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

My Mini was panicking over all kinds of things, including TB/USB power, watchdog on CPU utilization, etc. I sent it in and as far as I can tell they replaced the logic board. I do think it was hardware related, though I did have additional software problems that have been well documented here.

Question: When I get my Mini (2018) back from service, is it possible to do a full Big Sur installation (Catalina 10.15.6 -> Big Sur beta) on the internal hard drive, then re-install Catalina 10.15.6 by reformatting the internal HD and restoring the last good Catalina TM backup?

I ask because I see a lot of folks installing on external USB drives and specifically avoiding internal drive installation.
 
Apple seems to have changed some code in the APFS filesystem implementation with Big Sur, which seems not fully compatible with Mojave and Catalina. Hence the safe route is to install externally. On my Macbook Pro with Mojave, Disk Utility crashed constantly when I tried to select the external Big Sur partition. I can't remember how I solved this but eventually, maybe after rebooting or from the command line, I was able to reformat the partition. Hence, I would not install the Beta on the internal drive unless you really know what you are doing and how to fix things.
 
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TomM1 said:
So is the consensus that upgrading to Catalina from Mojave fixes this Safari sleep crash thing?
Click to expand...
So about two weeks ago I upgraded from Mojave to Catalina.
(I always upgrade to the latest OS at the end of its cycle)
I immediately went back to Safari from Chrome.
Till yet, I have had no sleep crashes.
 
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TomM1 said:
So about two weeks ago I upgraded from Mojave to Catalina.
(I always upgrade to the latest OS at the end of its cycle)
I immediately went back to Safari from Chrome.
Till yet, I have had no sleep crashes.
Click to expand...
Did the same. Gave in and updated to Catalina. Now no issues with crash on restart, sleep, or with one of my USB-C ports not working. Didn’t want to move from Mojave, but Apple wins.
 
Now for the second time I had the problem that my mini has no monitor signal after waking up. This is with the Big Sur T2 firmware on Mojave. So the problems are still not completely fixed.
 
Did RMA on my OWC 64 gigs ram. Apple diagnostics couldn't detect ram failure but when I made a bootable Memtest86, it crashed within 10 minutes of the stress test. HOPING THIS WAS IT! Also annoyed at the hoops you have to jump to be able to boot from external.
 
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I got my Mini 2018 back from repair day before yesterday. They replaced the logic board. I rebuilt everything I had before (Time Machine took forever!!) by first installing a cumulative update to 10.15.6 (included supplemental update) then used Migrate to bring my apps and files back.

I threw everything at it. VMWare - three different VMs open, etc. It's been solid as a rock. Sleeping overnight. Backing up Time Machine. 80 something tabs open on Safari and probably 20 on Firefox.

I'm thinking all of my panic problems stemmed from something on the logic board. Could be power supply or really anything.

I'll report back if I have any issues, but many of you may have hardware problems in addition to some of the buggy software that has been delivered lately.
 
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crazeazn said:
Did RMA on my OWC 64 gigs ram. Apple diagnostics couldn't detect ram failure but when I made a bootable Memtest86, it crashed within 10 minutes of the stress test. HOPING THIS WAS IT! Also annoyed at the hoops you have to jump to be able to boot from external.
Click to expand...

2 days of it being on the entire time and no crashes. If you have aftermarket ram and you have the time, give memtest86 a whirl y'all.
 
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TETENAL said:
Now for the second time I had the problem that my mini has no monitor signal after waking up. This is with the Big Sur T2 firmware on Mojave. So the problems are still not completely fixed.
Click to expand...
Do you mean it never wakes up or just takes longer than normal?

I haven't done the Big Sur external update yet but did do the Catalina. Sleep + Safari gives me the Bridge OS crash message and it does take a while to wake up after sleep. If I don't use Safari, I don't get the crash but it still takes a while to wake up where my monitor is black for a while.
 
Another question...do you find at all that the mini runs hotter with the Big Sur T2 update than before updating or any other changes?
 
I can confirm that this fix worked for me on a new 6 core i5 I purchased from Costco a few weeks ago. I have to stick with Mojave because my Apogee Thunderbridge Audio Interface doesn't work past this OS. So I downgraded the machine from the installed OS Catalina to Mojave, then encountered this problem.

The machine was panicking and restarting on sleep as described and it hasn't had this problem since I installed Big Sur onto an external drive and booted up the computer using this, which upgraded the T2 firmware to 18P50358b. Still discovering new issues (USB hub interfering with bluetooth mouse) but at least this problem is solved. Thanks for the work that went into diagnosing and fixing this!
 
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macamedia said:
Another question...do you find at all that the mini runs hotter with the Big Sur T2 update than before updating or any other changes?
Click to expand...
I noticed my mini runs very hot. But it has been summer, so I had been attributing the temperature to the season.
 
