Whenever I connect my MBP 16" to the TBT3-UDZ it starts detecting everything (external monitor via DP, audio interface, keyboard) but then the laptop shuts off with a loud blast from the fans and then powers down.
After it reboots and I’m back up and running I can actually unplug and reconnect the cable to the dock without it rebooting though. It seems to only happen when coming back from sleep.
I’m up to date on macOS, using the included cable with the dock, plugging into the right side of the MBP, and not using any front panel ports on the dock.
Another odd behavior is that when the laptop is at the macOS lock screen I can’t actually use either the external keyboard or even the internal keyboard to type my login password. It actually doesn’t respond to certain keystrokes on either. Super weird. If I unplug the dock the internal keyboard starts working again.
When using other TB3 or USB-C docks/dongles with basically the same setup it almost never causes any complications, but I’m not sure what else I can directly look at with the Plugable device to start troubleshooting. Are there any firmware updates that need to be applied?
I’ll update this as I test more–it’s just difficult to have to troubleshoot every time I plug in to get some work done when I have limited time to do so.
I experienced the same thing. I just received my TBT3-UDZ and have it set up yesterday. It detected everything, external monitor, audio, NIC, etc. My MBP 16 has been randomly shutting down with a loud blast from the fan at least 4 times. It seems to be coincide with the laptop waking up from sleep or going into sleep. I am not sure which since I hit the keyboard as soon as the display went to black in order to prevent it from sleeping.
I have had my laptop for over a month, and it never did that. And it started doing that after I plugged it into the TBT3-UDZ.
We’ve written a knowledgebase article that we’re going to keep updated with any news or solutions for this kernel panic situation here: https://kb.plugable.com/question/972513
For any users encountering this issue please refer to the above KB and also to reach out to us at support@plugable.com if there are any additional questions or concerns.
Thank you for contacting Plugable support! Sorry to hear about these crashing issues. I’d be more than happy to assist.
There have been increased reports of crashing when connecting docks like our TBT3-UDZ. Currently we do not have a solution, but we believe the issue started happening after macOS 11.4.
There is a discussion on the Apple Developer threads mentioning similar issues, and thus far it appears the regression causing the crashing is still present in macOS 11.5 betas. https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/678644
For the moment, there is likely not much that can be done except to downgrade to an older macOS version (not a trivial task, so I expect most users will be unable to do so), or wait until the next OS release and see if the issue has been resolved.
You may attempt to perform an SMC and PRAM/NVRAM reset, some users have reported this has helped:
Plug the dock back in to the Mac and see if the behavior has improved
I would also recommend submitting a bug report to Apple. The more users reporting the issue, the better chance it will be resolved in a future update: https://www.apple.com/feedback/macos.html
Please don’t hesitate to let us know of other questions.
Thanks again for contacting Plugable support and best wishes!
Thanks for the quick response. Yeah, it does seem that a more recent-ish version of macOS might have made this more frequent. Definitely a bummer.
I’ve been submitting the crash reports every time, so maybe that will do a modicum of good here. Maybe at some point, I’ll get around to doing the SMC and NVRAM resets and see if that helps.
And at least two users in that support thread do mention that macOS 12 Monterey beta seems to resolve the issue, so, fingers crossed on that one then!
Same/similar problem here (registered just to chime in). Running 11.4.
It started after the macbook had been in sleep for the weekend. Then it crashed when I used the keyboard (connected to the dock) to wake it up. Then I got stuck in a boot-loop where it would keep rebooting until i disconnected the dock. Even once booted, I tried connecting the dock and it would still crash a few seconds later (when display would try to switch). Then I realized that as long as I did not have the display connected it would work fine. If the display was connected, the Macbook would crash within ~5 seconds, or during boot-up.
I had a separate USB-C to HDMI dongle that I was able to successfully use, and then after an hour or so of using that successfully I connected the display back to the second HDMI port on the dock and I have been using that successfully for a few hours now. Still concerned about trying the first port again but will once I am at a stopping point for work.
I’ve been disconnecting my audio interface whenever I’ve reconnected and believed that had stopped the crashes until today.
Left the laptop connected from last night, turned off external monitor, device went to sleep, disconnected audio interface, woke up device today. Turned on external monitor, device froze and restarted.
Had to disconnect dock from laptop in order to actually type my password (second behavior issue mentioned in OP), device rebooted, reconnected dock, external monitor not receiving signal, turned monitor off/on, signal detected. Plugged audio interface back in. So it doesn’t seem to be the interface.
Here’s the crash dump being submitted in case anyone knows this stuff better than I do.
Thanks for the update. Looking at the crash dump there I’m not seeing anything particularly conclusive. The extension in the backtrace was for “com.apple.iokit.IOStorageFamily” which I do not think should crash from connecting the dock. I have seen this before in some other crash dumps, but it’s not in all of them, usually I’m seeing extensions related to the graphics system.
Another option to explore at this time, macOS 11.5 was just released and we’re already hearing from some customers that various issues appear to have been resolved with this most recent update. I’d be curious to hear if applying the update may help in this case.
I have exactly the same behavior. I have two pluggable docking stations (both tbt3-udz). One at home and one in the office. And both of them randomly switch off my Mac on boot. I noticed something (Mac or dock station) trying to switch on one of the monitors. When it attempted to switch on the second one it got stuck for several seconds then was rebooting. Last time it reboots about 5 times before it switches on.
Thank you for the update, sorry to hear that 11.5 has not helped for you, @Alex84.
We’re currently getting our 2019 16" MacBook Pro updated to 11.5.1 (just released today) to see if we can also still reproduce the crashing. I’ll post an update with our testing results. (We were able to reproduce the issue with 11.4 for reference.)
Updated my 16" MBP to 11.5.1 the other day and have docked after sleep several times so far, no crashes for the first few docks/wakes. I just woke it up again and was about to post with positive results, but, well… womp womp. lol crashed again. Here’s the crash dump just for funsies.
Sorry for the delayed reply on our part. We needed to entirely wipe and reload our 16" MBP from scratch to perform our 11.5.1 testing. We were able to replicate the kernel panic issue still, so it appears sadly we’ll be waiting for a fix from Apple.
We’ll be testing with the macOS Monterey 12.0 Preview next and I will report back with our findings.
Thanks for the info! We wouldn’t expect the ChromeHelper process to be related as this issue has been reproduced on a Mac that has not yet had Chrome installed.
We’ve written a knowledgebase article that we’re going to keep updated with any news or solutions for this kernel panic situation here: https://kb.plugable.com/question/972513
For any users encountering this issue please refer to the above KB and also to reach out to us at support@plugable.com if there are any additional questions or concerns.
