/Library/Extensions (or wherever the startup disk is mounted as noted in step 2 above)

5) rename the Thunderbolt drivers (I've found that I need to move/rename all of the AppleThunderbolt*.kext to avoid problems. Maybe this is overkill, but it works for me.):
mv AppleThunderboltNHI.kext AppleThunderboltNHI.kext.BAK
mv AppleThunderboltPCIAdapters.kext AppleThunderboltPCIAdapters.kext.BAK
mv AppleThunderboltDPAdapters.kext AppleThunderboltDPAdapters.kext.BAK
mv AppleThunderboltEDMService.kext AppleThunderboltEDMService.kext.BAK
mv AppleThunderboltIP.kext AppleThunderboltIP.kext.BAK
mv AppleThunderboltUTDM.kext AppleThunderboltUTDM.kext.BAK

6) reboot

Just for the record. I have updated from Mojave to Catalina and my MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Late 2013) started to shut down. Above instructions fixed the issue like before, when I have upgraded from High Sierra to Mojave.

 

[Watchman314]

Some updates since upgrading to Catalina (10.15.3) from Mojave:

In Catalina, the root filesystem is mounted read-only, therefore you'll need to remount it read-write prior to moving/renaming the Thunderbolt drivers (e.g. sudo mount -uw /). However, I've found that it's easier and faster to do the renaming from Recovery Mode all in one shot, especially because in Catalina the startup disk is encrypted by default, which makes booting into Recovery slower.

Here are the steps I use for Catalina:

1) reboot into Recovery Mode with CMD+R pressed.

2) open Disk Utility and mount the startup disk (e.g., Macintosh HD) and take note of the mount point (e.g., /Volumes/Macintosh HD). You'll be prompted to enter your password to decrypt the volume in order to mount it.

3) quit Disk Utility and open Terminal from the Utilities menu

4) cd /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/System/Library/Extensions (or wherever the startup disk is mounted as noted in step 2 above)

5) rename the Thunderbolt drivers (I've found that I need to move/rename all of the AppleThunderbolt*.kext to avoid problems. Maybe this is overkill, but it works for me.):
mv AppleThunderboltNHI.kext AppleThunderboltNHI.kext.BAK
mv AppleThunderboltPCIAdapters.kext AppleThunderboltPCIAdapters.kext.BAK
mv AppleThunderboltDPAdapters.kext AppleThunderboltDPAdapters.kext.BAK
mv AppleThunderboltEDMService.kext AppleThunderboltEDMService.kext.BAK
mv AppleThunderboltIP.kext AppleThunderboltIP.kext.BAK
mv AppleThunderboltUTDM.kext AppleThunderboltUTDM.kext.BAK

6) reboot

I'm a complete novice when it comes to entering code. Could you possibly upload this in the exact way it's supposed to be entered into the Terminal because I keep trying to enter it but mostly all I ever get is "No such file or directory found" or something like that.

 

[the_adamk]

Generally get familiar with ls and mv commands. Change folder by folder and use TAB (which automatically will help you find needed files if present in the directory). Ex:
cd /Vol <TAB> name-of-your-disk <TAB> and so on.

There is no follow-instructions in this case. It depends of the name of your hdd partition (mine was named ssd, so the path was /Volumes/SSD/... ). This is simplest I can do. Good luck!

 

[Watchman314]

I did the fix for Catalina version 10.15.3 as written above, confirmed that each AppleThunderbolt*.kext driver was rewritten as AppleThunderbolt*.kext.BAK and thought the problem was solved. However just a few moments ago the fans spun up to maximum and the computer shut itself off just as it has done so many times before. Does anyone have any idea of what to do now?

 

[Zhengqi Gao]

Hi guys,

I also wanna to say thx for this post and share my stories with everyboy. Hope this might be useful.

In Jan. 2020, My MBP (13-inch, 2016, Mojave) has a issue with respect to the display. After several painful visiting to the Apple Genius Bar, finally I got my MBP repaired. To be more specific, my battery, keyboard, screen has all been replaced. At the first place I was very happy. But several days later, I found that my MBP randomly shutted down.

Then I went to Genius Bar. They run thier hardware check throughly and found nothing wrong. So they just installed Catalina and deleted evreything else... Still, the problem occrued.

Finally, I found this post, and now I am trying the "mv AppleThunderbultNBI.kext" method. I will get back several days later and hope it works. I was just wondering would this radom shut down problem occur due to replacing battery etc. ?