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carlsson

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jul 18, 2001
576
494
EVERY EFFING TIME I START MY IMAC I GET "You shut down your computer because of a problem". Every time. No matter how I turn it off. No matter what I do.
I am going crazy, I have tried everything! I even draw the plug from the iMac to get a REAL warning message, but I didn't. I got that stupid dialogue, which do nothing no matter if you press the Cancel or Open button.
I have reinstalled the machine. It doesn't matter.
I'm about to bring the fire axe and live out my frustration on this effing machine from hell.

Please help me before I kill something!
 
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fisherking

macrumors G4
Jul 16, 2010
11,104
5,447
ny somewhere
first, breathe. seems to be a glitch (the message appearing, not that something's actually wrong). this happened for me on one of my macs in 11.2, but no longer (in the 11.3 beta). also, i suggest, always choose 'cancel'.. so you have a clean start when you reboot.
 

kodabear

macrumors regular
Sep 5, 2020
101
45
I have a similar issue but it's not frequent nor is it driving me crazy. My issue is upon shutting down my MBP 13" Model year 2020 and still running on Catalina, I will occasionally get a message that says the computer cannot shut down because an IOS application is running. Even when I turn off my iPad Mini 5 and iPhone XR the message still appears. I will quit all applications, sometimes having to force quit and I eventually have to manually force the computer to turn off. When the computer starts up in the morning. then I get the "You shut down your computer because of a problem" message! By occasionally, I mean it only happens once or twice a week.
 
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carlsson

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jul 18, 2001
576
494
Thanks guys. *breathing* ?

The thing is that I'm helping a friend with his Mac, and I promised to deliver it fresh. And I hate when I can't solve things.
Very well, it's obiously a bug. I hope 11.3 will solve it.
 

HDFan

Contributor
Jun 30, 2007
6,666
2,906
"You shut down your computer because of a problem".

If you got a kernel panic look in Console for Crash Reports. You may have an application that is crashing the system. If nothing is there note the time of the crash (shutdown) and look at the system log for that time when you restart.
 
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fisherking

macrumors G4
Jul 16, 2010
11,104
5,447
ny somewhere
If you got a kernel panic look in Console for Crash Reports. You may have an application that is crashing the system. If nothing is there note the time of the crash (shutdown) and look at the system log for that time when you restart.
have you read thru this thread? people are getting the message without kernel panics. so nothing to find in console, IF nothing's happened. anyway, as mentioned, seems to be fixed in later versions; i haven't seen it again.
 
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Bazza1

macrumors 6502a
May 16, 2017
706
532
Toronto, Canada
I had the same issue after the install of 11.2.2 - whether I was using Restart or starting up at the top of day.
No obvious issues once the Mac was up and running - no crashes, no panics, no nothing. Just this stupid screen during the boot. Every time.

No new apps since earlier OS.

Disconnected all peripherals. Nope.

Tried the old Option+Command+P+R. Nope.

Did a boot into Safe Mode.
Got to my desktop without that warning screen. Modified huzzah, as that implies a problem with software, so I'd need to figure out what that was. Did a Restart into regular mode - and no sign of that warning screen. It went to my desktop. Everything seemed fine. Did another restart - same result.

Apple Support tells me that Safe Mode also initiates something not dissimilar to 'First Aid', and it appears that it cleared the issue.

Downloaded 11.2.3 yesterday - everything seems fine (knock on wood) - so I guess I'll never know what got MacOS' knickers in a twist.
 
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fisherking

macrumors G4
Jul 16, 2010
11,104
5,447
ny somewhere
That message in almost all cases indicates a kernel panic. The system normally does not panic if just an app crashes. Unfortunately not all kernel panics produce crash dumps.
it's been reported elsewhere (and my own experience confirms it), that this message was popping up for people who did not experience a panic. the message, in this case, is an error itself, and not a report of a system panic.

and (for me, anyway), it was fixed in the next beta.
 

carlsson

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jul 18, 2001
576
494
Downloaded 11.2.3 yesterday - everything seems fine (knock on wood) - so I guess I'll never know what got MacOS' knickers in a twist.

It was one of these:
kissing-bug-1.jpg


?
 

fisherking

macrumors G4
Jul 16, 2010
11,104
5,447
ny somewhere
'bout that size, too.

