Big sur kernel panics

Question

After updating to macOS 11, aka Big Sur, my Mac has kept crashing every ~2 hours. Here's the kernel panic log from one recent panic Here is another panic log.

I initially thought the issue was related to a Dell DisplayLink docking station I had connected to, but I have uninstalled the driver and I have also experienced crashes without any peripherals attached.

Any help reading and understanding a kernel panic log would be much appreciated.

I should note that the install process of big sur was a bit strange with several reboots and clicking "update" again. Not sure if that means anything.

I'm on a 2017 15" MacBook Pro with touchpad, i7 and intel graphics.

Answer 1

Your panics repeatedly occur in IOAcceleratorFamily, which is the graphics driver. Panics with this specific signature are overwhelmingly the result of a bug in macOS, not anything that you’re doing wrong. Debugging this fully requires Apple internal tools and engineering expertise, not to mention access to the code. You won’t be able to fix this yourself (although you might stumble upon a workaround, such as a full erase-install) because this isn’t the user’s fault.

Your best bet is to file a bug report and provide Apple with detailed information to help reproduce and root-cause your issue. This will include collecting a sysdiagnose immediately after you reboot from a crash ($ sysdiagnose in Terminal or CommandOptionControlShift. from any app). Then you can file the bug via the Apple Developer bug reporter if you have a developer account or through Feedback Assistant if you don’t. If you file a good report, you will either work indirectly with an Apple engineer if this is a novel bug or have your data be added to the pool of existing reports for this same issue. Apple will then work to make a fix and roll it into the earliest software update that it can.

Answer 2

As of 11.3 and 11.3.1 I'm not experiencing many panics on the M1 Macbook air.

previously:

Currently this is a game of whack-a-mole with Big Sur. I've been seeing repeated kernel panics 2 days into 11.2 and the previous 11.1. I've now largely adjusted my workflow to accommodate regular crashing to manage work loss and expect this to remain true for at least several point releases (11.x) given the slow progress--just my guess. Hardware checks reveal no issues and report all good.

As with notable software updates from Apple the past several years this reveals a significant systemic weakness of the company. LinkedIn was recently hiring for head of software and Google Project Zero is revealing related security issues and improvements, so both directly and indirectly seeing that simply adapting to the shortcomings is the norm with Apple products moving forward.

Answer 3

Apple has an excellent guide to starting to resolve or at least narrow what causes panics.

• https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT200553

When a panic is induced by a device injecting bad data, you may have to triage while troubleshooting. Is it a cable, a controller board on a display, a hubs that increases the frequency. Eventually, Apple may patch the system to catch the error condition before it’s acted on by the kernel - but that presumes their engineers analyze the sysdiagnose logs for your specific crash (or one fundamentally similar to yours).