Kernel panic when reconnecting to OWC Thunderbolt dock

Hi there,

I'm trying to understand / resolve a frustrating, but occasional issue with my 2021 16-inch MacBook Pro M1 Max running 13.6 and an old (6 years) OWC Thunderbolt 3 dock.

It seems to have something to do with when the Mac restarts whilst connected to the dock, or wakes from sleep as a result of being reconnected to the dock. It doesn't happen if I sleep the laptop whilst it's connected to the dock, disconnect it from the dock, and later reconnect it to the dock without it waking from sleep whilst it's disconnected.

Basically a minute or two after restarting or waking from sleep, everything freezes, both of my external monitors blink magenta briefly before going black and then it restarts.

If I let it restart, everything is fine if I leave it at the login screen ... but then if I log in, a minute or so later it will crash again.

The work-around I have discovered is to disconnect it from the dock, let it restart / wake from sleep, use it for a few minutes, then plug it back into the dock ... and then it will run fine!

It's like some process needs to happen first without the laptop being connected to the dock (or else it will crash), and then it can be re-connected safely ...

Any ideas how to track down the cause of this? Where can I extract the crash logs so I can share them on here?

Many thanks for your help 😊

David

MacBook Pro 15″

Posted on Jan 15, 2024 1:36 PM

Top-ranking reply

Old Toad

Level 10

215,316 points

Posted on Jun 7, 2024 10:54 AM

To rule out any 3rd party software you can do the following: boot into Safe Mode according to How to use safe mode on your Mac and and run for a while to test to see if the problem persists. Reboot normally and test again.

NOTE 1: Safe Mode boot can take up to 3 - 5 minutes as it's doing the following;

• Verifies your startup disk and attempts to repair directory issues, if needed

• Loads only required kernel extensions (prevents 3rd party kernel/extensions from loading)

• Prevents Startup Items and Login Items from opening automatically

• Disables user-installed fonts

• Deletes font caches, kernel cache, and other system cache files

NOTE 2: if you have a wireless keyboard with rechargeable batteries connect it with its charging cable before booting into Safe Mode. This makes it act as a wired keyboard as will insure a successful boot into Safe Mode.

If the problem goes away in the Safe Mode but comes back when rebooted normally there's some 3rd party software that may be the culprit. In that case do the following:

Download and run Etrecheck.

Copy the report

and use the Additional Text button to paste the report in your reply.

Then we can examine the report and see if we can determine the cause of the problem.

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Kernel panic when reconnecting to OWC Thunderbolt dock

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