Touchbar on Macbook pro 16" crashes when it tries to open

Question

I have the Macbook pro 16", which has a physical escape key now, and macOS Catalina 10.15.2. That means that there is less space on the actual touchbar. Even after configuring the touchbar "exension" preference to only have a few items, I'm always shown the same 4 options on the right, and the Configure in: Extension Preferences on the left.

If I press the < on the touchbar to expand the available options, you can see the animation expand to being too big for the bar (very quickly) and then it blanks out. Leaving you with nothing on the right side, but still the Configure in: Extension Preferences on the left.

To get the four defaults back, I have to press the Extension Preferences button and then exit out of the preferences.

Is there a way to tell what process is crashing or debug this?

Answer 1

As a work-around, under System Preferences -> Keyboard, I found the option that displays Touch Bar shows and gives the following options:

If you select "Expanded control strip" you are greeted with your familiar options