2020 27-inch iMac continuously shuts down and restarts

Thank you very much. My iMac is on a large, flat surface, about 6-8 inches away from the wall. There is nothing directly under or over it. There is plenty of airflow from all sides.

My desk is messier today than normal, but none of the papers, etc., are near the iMac. The black cord under the iMac is the cord to attach my external hard drive. Only other plug in back other than power cord is the ethernet connection.

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OK, will do. Bitdefender and some of the VPNs came as a package with other programs. I think bitdefender and malwarebytes were both related to either my AT&T account that includes these things or my Orbi mesh wifi system, which includes Active Armour or something similar, part of which filters out spam calls to my iPhone. The Proton VPN is part of the paid email family plan. I don't use them, and I don't knowingly use them at home--they are just there for the most part. In case it matters, none of these were newly installed (although every new OS update makes everything appear newly installed--I get alerts that I'm signing in to various things from a new computer. It's not new, its just had its OS updated).

I'll try to uninstall the items that can be separately uninstalled.

Bitdefender does not appear in my apps list.

Proton VPN is part of the proton suite.

I uninstalled malwarebytes.

Need to find all the other items.

Thanks!

Yes will do as soon as I can. I did run another check and some of the items are now gone. My choice with Protonmail is to delete the bridge and rely only on the web mail. It’s not ideal based on how I use it, but if the issues continue I might need to do that. Thank you.

@ Old Toad, I followed your instructions. I downloaded Find Any File and ran it. I was able to delete some, but not all the files. I connected my keyboard and started in Safe Mode, and confirmed that I was in fact in safe mode. I ran Find Any File again and tried to delete, but got the same messages. I took screenshots of the messages, which are below.

The first popup said "Some items are locked or require root permissions. Do you want to they to trash these items as well?" See the screenshot below. I selected RETRY and received the second popup, which said "Clean My Mac couldn't be moved to the trash because you don't have permission to access it."

There are still files that include one or more of the terms I searched for (the three you listed) and I am unable to delete them after following the instructions.

Any instructions for how I should proceed now?

Thanks a million.

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Sending from my phone.

I haven’t yet posted a new report. I’ve been fighting with my computer all morning. Keeps shutting down during the login process. As soon as I am able to login and run a new report I will post it. This is very frustrating. I was able to look back at old apple emails and see this was exactly the same issue I had a couple years ago. An online tech reset everything and it has mostly worked since then, until relatively recently.

One more updated report. I ran Find Any File again, first in regular mode and also in safe mode. There were still files that I could not remove--the pop-up said I do not have access to remove numerous items. This was in both regular and safe mode. I was ultimately able to remove the previously listed (on previous report) problematic files related to Proton VPN. I was unable to remove numerous other files that included VPN in the name.

It appears that I was able to successfully remove the cleanmymac, macpaw, and bitdefender files.

FYI, for the unsigned files, anything that includes the name LaCie is related to my external hard drive.

For the kernel panics and crashes, although I was able to uninstall/delete several items, I was not able to delete all. The restarts and crashes continue, and at least for today, I had to reboot 3-5 times in a row before the computer would stay on without restarting immediately. So, the issue is not yet resolved, but it seems there has been a small bit of improvement.

Thanks!

I spent all day yesterday online with Apple tech support. After many tries, we were ultimately able to erase the hard disk, run all the first aid functions, and reinstall the Mac OS. Took several tries to get Catalina installed (numerous restarts in the middle among other issues), and then took several tries to get Sequoia installed (again restarts). I did not restore it from a backup--I am adding only necessary things manually. I am still experiencing restarts, but not with the same frequency as before. After an initial restart when I first logged on for the day today, it has not done it again. Yet.

I appreciate all your input, although the tone of a couple messages was somewhat off-putting.

I will say I think it would be good if Apple would tell people right up front when purchasing a computer not to install any of the kinds of programs that you all agree were the likely problems here. I have bought several Apple computers over the years, and have never received this information before posting here. If I had, I would not have allowed any of these products to be installed in the first place. The mainstream news ecosystem warns the general public that they need to take precautions for viruses, security, and privacy, and the media don't distinguish between Apple products and others. The opinions you all shared here don't make their way to the general population as far as I can see. Based on the number of threads here just like mine, asking for help with the same problem, most people are unaware of this information. I read many of these threads before deciding to post here.

Anyway, thanks.

Well, because all the experts here chided me multiple times in many different ways for installing any non-Apple software. They didn’t distinguish. I am a regular, non-technical user and have absolutely no idea what does or does not have kernel extensions, whatever those are, or how to determine whether any app or software has such kernel extensions. The tech support people on the phone never brought up that subject and I would not have known to ask.

OK. Only just added it last night--free trial, but will do.

EDIT: DONE

I have run the etrecheck. Do I post a link or copy and paste the whole report. It's very long and I'm concerned about sharing too much on a public website? Please advise. Thanks!

I found a bit defender item via a search and trashed it.

I appreciate the additional info. Thanks. I didn’t add the VPNs specifically—they were part of other software packages. But this will help me get rid of the vestiges. 🙂

OK, I finally was able to run a new report.