Reply To: Diagnostic query: Unexpected kernel panic on macOS Sequoia 15.1 after waking (1794718826)

Irrelevant to the NHI panic, but if you run Audio over Thunderbolt (e.g., Universal Audio Apollo, Focusrite RedNet), a stale AppleThunderboltAudio kext (v4.x vs required 5.0+ for Sequoia) can deadlock the IOAudioEngine during powerStateWillChangeTo, manifesting as an IOPlatformPluginFamily timeout. Check kextstat | grep -i thunderboltaudio; if loaded, unload via sudo kextunload -b com.apple.driver.AppleThunderboltAudio and test wake stability. This path shares the NHI mailbox doorbell registers; a stuck audio DMA engine blocks the NHI firmware’s wake ACK, triggering the exact assertion you see.