After transitioning to Big Sur, some odd things started happening. One of the annoying ones was the failure to shut down maybe 50% of the time. "Your computer was restarted because of a problem." When that happens, I just disconnect the power supply, but there must be a better way.
"Your Computer Was Restarted Because of a Problem"
- Thread starter George3
- Start date
My first few weeks of running Big Sur were OK, then dramatic problems arrived. The computer ran slow, some apps would not run at all or badly, then when I re-booted to try to avoid these problems I had the greatest difficulty bringing the system back up. I would hold the power button and only 50% of the time would it even try to restart. When it did, it gave up when the progress bar was only part way across and each further try with the power button only brought it a little further across.
Eventually I decided to clean re-install the OS but I was unable to download the OS onto a USB flash drive as the computer would not recognise it. Eventually I tried to reinstall from the Internet using the Recover Command but it would not recognise Wi-Fi. I had to buy a Network cable to get the Internet online. The download took 5 hours but since re-installation the computer has worked flawlessly, so may I suggest you have a Network cable to hand and reload the OS without going through all the unnecessary problems it looks as if you are also experiencing. They do appear to be common with early users of this OS version.
This will also occur with Mojave from time to time. My experience seems to begin with SIP Enabled, then within a few weeks, the above mentioned problem [Auto Restart] with start to appear. Reinstalling system software from an external cloned drive will sometimes solve the issue but not always. I still think this issue is stemming from the T2 chip on my 2018 Mac Mini but I have no proof to support my suspicion.
Thank you, Calperon and wdjudd. It does seem like a clean re-install of the OS would solve the problem, which is quite minor compared to what Calperon has described. The computer probably runs a little slow (only noticeable when looking at a lot of large-size images on Flickr) and most shut downs fail, but no apps appear to be affected. Maybe Apple's next OS will improve things? I have not installed the latest updates, out of fear of making things worse, but they might have the solution?