macOS Catalina 10.15.2 freezes/crashes MBA every single day – am I alone?

[s54]

I've been getting 'panic' crashes daily since updating to 10.15.1. Upgrading to 10.15.2 fixed nothing.

Apple seriously dropped the ball with Catalina. It's trash. It also made my MacBook much slower in all aspects. Granted, my MacBook isn't the latest and greatest, but it's no slouch either:

MacBook (Retina, 12-inch, 2017)
1.4 GHz Dual-Core Intel Core i7
16 GB 1867 MHz LPDDR3
256GB SSD

 

[xnsys]

Another morning waking up to this...What the hell is BAD MAGIC - have Penn and Teller taken over apple??

 

[hwojtek]

Same thing here. Yes, isolated to the MBA (early 2014) being unable to reconnect to a SMB share on wake (and yes, I also use Automounter). First I get "Share not available, ignore/disconnect?" dialog and then Finder freezes. Eventually the computer crashes on reboot.
I'd love to send Craig my logs, what's the email again? (also please @anthonymoody please make him aware the problem is widespread - I got this on two of my Airs and while they both run Catalina - 15.2 - they have different configurations and connect to different shares).

 

[xnsys]

I've found the fix until apple to sort it is to kill the sharingd process using "sudo killall sharingd" command in the terminal - amazingly all my shares are mountable again.

I've not been able to try this when the finder crashes bringing the system down as this hasn't happened for a while, coincidental to me running this command every day I don't know.

Still have the sluggish graphics problem though when waking, and more noticeable if you have Safari open in Favourites, and then open up a folder on the dock, say applications - it's not as smooth as if you close Safari....and sometimes after waking it will be almost as though it's performing at 5fps.

 

[xnsys]

For reference - I've had the feedback open with Apple since 12th November 2019 - reference FB7441821...

Recent Similar Reports: None
Resolution: Open

 

[Lihto]

Same here.. iMac 2017. This Catalina is terrible, in rang of windows Vista.. usually I upgrade when 10.X.1 is out but in this case I should upgrade when it was 10.X.5... 10.15.1 had stupid bug that disco my airpods 2 every 10min.. on random xD 10.15.2 fixed kind of and prolong it every 1h xD. But crashes omg... finder freezes, apps freezes, network freezes, music(itunes) too. Got first kernel panic ever, clicked on report and nothing happens xD hope 10.15.3 come soon and fix this mess..

 

[random-uk]

Just to add another data point - I'm seeing exactly the same behaviour on 10.15.2. I too, agree it's to do with Apple's implementation of SMB. I've compiled the most recent Samba (4.11.4) and that "solves" the problem. When connecting to a *real* Samba share, I can put Macs to sleep, wake, all the normal things with zero problems.

The downside is, there are some outstanding bugs with Samba when you compile it on macOS. You have to hand patch a couple of the files and the Samba make process has multiple outstanding tickets in the Samba bug tracker. So this isn't really a great solution but a holding pattern till hopefully Apple resolves this.

 

[xnsys]

I couldn't find how to tell what version of Samba is included with macOS 10.15.2 - I did have a scout about but couldn't find a terminal command to report it.

 

[sunef]

I have been having problems with Finder freezing and more problems when force quitting Finder.
It seems to have something to do with smb file sharing with my Synology NAS. Sometimes the folder "Home" on the NAS appeared on the Desktop without any action from me.

The Finder preferences file "~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist" was large, 60 - 70 kb.
I deleted this file and restarted the finder (sudo killall Finder) and a new preferences file was created with a size of 8 kb after a day.

I have not had any problems since this "fix".

PS
Please save the file on the desktop before deleting it and reboot the system so that it is possible to revert the change.
--
Folllowup
A day later I'm having problems with Firefox which is marked as active but will not start. Force quit makes it inactive but the system is later unwilling to reboot, just freezing. 'sudo shutdown -h now' in a terminal windows also hangs. Pressing the power button a couple of seconds finally shuts down the system.

We will have to wait for a real solution from Apple in 10.15.3 ...

 

[VSG]

I have been having problems with Finder freezing and more problems when force quitting Finder.
It seems to have something to do with smb file sharing with my Synology NAS. Sometimes the folder "Home" on the NAS appeared on the Desktop without any action from me.

The Finder preferences file "~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist" was large, 60 - 70 kb.
I deleted this file and restarted the finder (sudo killall Finder) and a new preferences file was created with a size of 8 kb after a day.

I have not had any problems since this "fix".

PS
Please save the file on the desktop before deleting it and reboot the system so that it is possible to revert the change.

