MacOS Big Sur Unstable

My system crashed again despite having un-installed AV and upgraded to 11.1. This time the system was still "half working". Only inputs via keyboard no longer possible & neither a shutdown via Apple Menu... Had to shutdown using Ctrl Option Command Eject... It is just an OS, which is immature and I am very disappointed by the bad quality of a major OS release by Apple. I hope that the OS X team at least learns from this bad user experience. You cannot ask for premium pricing and deliver bad quality in the longer run...

Here are my problems after upgrading to big:

MS applications crashing

External Monitor going black off and on (To fix this, I had to get a shorter hdmi cable. It was a guess on my part. No issue for 2+ years before upgrading)

Placing my mac into sleep mode or left idle results in not being able to

input text

cannot open applications

cannot shut down

cannot close application.

I have to reboot.

Because something is causing your system to crash "just surfing the web" when I have Safari running for weeks at a time and never see a crash from it or my Macs. There is clearly something different - perhaps a forgotten kernel extension, a Safari plugin, or something - that is making your system unstable where others are not.

I visit the same web sites you do, yet have zero crashes.

Something is different, and that difference is why you have an unstable system and I do not and we can narrow it down.

The question is whether you are curious as to what it is.

Here are the list of issues I am seeing:

placing my mac in sleep mode or left idling results in the following:

cannot open any applications. Apple applications included.

cannot close any windows

cannot input text

To fix, I have to do the tradition Microsoft Reboot.

Never in all the years I have been using Mac I had to reboot to because of an issue. I am doing this 2 to 3 times a week.

External monitor goes on and off. Performed the SMC reset. Did not fix based on apples recommendation.

I decided to use a shorter HDMI cable. It fixed the issue. No issue prior to Big Sur.

My biggest complaint is that the Authorized Apple service center requires to keep my Mac Book Pro 15" for 4 months to replace my battery. I still have Apple Care. Now I am in Cambodia. I waiting for when I can travel to Singapore or Thailand were it will take a week. Travel restrictions because of Covid.

I have been experiencing the same problems with my installation. I'm trying to ascertain if this is related to the VPN software or not. I will be using the computer just fine, then suddenly it's as if the Networking functionality completely freezes.

I'm unable to quit applications, they just hang there.

When I bring up Networking in the preference panel, it's blank.

I have to force reboot the machine to get back to where I was.

I went through and did a complete system reinstall and this still continues.

You describe removing all kinds of invasive software not designed for Big Sur (anti-viral and VPN) along with some that can damage the system and is actively not recommended (CleanMyMac) and then state that it's Big Sur that is unstable - and that is very much unfair.

It's very likely the "freezing" you describe was actually due to the incompatible software you removed.

What happened when you force quit them?

Also, any time you have something like a VPN installed, which has kernel extensions, all bets are off because you voluntarily installed something that modifies the kernel.

Not the fault of the operating system; it’s like saying “I unplugged the hard drive, I can’t believe Big Sur is so unstable it can’t handle that.”

I am going to add my two cents to this thread. All issues did below are after I upgraded to Big Sur:

• Sometimes after my system has been left idle, I cannot close any windows. I cannot input any text. i cannot logout or shutdown from the menu. To reboot, I have to hold the power button to turn off my system then press again to reboot.
• Sometimes, my MAC just total shuts off. I have reboot.
• External monitor blinks on and off. I used a shorter HDMI cable to fix the issue. I just guessed. Before the no issues.
• Microsoft applications crash when opening.

jakarhill wrote:

Sometimes after my system has been left idle, I cannot close any windows. I cannot input any text. i cannot logout or shutdown from the menu. To reboot, I have to hold the power button to turn off my system then press again to reboot.

This may be a software issue, make sure you have the most recent version of Big Sur installed.

• Sometimes, my MAC just total shuts off. I have reboot.

This should not happen without a message of some type being logged, and can be due to hardware issues.

• External monitor blinks on and off. I used a shorter HDMI cable to fix the issue. I just guessed. Before the no issues.

That says your configuration was on the edge of not working before, likely due to an HDMI cable that was just barely functional. A known good longer HDMI cable would likely also work.

•  Microsoft applications crash when opening.

Contact Microsoft, that's not an Apple issue.

I've been using Macs since the beginning (1984) and in my experience this is the most unstable OS release I have encountered in many years. Running it on a 2019 16" MacBook Pro, I'm seeing frequent app crashes (e.g. Safari), and crashes of the login session (e.g. suddenly taken to the login screen), and even kernel panics. Some of the crashes even include a few seconds of a random pattern drawn across the screen ... brings back memories of pre-OSX crashes ... not pleasant memories.

I don't doubt that many are able to use Big Sur without issue, and possibly a clean install would fix what I'm seeing ... but those hassles have not been necessary with previous recent versions.

I waited for 11.1 before upgrading, but now I wish I had kept waiting.

I've never had issues with any of my Mac's until now.

I'm using Big Sur on my Mac Mini 2018 and experiencing so many issues.

It will freeze for no reason. Won't restart properly and when it does the fan goes crazy for a second then restarts with a warning message saying 'Your computer restarted because of a problem'.

This is by far the worst update they have ever done as I know of 3 people who are all experiencing the same exact issues as myself when u[grading!

Have you tried any of the fixes previously offered in this topic? If so which ones and what were the results.

Have you installed or run any "cleaning", "optimizing", "speed-up" or anti-virus apps on your Mac?

I have exactly the same issues, usually when I wake the machine from sleep I get the wheel of death or Apps will not load, crash the machine or take an age to open. This is a late 2020 macbook pro and had none of these issues before upgrading to BIG full of issues SUR. Will have to research how to roll back as this is becoming a daily hard reset job. Good job Apple.

if its not Bg Sur causing the problems I'd like to know what it is because I, and it appears many others, are having the same issues described above. It all started with Big Sur. ( I have also been using a Mac for year and years and never had these problems)

It is very stable and was well tested for months before being released by thousands of beta testers around the world.

If you don’t want to run a utility to help find out what is causing your particular installation to have issues, that’s fine, but then it’s far more difficult for anyone to help you.

It depends on whether you’d prefer to find a solution or just want to vent about what you perceive to be Apple’s poor engineering.

For the record, you don’t need to run third party utilities, but they are great at consolidating information from many parts of the system into one easier to read report; if you’d rather be told the hundreds of system directories to check through manually, that’s your choice.