MacOS – How to determine what is locking up the machine

hangmacbook promacos

My MBP is suddenly locking up to the point that only a power down will fix it. Neither command+alt+esc or command+alt+shift+esc do anything. It started by getting some nice screens in multiple languages that told me I had to power down. That happened about four times, now I don't even get those screens it just seems to lock up. I used to get crash reports to send to Apple, the details of which were nebulous but I don't get those anymore either. I am looking at the log but see nothing. Am I missing something?

Best Answer

That message means that there is a kernel panic. This may happen if you connect new hardware to your computer. For possible reasons/fixes, see this article from the Apple website. Here is a section from the "Troubleshooting" section...

  • Was the computer starting up, shutting down, or performing a particular task when the recurring kernel panic happened?

  • Is the kernel panic intermittent, or does it happen every time you do a certain thing?

  • Does it occur only when a certain external device is connected, or a device is connected to a certain port?

Reading through that article should give you a general idea what is happening and possible ways to fix it.