User profile for user: Paul Baughman
Paul Baughman Author
User level: Level 1
9 points

ventura repeated "restarted because of a problem" pop-up

iMac18,3 Retina 5K, 27" 2017, 2TB Fusion, Ventura 13.6 --> 13.7.8


About two weeks ago, my imac crashed and wouldn't reboot. I had an external boot disk that I used to get into it and start copying data I wanted to keep. When that was all done, i started trying to troubleshoot it

  • From the external disk, I ran disk first aid on the internal and it found no problems.
  • safe boot wouldnt come up all the way, but kept rebooting in the middle
  • diagnostics found no issues
  • single-user will boot to the console, but it's been a long time since I had to use it, so I was stumped.
  • I used recovery to reinstall the OS, which worked fine, I can now log in with my accounts
  • HOWEVER, every normal restart (ala from the Apple menu) works, but on login pops up a dialog with a "your computer restarted because of a problem" message.
  • I went into /Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports and deleted all the "*.panic" files and all the "*.diag" files but it keeps popping the same dialog after every reboot.
  • so I went back there and deleted all the other files "*.ips", but that didn't help either. After the next restart a new file appeared there with a ".shutdownStall" extension, even though it rebooted fine.


Is there some other location I should be looking in?


Just in case, I am attaching an etreCheck file.


Thanks.

Paul *****


EtreCheck


[Edited by Moderator]

iMac 27″ 5K, macOS 13.7

Posted on Nov 3, 2025 8:41 PM

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User profile for user: HWTech
HWTech
User level: Level 9
68,192 points

Posted on Nov 6, 2025 5:01 PM

Paul Baughman wrote:

• HOWEVER, every normal restart (ala from the Apple menu) works, but on login pops up a dialog with a "your computer restarted because of a problem" message.
• I went into /Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports and deleted all the "*.panic" files and all the "*.diag" files but it keeps popping the same dialog after every reboot.
• so I went back there and deleted all the other files "*.ips", but that didn't help either. After the next restart a new file appeared there with a ".shutdownStall" extension, even though it rebooted fine.

Is there some other location I should be looking in?

Yes, you should have actually looked at or posted several of those now deleted Kernel Panic logs. Those are the most critical log files that can actually provide some clues to the problem. Why would you delete log files? They are not causing the problem, but reporting the issues...even though most of the system logs these days are nonsense.


While you have a few pieces of junk apps on the system, I don't think they are responsible for the boot issue especially if Safe Mode also had the problem. I'll let @John Galt or other contributors deal with the software issues within the EtreCheck report.


You will probably need to wait until you get several more Kernel Panics so that you can post those Kernel Panic logs here for us to examine (use the "Additional Text" icon to post them).


The three most likely candidates for the problem are a failing Hard Drive, a bad GPU, or bad memory. You can check the health of the internal drives by using the third party app DriveDx (free trial period) and posting the complete text reports for both drives here using the "Additional Text" icon. Seeing several Kernel Panic logs would help to determine if either the GPU or memory is causing the problem.


Also, disconnect all external devices in case one of them is causing a problem.


However, since you are deleting innocent log files, we do have to wonder what else you may have deleted or done which could have caused more problems & will confuse our troubleshooting here.

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User profile for user: HWTech
HWTech
User level: Level 9
68,192 points

Nov 6, 2025 5:01 PM in response to Paul Baughman

Paul Baughman wrote:

• HOWEVER, every normal restart (ala from the Apple menu) works, but on login pops up a dialog with a "your computer restarted because of a problem" message.
• I went into /Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports and deleted all the "*.panic" files and all the "*.diag" files but it keeps popping the same dialog after every reboot.
• so I went back there and deleted all the other files "*.ips", but that didn't help either. After the next restart a new file appeared there with a ".shutdownStall" extension, even though it rebooted fine.

Is there some other location I should be looking in?

Yes, you should have actually looked at or posted several of those now deleted Kernel Panic logs. Those are the most critical log files that can actually provide some clues to the problem. Why would you delete log files? They are not causing the problem, but reporting the issues...even though most of the system logs these days are nonsense.


While you have a few pieces of junk apps on the system, I don't think they are responsible for the boot issue especially if Safe Mode also had the problem. I'll let @John Galt or other contributors deal with the software issues within the EtreCheck report.


You will probably need to wait until you get several more Kernel Panics so that you can post those Kernel Panic logs here for us to examine (use the "Additional Text" icon to post them).


The three most likely candidates for the problem are a failing Hard Drive, a bad GPU, or bad memory. You can check the health of the internal drives by using the third party app DriveDx (free trial period) and posting the complete text reports for both drives here using the "Additional Text" icon. Seeing several Kernel Panic logs would help to determine if either the GPU or memory is causing the problem.


Also, disconnect all external devices in case one of them is causing a problem.


However, since you are deleting innocent log files, we do have to wonder what else you may have deleted or done which could have caused more problems & will confuse our troubleshooting here.

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User profile for user: John Galt
John Galt
User level: Level 10
154,868 points

Nov 6, 2025 12:26 PM in response to Paul Baughman

  1. Read If your Mac restarts and a message appears - Apple Support
  2. Please determine if the same problems occur in "Safe Mode": Start up your Mac in safe mode - Apple Support


I’ve cleaned out the /Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports directory of all

the kernel*.panic and *.diag files.


Don't do that. Those files are not always helpful to determine the cause of KP events, but sometimes they are.

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ventura repeated "restarted because of a problem" pop-up

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