kernel panic information for bad ram mac

In theory, macOS should reach a limit of panics and shut down instead of restarting. However, when it reaches that same point during the boot process, it panics again, and so on. The worst panics by far are those which occur during startup, as they can result in a boot loop: each time your Mac panics, it restarts. After that, you’re into a hunt for the cause, such as a third-party kernel extension or something else which has pushed the kernel beyond that point of no return. Run its Diagnostics, as explained here, and watch for any disk which might be in trouble. If your Mac remains unstable, particularly if it panics again, the first thing to rule out is a hardware fault, or a failing disk.

This article explains how to understand the log. When you get a moment, read through the panic log that you’ve saved, looking for a probable cause. If your Mac seems to be running normally again, there’s now no need to run hardware diagnostics, repair its disks, or try to hunt the needle in its haystack. Unfortunately, if you’re only logged in as a ‘regular’ user, and don’t have admin privileges, you’re not deemed worthy of seeing the panic log (thanks to John for reminding me of this serious omission).Īpple’s advice on what it terms “unexpected restarts” is here. These panic logs used to be saved more obviously, and you may still be able to find them in one of several locations accessible from Console, but in many cases they just seem to vanish without trace once they’ve been sent to Apple. Save it somewhere safe, and only then click on your chosen button in the panic log window. If your Mac restarts spontaneously in this way, look out for that panic log, and before agreeing to send it to Apple (or not), select its contents, copy and paste them into a text document, using TextEdit if necessary. It’s really easy to agree to that without saving the panic log, and remaining none the wiser as to what happened or why. These days, it’s like a guilty secret: your Mac restarts for no apparent reason, then a minute or so after it’s back up and running you’re invited to send some technical information to Apple. There was a time when macOS drew attention to a kernel panic, with a distinctive multi-lingual explanation shortly before the Mac restarted.

Kernel panic information for bad ram mac