Random Shutdown in Big Sur (ThunderboltNHI) driver problem

Guys I want to jump in and give a Big Thank You to the contributors of this thread.

I have a Mac Pro 2013 (trashcan) and everytime I would woud try to upgrade to anything past Catalina I would be hit with severe kernel panics and reboots. I was VERY bad. At first I thought it was caused by my Drobo External storage and its accompanying software (the software is needed to communicate with the storage via Thunderbolt) and since I needed my external storage removing it (and thus upgrading) was out of the question. When Monterey came out I thought surely Apple had taken a look at my dozens and dozens of crash report submissions and fixed the issue. Unfortunately this was not the case and my Mac was crippled by reboots and panics. I disconnected the drive and uninstalled the software and drivers and that gave me a brief reprieve but the random restarts returned shortly after.

It even did this with a freshly installed version of Monterey and so I knew I was in trouble. I was beginning to fear that a GPU problem was the ultimate root of the matter as these GPUs are said to go bad prematurely. I happened upon this thread as I searched for solutions. Since I had no issues whatsoever on Mavericks-Catalina I reasoned that it was primarily an issue with the OS even if it caused my hardware to misbehave.

I followed the steps listed above and changed the name of the offending kext and I havent had a single freeze or reboot since.

My monitor has always used thunderbolt (mini-DP to HDMI) so I know its working without issue (at least for putting out video). I will reinstall/reconnect the Drobo software and enclosure in a day or 2 after ensuring I have a stable crash free system. Hope all goes well!

Thank you again

Does Open Core Legacy Patcher work with mbp 15,1? (2018 Big Sur 11.6.1). I'm having the kernel panic shutdown issue due to AppleThunderboltNHI.kext. I've tried other methods to rename it and create a new snapshot but it crashes in 2-3 mins before anything is complete, even in safe mode and recovery mode.

I heard others were able to disable Thunderbolt and build an installer for older macs using ocpl.

Hello Everyone,

I am used to this problem since Catalina, then on Big Sur. But I ended up doing the last Big Sur update (don't ask me why...)... So my mac is randomly shutting down again... I tried the solutions you provided but at the last step I have a problem.

When I type : bless --folder /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/System/Library/CoreServices --bootefi --create-snapshot It results in : Can't determine mount point of '/Volumes/Macintosh HD/System/Library/CoreServices' and ' '.

Could anyone help me ?

Thanks

Putting “dummy loads” fixed the problem for me. It’s not pretty, but I’m going back and forth between connecting to a Thunderbolt Display and using my late 2013 MPB by itself… so major hassle, as you can imagine. I keep a tb Ethernet adapter and an hdmi cable attached - and that “spaghetti solution” keeps the mac running for now. It won’t win a beauty contest, but at least it’s up. I hope this helps.

Hello friends I happen to be facing the same issue after updating to Big Sur 11.7.10 I can't get Any work moving. I live in Kenya and Can't afford a new MBP.

When I try Fsck -y there is the error container/dev/rdisk1 is mounted. Repairs in a mounted container is not supported

I accidentally installed Big Sur 11.7.10 and had issues getting it to work, but here's what worked for me:

-Reboot in rescue mode (reboot while "Cmd + R") -Type: csrutil disable -Type: csrutil authenticated-root disable -Reboot in rescue mode -Type: mount -uw /Volumes/[your custom stuff here] (mine was: mount -uw /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD) -delete (or rename, or move elsewhere) the AppleThunderboltNHI.kext directory. To delete, type: rm -rf AppleThunderboltNHI.kext -Not sur if necessary, but I also deleted caches. I had to delete every files manually since rm -rf /System/Library/Caches/* didn't do anything. To do so, go to the Caches folder using cd /Volumes/[your custom stuff here]//System/Library/Caches then type ls to list all files and delete them one by one with the rm command. -Type: kmutil install -u --force --volume-root /Volumes/[your custom stuff here] -Type: bless --folder /Volumes/[your custom stuff here]/System/Library/CoreServices --bootefi --create-snapshot -reboot (in rescue mode) -csrutil enable -Reboot

Then I got stuck in the infinite reboot loop with the error message, so I booted into recovery mode, went into disk util and ran First Aid on my Macintosh HD volume. It fixed my boot problems, the kext is still not running and my computer doesn't crash anymore. I hope it helps!!

PS: I also cleared my my SMC, PRAM and NVRAM just for good measure, but it's not necessary. You can clear SMC by shutting your mac off, holding option, control, shift and power button for 10 sec. For PRAM and NVRAM, just hold command, option, R and P while booting and release it after it reboots.