Thanks for your tip, unfortunately it didn't do the trick for me. Today the MBA froze again when reconnecting to my NAS after wake up. Back to cutting Wifi before putting it to sleep it is, then.

 

[Lihto]

Tried that and tried to set SMB on synology minimum protocol SMB2 and large MTU.. same ****.. just finder stuck or steam gets stuck, I can move mouse open safari or photoshop and cant restart...

 

[xnsys]

I've tried all the settings with the protocol Min SMB1,2,3 - Max SMB 1,2,3 - every combination you could imagine - even going back to AFP - nothing works apart from not using network shares.

This is one that's down to Apple to fix I'm afraid, and we just have to be patient for them to do so.

 

[hwojtek]

I am investigating the sleep scripts that would unmount the shares just before the computer goes to sleep and their wake counterparts to re-mount. So far I'm considering Jettison or SleepWatcher with some additional scripts.
Jettison seems easier but is a paid app, Sleepwatcher is free (since one needs to put some more effort).

Both not remedies, but perhaps some short-term solutions.

 

[xnsys]

I've contemplated doing something similar - but I decided not to as by the time I've managed to get something sorted, hopefully Apple would have resolved this..

 

[random-uk]

You could just use some AppleScript:

tell application "Finder"
eject (every disk whose name is "name_of_your_network_mount")
end tell

and for mounting:

try
mount volume "smb://your_username@your_computername/your_mount_name"
end try

 

[xnsys]

The main concern I have doing this is with open files, they will corrupt or just not save, potentially work could be lost.

 

[hwojtek]

You could just use some AppleScript:
(...)

This has to work automatically on lid close/open, though.

 

[MrDoh]

Curious if anyone's tried the Catalina 10.15.3 Public Beta to see if that fixes these problems? You never know...I'm tempted, could always go back to Mojave again if it doesn't. Or maybe just wait for the final release of 10.15.3.

 

[VSG]

Curious if anyone's tried the Catalina 10.15.3 Public Beta to see if that fixes these problems? You never know...I'm tempted, could always go back to Mojave again if it doesn't. Or maybe just wait for the final release of 10.15.3.

That’s the point: The risk. I, too, was tempted, but given the state of Apple’s software at the moment (my iPad Air 2 is still horrendously slow with the last official iOS 13, not to mention those who updated their AirPods Pro and now regret it), I could as well end up with a completely broken MBA. Since its my productive machine, that risk is just a little too high.

 

[haralds]

In my case crash reports pointed to the disk driver. But it turned out to be DropBox!
Disabling it stopped my nightly crashes. Haven't has one for 4-5 days.

 

[xnsys]

That’s the point: The risk. I, too, was tempted, but given the state of Apple’s software at the moment (my iPad Air 2 is still horrendously slow with the last official iOS 13, not to mention those who updated their AirPods Pro and now regret it), I could as well end up with a completely broken MBA. Since its my productive machine, that risk is just a little too high.

Can’t be any worse than the beta we have at the moment...

 

[lollogg]

never happen and use a so bad osx since the first osx.... my mpb 13 2019 crash every day.
impossible to use in this way... i want go back to mojave...

 

[SilverfoxDE]

Hi,
i have installed the Beta 10.15.3 because the known problem. But the beta does not bring the desired solution.
I am also frustrated and i hope, Apple will fix this problem ASAP!

My Setting: MBP 13" 2018 with T2 Chip

The SMB Folder is on Windows Server 2016 and also Synology NAS 916+. The problem does not come from these devices.

Greetings from Germany.
[automerge]1579350528[/automerge]
Addendum: Before installing the beta, I had tried to reinstall MacOS (preserving all programs and data). That did not work either.

 

[dndlnx]

Catalina is so bad on my late 2013 MBP Retina and 10.15.2 hasn't helped much. I'm trying to hold out as long as possible before going back to Mojave.

Booting takes longer than ever. OS runs like garbage, even simple necessities like Safari and Mail are painful to use. Waking from sleep causes hangups. My battery stopped charging after the upgrade and resetting the basic stuff they tell you to does zip.

 

[xnsys]

Well, my laptop is back after a week with Apple having a new keyboard and screen (dust in it from factory) - so have been forced to use a windows machine for the past 5-7 days...no crashes, no lost work and it just worked - have had the Mac back since 9AM this morning, it went to sleep and now I can't save a spreadsheet that I've been working on...4 hours is all it took...

Sad when you have the evidence that a Windows 10 machine is more reliable than macOS 10.15.2...