2020 27-inch iMac continuously shuts down and restarts

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

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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@ 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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Oh wishing you the best of luck here and lots of patience. After the help I received here, and after reading all the instructions on Apple’s support site, I was very lucky to get two very patient representatives at Apple tech support who helped walk me through the process of erasing and reinstalling the hard drive and OS. My random shutdowns have stopped. I did not remove the extra memory that I installed. The downside is that I can no longer use my Mac the way I used to—without adding non-Apple products. My work uses MS Office exclusively and I haven’t reinstalled any MS products. So I am relegated to my windows laptop to do work. Very, very inconvenient. Part of the reason I got the 27” was that it allows me to look at several documents while composing another. I also use protonmail exclusively but don’t reinstall the bridge, which allowed me instant access to email without having to logon through the web. Again, very inconvenient. But no shutdowns.

Here’s wishing you good luck. May the force be with you!!!

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. 🙂