imac keeps crashing, rebooting?

[macgig]

this last time, firefox was the only program running. it's done it like 4 times in the last few hours. I was using a program that kept crashing, now that program works. it's android file transfer... Im using it to get data back on the phone that was lost when I had to reset the phone. any ideas whats causing the reboots?

 

[macgig]

zapped PRAM... crashed again. I have applecare so I called apple. I reinstalled the OS, new copy. I'll see if that helps... I deleted tech tool pro 12 and it's protection. if you recall I was using Tech tool a month or so ago and having issues... turns out Tech tool is not ready for the apple file system yet, so maybe that caused problems? I was getting some apple file system errors in disk utility, id like to restart and see if the errors are gone now that I reinstalled the OS.

 

[chscag]

Are you sure Tech Tool Pro is the problem? According to Micromat, version 12 is fully compatible with Catalina which means it understands APFS.

TechTool Pro 12

However, there have been several reports that the Android File Transfer app has caused problems with Catalina.

 

[macgig]

Are you sure Tech Tool Pro is the problem? According to Micromat, version 12 is fully compatible with Catalina which means it understands APFS.

TechTool Pro 12

However, there have been several reports that the Android File Transfer app has caused problems with Catalina.

Tech tool pro has some features that wont work with apple file system. Im not sure why the tech tool makers say its compatible with Catalina. But it could be something else causing it right now I'm not sure. Android File Transfer has always been a little flaky so nothing new there I guess.

 

[Lifeisabeach]

Tech tool pro has some features that wont work with apple file system. Im not sure why the tech tool makers say its compatible with Catalina. But it could be something else causing it right now I'm not sure. Android File Transfer has always been a little flaky so nothing new there I guess.

The simplest thing to do is a process of elimination. Since you've removed TechTool Pro and reinstalled macOS, try using Android File Transfer as before. If it starts crashing again, that app "could" be the culprit, but not an absolute given (but would virtually eliminate TTP as being the problem before). Purge the app off your system and then use your Mac extensively with other tasks to see if it crashes or not. A review of the crash logs may provide some insight.

 

[macgig]

the crashing and rebooting seems to have been fixed. keeping my fingers crossed. disk utility is showing cross check errors, and this: warning: found physical extent corruption but repairs are disabled.

why are repairs disabled? who or what disabled them? beats me... perhaps Im worrying over nothing... .I rebooted in diagnostic mode and it says "no issues found"

 

[Lifeisabeach]

the crashing and rebooting seems to have been fixed. keeping my fingers crossed. disk utility is showing cross check errors, and this: warning: found physical extent corruption but repairs are disabled.

why are repairs disabled? who or what disabled them? beats me... perhaps Im worrying over nothing... .I rebooted in diagnostic mode and it says "no issues found"

It sounds like maybe your drive is starting to go south. There's a link in my signature with tips on how to test it, though you have TechTool Pro available to you and that has tools to test your drive. I don't have an answer as to why repairs are disabled, but some quick googling turned up a discussion on Apple's support forums where someone was only able to resolve this by completely wiping the drive and reformatting it before restoring a backup.
APFS, fsck_apfs and 'physical extent … - Apple Community

 

[MacInWin]

+1 for what LIAB said. It does sound like the drive is dying.

You asked:

why are repairs disabled? who or what disabled them? beats me... perhaps Im worrying over nothing... .I rebooted in diagnostic mode and it says "no issues found"

One cannot repair some parts of the boot drive. To do that, you have to boot from something other than the drive with the errors, run First Aid on the drive with errors from there, then reboot to the repaired drive. Been that way for as long as I can remember.

 

[macgig]

imac shut down again today. no warning the screen goes black and it shuts down.... so I reinstalled osx again. that fixes it for a while... think my applecare just ended... of course.


cant for the live of me figure out what is causing this? last time this happened was about 3 months ago....

 

[chscag]

As the replies above stated, your hard drive could be failing. Have you tried to run First Aid on the drive to see what it says?

Also, since you have Tech Tool Pro 12, what does it say?

 

[Rod]

Back it up now if you haven't already.
Is this the 2015 iMac Pro listed in your profile? If so, then assuming its the original HD it could be dying. I agree with Jake here, its impossible to run repairs on some parts of the drive if it is the boot drive. You would need to boot from another source to do that.
One word of caution though, reinstalling the OS may solve some problems but my experience has been that the more you try to erase and write to a failing disk the worse it gets.
I don't suppose you kept a copy of the macOS installer? If you did you can create a bootable installer from it using DiskmakerX (make sure its the version for your Operating System) or Instal Disk Creator on a USB thumb drive, both free. With it you can boot the device and run Disk Utility or Instal a macOS to a new or erased HD. Makes a very handy tool and saves downloading the macOS multiple times.

