VM Ware Fusion potentially causes macOS 10.15.6 to crash

[Alex_Ma]

I recently upgraded to macOS 10.15.6. Now if I leave VM Ware Fusion running while leaving my mac for some time, e.g. - for a night, the system crashes. This did not happen with the older macOS 10.15.5 version.

VM Ware Fusion version: Professional Version 11.5.5 (16269456)

macOS Catalina version: 10.15.6 (19G73)

[Sven1802]

Hi,

I didn't had this issue before. It started right after installation of 10.15.6.

But the symptoms are exactly as you wrote. Strange popups and somewhen it hangs.

[Alex_Ma]

When I started researching the issue I saw many people reporting WindowsServer crash since Catalina release - some time in January this year, but for me it only started when I installed the last update.

[michelstoffel]

Same for me, same issue like the other now my vm ware crash every day after my lunch.

I don't have this before the last update 10.15.6

It's really not possible to work properly...

[dcone]

I may have been experiencing this before 10.15.6. Can't say exactly when but I believe the issue was present in 10.15.5 as well.

[ColoradoMarmot]

This particular issue isn't - it was introduced as a bug in 10.15.6.

Anyone tried downgrading?

[Goobaroo]

dariusd, What is your experience with how long these types of issues take to get a resolution?

We had upgraded our Mac Pro from 10.13 to 10.15.6.  We are now rebooting around once a day, running 6 VMs.

$ last reboot

reboot    ~                         Wed Jul 29 08:56

reboot    ~                         Tue Jul 28 07:58

reboot    ~                         Mon Jul 27 01:29

reboot    ~                         Sat Jul 25 16:22

The VMs host our build machines.

[pelletierr]

I have a ESXi lab running on Mac minis.

I had instability with 3 out of 4 Mac VM since 10.15.6 installation. Between 1 to 5 crashes per day.

Going through this thread, I found I had the kalloc.32 problem in those VMs.

I am restoring the operating system to 10.15.5 to see if this help. I hope we'll get a fixed kernel soon.

[rayr007]

Think this bug affects JVMs too?

[lundqvist]

Yup I had the issue with 10.15.6 and I reverted back on Friday evening to 10.15.5.  Working perfectly again for me where when it was happening I was getting at least 2 lockups daily.

[Alex_Ma]

Well, it's not just VM, there is a severe issue with macOS 10.15.6 Yesterday it crashed while I was running backup. Technically it did not crash. Some applications became unresponsive, i.e. - Safari and system preferences. Restart from Apple menu did not work either. The only way to make it reboot was to use `sudo shutdown -r now` command from terminal. Probably need to roll back.

[Jadraker]

Hi,

If you don't have a backup of 10.15.5 is there any way to rollback?

[MJWaters1985]

dariusd​ - First, thanks for tracking this down and getting the bug submitted to Apple.  Have you received any ETA on a patch?  This is bug is a really frustrating one, and I'm hoping for a quick resolution.

Thanks,

Mike

[Alex_Ma]

An approach I did not try, but I think should work:

1) Backup your current data using Time Machine

2) Wipe out your entire disk

3) Restore the operating system from the internet

4) Restore users only from your time machine.

[Joachim_Neudert]

" popup "Unapproved caller - SecurityAgent may only be invoked by Apple software" and "Unrecoverable error - SecurityAgent was unable to create requested mechanism builtin:unlock-keychain" usually appears"

These are exactly the popups that I receive when the system hangs. A  MBP 16 GB with 1 VM Windows 10 1909.  Before this, I get a message there would be a problem with my Apple ID. Then when I have to hard- reset the machine,  after reboot it logs into my Apple iCloud account without problems, but on all my other Apple devices  (iPhone, iPad)  I get iMessages that my ID was used to log into a new computer (2-factor-authentication).

Good to know where this behavior comes from.

Best regards

Joachim Neudert

[ColoradoMarmot]

How did you manage to revert to 10.15.5?  Apple's hidden/removed all the installers apparently.

[lundqvist]

Hi, I would recommend doing some extra research but from a high-level:

1) Booted into recovery mode (reboot hold down CMD-R).

2) Formatted my HD

3) Restored from a Time Machine backup prior to installing 10.15.6.  It does tell you at this stage what version the backup is on.

Obviously this assume you use Time Machine and had a proper backup.  My latest 10.15.5 backup was from July 3rd so it wasn't that new but once back in I was able to get some additional files from Time Machine from the snapshots it takes which were more current.

Time it takes depends on how many files you have but for me 500GB of data took me about 6 hours to get it back to the login screen.

**Key** here is as soon as you're back on to turn off auto-updates in System Preferences.  You don't want it to update it back to 10.15.6 on you once done.

Now I just sit with it telling me I have updates but I just don't do them.

[sadkins]

Same issues as others are having with 10.15.6 and Fusion 11.5.5. 

I have been shutting down the VM (Win 10) every evening, and haven't had a restart in a few days this way.  But, today I witnessed the "freeze" before the  eventual panic/reboot.

Previous to 10.15.6 I'd leave the thing up for weeks, but as soon as I took the awful 10.15.6 update I'd come back every morning to a rebooted machine.  

I had a great thing going up until 10.15.6, best of both worlds really.  But I do have a full Carbon Copy Cloner backup, which I may just have to use because this is becoming annoying.

[jerryfrit]

Most of what I read about this leak is in the context of running VMs, but in my experience it doesn't matter.  Since installing 10.15.6 I have become accustomed to having my iMac Pro shut down overnight, every couple of days.  The report mentions "suspected memory leak".   I send the reports to Apple, with my comments.

I have since gone to daily reboots.  Since this morning's restart, as I write, I'm presently showing 18.32 GB memory used (of 32), with 7.74 of that "wired".  I expect that wired memory to be substantially higher in the morning, at least over 11GB.  This with nothing but Safari, Activity Monitor and a CrushFTP server running.  Oh yes, File Sharing is on because this machine is my network Time Machine server.  No VMs have been run in this session.

For this, yeah, a lot of RAM is being used, and it's growing.

[Alex_Ma]

I think it's not just memory leak, it's probably some memory corruption, which happens over time. When some applications use memory management more extensively, this happens quicker. When I put the screen into sleep mode, go to bed, and hear the fans running high in a few minutes I know what happens.

I wish Apple would just switch to Linux and built their UI on top of it. It would be such a great generous move.

[JayAllison]

I am having the exact same problem. Pleas let me know if you find a solution.