You can make a difference in the Apple Support Community!

When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.

Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

iMac Retina 5K Keeps restarting after update to Monterey

Since I updatred to Monterey, my iMac has been restarting every 20mins (literally, i've timed it 16 times now).


I've tried running maintenance scripts from cleanmymac and deleted software that is no longer supported by monterey but nothing has changed.


Also I'm seeing a new message about 'the hard drive attached cannot be read' But i have nothing connected.


Its super frustrating and making it impossible to work as it just restarts on its own.

Posted on Jan 22, 2022 11:07 AM

Reply
14 replies

Jan 22, 2022 3:26 PM in response to IEmber

Let's start with the EtreCheck report results, and then, we can move onto some troubleshooting steps you can take to try to resolve this.


Ok, based on the report, here are some observations/suggestions:

  • Completely remove CleanMyMac. Third-party system "cleaners" are not required and cause more issues than resolves them ... regardless of the app's marketing hype. There is a chance that using this app may have gotten you into this predicament.
  • Without "Full Drive Access" the report will be limited, but we can still work with it. I suggest that you consider running it again with full access to make sure nothing else "pops" up.
  • Just to double-check, is your Mac's system drive the original drive that came with it or is it a replacement? Regardless, TRIM is not enabled, and should be for better performance.
  • Configuration Files - The count should be zero. Anything else would indicate some program or process modified your Mac's hosts file. This potentially could have been done by malware/adware. Scanning your Mac with an app, like Malwarebytes for Mac, should detect and remove any present. Ref: Fixing a hacked /etc/hosts file - etresoft ASC
  • uTorrent Web - Not trying to be judging here, but using a Torrent is the #1 method to introduce malware on your Mac.
  • Clean up - I suggest you remove anything identified in this section.
  • Diagnostics Information - As you noted, AppleAHCIDiskQueueManager is causing numerous kernel panics ... which leads me to believe that either you don't have the original drive or that it is corrupted.


Other than those items, nothing else really stands out in the report. Maybe, after you re-run it with full access, we may discover other issues.

Jan 23, 2022 9:43 AM in response to IEmber

Hmm. Well that too would indicate an issue with the drive. SSDs do fail. If this shop had set up this Mac properly, they should have noted that it came with a Fusion Drive and offered to replace the failed HDD with another one. Optionally, they could "break" the Fusion Drive, and just replace the HDD with the SSD ... which it looks like they did. However, that would leave the original SSD part of the Fusion Drive (the Apple SSD) misconfigured. This is where I noted that neither drive had TRIM enabled. I would suggest using a different shop, or better still take it to an Apple Store (if one is available) or to an Apple Authorized Service Provider. Good luck!

Jan 22, 2022 7:48 PM in response to Tesserax

  • Had only downloaded CleanMyMac in a desperate attempt to figure out what the problem was. I don't use Mac cleaners after my MacKeeper experience. But I've uninstalled it now.
  • Hadn't realized the scan was done without full drive access; re-did it with the report attached below. Thanks for pointing that out.
  • It is a replacement drive after the original drive crashed about 4 years ago. I'm not sure how to activate TRIM.
  • Downloaded MalwareBytes and the report didn't find anything. I'm fixing the Host file now as i type this. Will let you know, have to work fast before computer reboots again.
  • uTorrent - yeah :( no defense against this but its the easiest way to get tv shows I can't get in my country :)
  • Will do that now as well and give feedback (gotta work fast)
  • Its not the original drive, and I'm suspecting it is the main problem here.


Thank you immensely for everyones input and will keep the thread updated.

Jan 23, 2022 9:25 AM in response to IEmber

Ok, thanks for the updated report.


Again, here are my observations/suggestions:

  • Drives - It appears that your iMac has two SSD drives installed. The 1TB Crucial & an Apple. Was your iMac originally configured with a Fusion Drive?
  • Performance - The write speed seems too low for this SSD. Possibly indicating an issue with this drive.
  • Clean up - Again, the items listed here should be deleted.


Although the Diagnostics Information section does list a few app crashes, these are not a serious as the kernel panics. Based o what I can tell from the report, there is either something wrong with the replacement SSD or with its configuration with the Apple one.

Jan 22, 2022 2:54 PM in response to IEmber

It would seem the kernel panic has to do with a drive. Ether external or internal. Do you have an external drive that was not ejected properly? You could try going to system preferences and make sure you no not have put hard drive to sleep and wake for network access. also look in disk utilities to see if anything shows other that your internal drive . If so eject them. Try booting in safe mode as that will clear some of the caches and you can see if you still have the same problem. https://www.macrumors.com/how-to/use-safe-mode-resolve-mac-startup-issues/ The rest of this, someone that is better at reading your report will have to help you.

Jan 23, 2022 9:13 AM in response to IEmber

IEmber wrote:

• It is a replacement drive after the original drive crashed about 4 years ago. I'm not sure how to activate TRIM.
• Its not the original drive, and I'm suspecting it is the main problem here.

Did you have Apple or an Apple Authorized Service Provider replace this drive or did you do it yourself or use a third-party shop to do it? Is it this Crucial SSD? Regardless, how long ago did you replace it?

Jan 23, 2022 9:27 AM in response to Tesserax

It was a 3d party shop. Specifically requested a crucial SSD (did not specify which one) and the shop replaced it with that. This was about 3-4 years ago.


One correction: I had said above that the message about "The disk you attached was not readable by this computer" happened after the update, but it actually started showing up a couple of weeks after I had the hard drive replaced. The Computer started also became really slow (boot up went from less than a minute to almost 6 minutes).

Jan 23, 2022 11:37 AM in response to IEmber

If this was a standard hard drive you could try a secure erase. But that can't be done on a SSD drive. Even so that might not fix it. To check the drive you could download and run DriveDX, which is free to check the drive. That might tell you the condition. You could enable trim for the drive. don't know if that would necessarily help. But if you do, you need to make sure you have backup of your drives.https://www.lifewire.com/enable-trim-for-ssd-in-os-x-yosemite-2260789

Jan 23, 2022 1:09 PM in response to IEmber

A "Fusion" drive consists of two drives. One SSD & one HDD. It was designed as a "go between" when the cost of large SSDs were significant. The idea was to use a large HDD, coupled with the SSD to try to get similar performance as a single large SSD.


.,. so there is no way to reconfigure your replacement SSD with the original Apple SSD as a Fusion Drive.


At this point, without a deep analysis of the replacement drive, there is no way we can tell if it is truly faulty or not.

iMac Retina 5K Keeps restarting after update to Monterey

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple Account.