Reply To: Diagnostic query: Unexpected kernel panic on macOS Sequoia 15.1 after waking (1794679675)

[Emily Hart]

The AppleThunderboltNHI assertion during wake often correlates with spurious power-change interrupts from the embedded controller when a paired Apple Watch attempts proximity unlock while the TBT controller is still initializing; unpair the Watch in System Settings → Bluetooth and test a full sleep/wake cycle without it present. Verify the EC’s reported battery health and cycle count via ioreg -r -c AppleSmartBattery | grep -E '"CycleCount"|"DesignCapacity"|"MaxCapacity"' — a degraded pack can cause voltage sag on wake that trips the NHI’s power-state machine. If you use Universal Control/Stage Manager with an iPad on the same iCloud account, disable Settings → General → AirPlay & Handoff → Cursor and Keyboard on the iPad; the continuity daemon (com.apple.continuity) has been observed hammering the TBT path during dark wake. As a hardware recovery step, disconnect all TBT/USB-C devices, hold Touch ID + Control + Option + Shift for 7 s to force an SMC/EC hard reset, then cold-boot with only the power adapter attached.

iPad Pro 13″ M4 | Apple Watch Ultra 2 | iPhone 15 Pro

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