 

[Randy B. Singer]

Are you sure Tech Tool Pro is the problem? According to Micromat, version 12 is fully compatible with Catalina which means it understands APFS.

Very sadly, the folks at MicroMat are liars. (If you dig deeper into their Web site they admit this.)

Apple hasn't released the full specs for APFS, so no one other than Apple has a disk utility that will work with it. APFS has been out for a long time now. It looks very much like utilities like Disk Warrior and TechTool Pro are an anachronism that will never again be useful.

 

[Randy B. Singer]

In my experience Macs tend to spontaneously shut down and re-boot for one of three
reasons.

1) There is too much current draw on the electrical circuit your Mac
is attached to. For example, a refrigerator cycling on, or a laser
printer starting up, will cause a huge draw. It might be enough to
cause your Mac to have a hard crash and then re-boot.

2) Your Mac is overheating. With old Macs this might be due to the
accumulation of dust inside the case insulating the heat coming from
the motherboard. Or detritus in the case might be strangling your
fans. Or your fans may be failing. If it is one of the first two,
opening up your Mac and cleaning it out may be all that is necessary
to fix things.

3) A failing power supply (flyback) or simply cold solder joints
around your power supply. Often the heat cycling in your Mac expands
and contracts the solder joints and causes them to eventually crack
(you can feel these cracks with your fingernail - but don't try this
without discharging your power supply first!) and causes a
discontinuity. Touching the solder joints for the power supply with
the tip of a soldering pen to re-flow the solder easily fixes cold
solder joints (but once again, don't try this
without discharging your power supply first!).

 

[macgig]

@Rod. 2015 imac. not a imac pro. if its the hard drive going bad, I've never had one die this soon on any mac i've owned. 5 years is all I get out of it? it is mechanical so I guess that is possible.

going to run tech tool and disk utility now to see what they find.... little rusty on this stuff, I cant boot from the same disk I'm checking correct? good info Randy thanks.

 

[macgig]

here is what disk utility says:

error: Cross Check : ExtentRef physical extent (0x32cf8d + 1) has kind APFS_KIND_UPDATE but was not referenced previously
error: Cross Check : ExtentRef physical extent (0x32cf8f + 1) has kind APFS_KIND_UPDATE but was not referenced previously
error: Cross Check : ExtentRef physical extent (0x32cf90 + 253) has kind APFS_KIND_UPDATE but was not referenced previously
Checking the fsroot tree.
error: Cross Check : FSroot tree references extent (0x32cf8f + 254) which is not present in the ExtentRef tree
error: Cross Check : FSroot tree references extent (0x32cf90 + 253) which is not present in the ExtentRef tree
error: Cross Check : Mismatch between extentref entry reference count (0) and calculated fsroot entry reference count (1) for extent (0x32cf90 + 253)
warning: found physical extent corruption but repairs are disabled
The volume /dev/rdisk1s1 appears to be OK.



repairs are disabled? who disabled them? so DU can't fix it? :/

now on to see what tech tool says.

 

[MacInWin]

DU cannot fix the drive from which you are booted. To enable repairs, boot from an external drive and run DU from there, or boot into Recovery (If you have it) and it can fix the main container because it is no longer the boot drive. If it's APFS, Tech Tool won't do anything. It's not compatible, despite what the developer says.

 

[macgig]

tech tool pro is not finding anything odd, all the tests I ran passed. good to know Macinwin thanks.

 

[macgig]

booted from external drive, ran DU.... .same error and it's not fixing it. its not repairing it....

warning: found physical extent corruption but repairs are disabled

 

[chscag]

if its the hard drive going bad, I've never had one die this soon on any mac i've owned. 5 years is all I get out of it? it is mechanical so I guess that is possible.

I've had hard drives go bad sooner than that. My 2011 iMac was 2 years old when the hard drive failed. Luckily I had Apple Care and it was replaced for free.

Getting back to your problem.... it does sound like your drive is failing so be sure to keep up with your backups. Both Time Machine and CCC are recommended.

 

[MacInWin]

booted from external drive, ran DU.... .same error and it's not fixing it. its not repairing it....

warning: found physical extent corruption but repairs are disabled

Just to be sure, the version of OS on the external is the same as the version on the internal? DU is updated with the OS, so you need the same DU as the internal. Particularly with APFS changes at Mojave/Catalina. If that is the case, the drive is dead/dying and chscag's advice is about al you can do. Backup what you can, replace the drive. You could do a backup, boot from an external installer, try formatting the entire drive and then creating the APFS container and reinstalling from scratch. Test the drive again and if the error are corrected, do another reinstall and use Migration Assistant at the first boot to get your system back like it is now.