Its an old complaint, but remains a goody - you'd think that an OS specifically designed for a very limited number of computers as designed by the same company wouldn't have the issues it does, but yet, bugs this size get in.
fwiw, every forward step by an OS developer (or, for that matter, a computer manufacturer), is a step into the unknown. so there are always bugs; old ones squashed, new ones introduced. and so on and so on....
 

HDFan

Contributor
Jun 30, 2007
6,666
2,906
it's been reported elsewhere (and my own experience confirms it), that this message was popping up for people who did not experience a panic. the message, in this case, is an error itself, and not a report of a system panic.

How do you know that there was no panic/system error during shutdown? Did the people who experienced the problem look into their system logs to check what happened on shutdown/startup? That message is prompted by something. Would be interested in hearing about cases where the cause was diagnosed and the cause determined where there was not a system error.
 
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fisherking

macrumors G4
Jul 16, 2010
11,104
5,447
ny somewhere
How do you know that there was no panic/system error during shutdown? Did the people who experienced the problem look into their system logs to check what happened on shutdown/startup? That message is prompted by something. Would be interested in hearing about cases where the cause was diagnosed and the cause determined where there was not a system error.
really? i checked the console each time, and no evidence of any issue.

the point is, the message started popping up on every reboot, but nothing else happened (no freezes, no KP window). this was a glitch, now fixed in a later beta.
 
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BLUEDOG314

macrumors 6502
Dec 12, 2015
377
120
Same thing started happening to me, noticed it about two weeks ago. Don't know whether it is because of 11.2.3 or not. Generally the crash report will give a backtrace to IOKit and mention a CPU Panic. I always send the crash report, but I can't find it in Console after the fact. I'll copy and paste it next time so you can compare. End of the day I'll be doing a clean install if it keeps happening through the next software update, but beyond that Apple just needs to bug fix.
 

Bazza1

macrumors 6502a
May 16, 2017
706
532
Toronto, Canada
Same thing started happening to me, noticed it about two weeks ago. Don't know whether it is because of 11.2.3 or not. Generally the crash report will give a backtrace to IOKit and mention a CPU Panic. I always send the crash report, but I can't find it in Console after the fact. I'll copy and paste it next time so you can compare. End of the day I'll be doing a clean install if it keeps happening through the next software update, but beyond that Apple just needs to bug fix.
Have you tried a Safe Mode start? As I noted above, just completing that process (in 10.2.2) and then rebooting as normal seemed to clear the hiccup for me. If this is becoming a recurring thing for some users, then definitely a bug they've introduced recently that needs to get squashed.
 
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jukeboxgrad

macrumors newbie
Apr 5, 2021
1
1
Have you tried a Safe Mode start?
I've had this problem, consistently, for a while. 100% of the time, on every normal restart. No sign of a kernel panic. On 11.2.3 and also prior to that, I think. Quite annoying. Then I found this thread, and read your message, and then I tried your suggestion. This seems to have fixed the problem. Thank you!

Guccy above mentioned same problem on 2015 MBP. Same machine here, maybe that's a factor. Although Guccy said "11.2.3 made it go away." Not so here.
 
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HDFan

Contributor
Jun 30, 2007
6,666
2,906
really? i checked the console each time, and no evidence of any issue.

Really. Sometimes when a crash occurs the system isn't able to write anything to the crash log.

We have at least one report above indicating a Safe Mode reboot fixed the problem which certainly points to a system problem. Could be happening, but diagnosing is really a b#$%$%.
 

startergo

macrumors 601
Sep 20, 2018
4,809
2,199
Really. Sometimes when a crash occurs the system isn't able to write anything to the crash log.

We have at least one report above indicating a Safe Mode reboot fixed the problem which certainly points to a system problem. Could be happening, but diagnosing is really a b#$%$%.
You miss the obvious:
The system has never been rebooted by a panic despite the misleading message. This message appears on a normal boot sequence no reboots whatsoever.
 

HDFan

Contributor
Jun 30, 2007
6,666
2,906
You miss the obvious:
The system has never been rebooted by a panic despite the misleading message. This message appears on a normal boot sequence no reboots whatsoever.

Panics don't always force a reboot, particularly on shutdown, or a crash dump. As per the Wikipedia definition:

A kernel panic (sometimes abbreviated as KP[1]) is a safety measure taken by an operating system's kernel upon detecting an internal fatal error in which either it is unable to safely recover or continuing to run the system would have a higher risk of major data loss.

I may have been misleading in implying that there should be a crash log.

Mac OS shut down normally.

In the shutdown process process error messages may be suppressed.
 
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