TETENAL said:
It wakes up, but the display stays black. Unplugging/plugging-in the HDMI-plug doesn't help.
Click to expand...
This started when doing the Big Sur T2 update? Is it an older monitor by chance, where maybe now the updates have changed compatibility? I'm just wondering if it has created issues with Mojave since it's an update that really belonged to Big Sur.
 
TETENAL said:
I noticed my mini runs very hot. But it has been summer, so I had been attributing the temperature to the season.
Click to expand...
Mine has too a bit, but then again it is summer, but seems a little hotter than before. As long as the updates aren't forcing the computer to run above what it was supposed to have been from original Mojave-based specs? Just tossing that out there.
 
mindaz said:
Hi all,
another (hopefully) former victim of Security Update 2020-002 here. I was struggling with frequent crashes during sleep since the end of March (Mac mini 2018 with Mojave 10.14.6), ended with Amphetamine set to indefinite awake session. Two days ago I tried the Big Sur route. Signed up to the Apple beta software program, downloaded Big Sur public beta (12GB), installed it on my external USB drive and then put it back to the drawer. During the system installation T2 firmware was upgraded from 17P6065 to 18P50347c and Boot ROM version from 1037.147.1.0.0 (iBridge 17.16.16065.0.0,0) to 1554.0.0.141.1 (iBridge: 18.16.10347.5.3,0).
Anyway, after booting back from Mojave, it's been two days of fine sleep without any problem now. It looks to me that it also resolved two additional annoying issues I had:
1/ my Wacom tablet was unusable for about 10 seconds after every wake-up (frozen pointer), and
2/ I had frequent spontaneous wake-ups of the computer during the sleep (even with Power Nap, Wake for network access, Find My Mac and other suspected processes turned off).
Now both issues seems to be gone as well. Let's hope that my long-term report will remain unchanged.

Many thanks to all trying to solve this frustrating problem and especially for the Big Sur beta tip!
Click to expand...

Hi all,
just confirming my previous post #230 – I'm now working for about four weeks on Mac mini 2018 with Mojave (after the Big Sur beta installation trick), mini finally works and sleeps without glitch all the time. Both Wacom's and spontaneous wake-up glitches are gone too. The only downside is somewhat sluggish startup (computer power-on or restart now takes several seconds longer than in the past), but that's fine, as I'm not shutting down/restarting my mini often.
 
Thanks for the month update. Does it feel any hotter or any other changes from what normally was associated with Mojave/Mini before the BigSur update?
 
macamedia said:
Thanks for the month update. Does it feel any hotter or any other changes from what normally was associated with Mojave/Mini before the BigSur update?
Click to expand...
No problems with temps here at all, stays the same. My mini (i7) runs cool from the first day, mostly idling (5–10 % CPU) at 40–45 °C (around 110 °F) , just rarely jumping to 90 °C during some intensive work (= graphic filters using all cores) and then immediately cooling down again. But I have disabled TurboBoost on it permanently (using TB Switcher) from the start.
 
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macamedia said:
This started when doing the Big Sur T2 update?
Click to expand...
Yes, this started with the Big Sur T2 update. Before that the mini was crashing when going to sleep.
Is it an older monitor by chance, where maybe now the updates have changed compatibility?
Click to expand...
It's a 20" Cinema Display connected via Apple's HDMI/DVI-adapter. The mini woke up without video signal twice now, but usually it appears to work.
 
TETENAL said:
Yes, this started with the Big Sur T2 update. Before that the mini was crashing when going to sleep.

It's a 20" Cinema Display connected via Apple's HDMI/DVI-adapter. The mini woke up without video signal twice now, but usually it appears to work.
Click to expand...
Well I'm glad I asked... I have a 30" Cinema Display connected via the Mini display port (to the TB2 port in my external enclosure). It has worked flawlessly with the Mini before and after the Catalina T2 update, but I did notice it takes a lot longer to wake from sleep. It used to be instantaneous waking. So am being cautious since the firmware can't be reversed and I don't want to do irreparable harm, so observing the comments before I do the Big Sur. I still like and want to use that monitor.
 
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Update: I now plugged the Apple Cinema Display monitor into the computer (via the UpTab usb-c adapter) instead of into my external 4-bay hard drive enclosure and now it wakes right up. Previously the monitor stayed black quite a long time after waking from sleep when it was connected to the enclosure.
 
Just upgraded to Big Sur Beta 6. (in order to do the known firmware fix) Anyone else experiencing problems with booting? My Mini seems to stay in a bootloop (with black screen) for quite a while before fully booting into Mojave or Big Sur..
 
After the Big Sur Beta 7 upgrade (currently only available in the developers' channel), the long delay between the press of the power button and the actual boot is gone. Mojave desktop appears in less than 30s after the press now. Was about 60s before while the last installation was Big Sur Beta 5.
T2 firmware is 18P50380a after the update.
 
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