Reply To: Diagnostic query: Unexpected kernel panic on macOS Sequoia 15.1 after waking (1794685902)

[Owen Parker]

Inspect the Unified Log for SMC::LiquidDetection or AppleThunderboltNHI::handleLinkEvent entries preceding the panic, as corrosion on the Thunderbolt/USB-C controller’s CC pins triggers spurious link-width renegotiation assertions (kIONHIAssertionLinkDown) during the D3cold-to-D0 transition. On Apple Silicon Macs with cellular, a stuck com.apple.CommCenter modem resume handler can wedge the PCIe root complex; reset the baseband via sudo ipconfig set enX DHCP (cycling the interface) or temporarily disable “Allow Cellular Data Switching” in Settings > Cellular. Thermally, verify powermetrics --samplers smc -n 1 -i 1000 shows CPU_P_Throttle or GPU_P_Throttle flags at zero; a degraded thermal pad on the T2/Thunderbolt retimer chip often mimics this exact panic signature under sustained load.

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