Just as one glitch with the 2018 MacBook Pro gets resolved, another one appears, although so far only for a very limited number of users.
Some owners are reporting repeated kernel panics – as often as once or twice a day. The same issue has been experienced by a number of iMac Pro owners, with some clues suggesting it may be the fault of one component found only in these two machines …
Digital Trends suggests that the T2 chip may be the problem.
A kernel panic is when macOS detects an internal error from which it cannot recover, or where continuing to run would risk the loss of more data than any unsaved documents. It is generally signalled by a message telling you that you need to restart your Mac.
Of all the error messages uploaded to these threads, there is one detail they seem to share: Bridge OS. This is an embedded operating system used by Apple’s stand-alone T2 security chip, which provides the iMac Pro with a secure boot, encrypted storage, live “Hey Siri” commands, and so on. It’s now included in the new 2018 models of the 13- and 15-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar.
The T2 chip handles a surprising number of tasks, including verifying the boot process during startup, and carrying out on-the-fly encryption of the SSD.
Tracking down the exact circumstances in which these particular kernel panics occur hasn’t proven easy. While some users have reported that they seem to occur when daisy-chaining storage devices, others have said they had nothing connected at all when it happened. The problem doesn’t seem to be related to hardware faults specific to the machines in question, as some users report that Apple replaced their machine – sometimes twice – but the issue continued with the new ones.
The list of theories expressed in threads on the topic are lengthy.
Apple says that it is investigating, and in the meantime is offering a pretty drastic fix.
Some users report that macOS 10.13.6 resolves most of the panics, though not ones occurring when the machine is sleeping or waking from sleep.
At this point, the number of reports doesn’t indicate that the problem is endemic to all 2018 MacBook Pro or iMac Pro machines, affecting a relatively small number of them.
