Diagnostic query: Unexpected kernel panic on macOS Sequoia 15.1 after waking (1794656170)

[Ethan Carter]

Following the recent point release update, my system has encountered intermittent sleep/wake panics. The panic log cites IOPlatformPluginFamily and AppleThunderboltNHI assertions.

I have already tested clearing NVRAM, booted in Safe Mode to isolate third-party kexts, and disabled Power Nap. Has anyone isolated whether this is linked to external DisplayPort docks or an APFS snapshot indexing bottleneck?

[Alex Tanner]

The panic stack shows IOPlatformPluginFamily asserting during power-state transitions, which can be triggered by Secure Enclave latency when evaluating Passkey assertions during wake authentication. Verify whether biometrickitd or authd spikes CPU via log show --predicate 'process == "authd"' --last 1h | grep -i "passkey|assert" immediately after wake. Temporarily disable “Allow Apple Watch to unlock Mac” in System Settings → Touch ID & Password to isolate Secure Enclave round-trip delays. If the panic ceases, re-enroll Touch ID and reset the Secure Enclave cache via sudo bioutil -r in Recovery OS.

MacBook Air 15″ M3 (24GB) | AirPods Pro 2 USB-C

Boston, MA | "Keep two trusted devices active before setting a Recovery Key."

[Emily Hart]

A mismatched Apple Watch unlock handshake can stall AppleThunderboltNHI if the watch’s com.apple.watch.unlock daemon holds the Thunderbolt power domain during wake negotiation. Check pmset -g log | grep -A5 -B5 "Wake Request.*Watch" for aborted wake reasons correlating with panic timestamps. Unpair the Watch, reset its network settings (Settings → General → Reset → Reset Network Settings), then re-pair while the Mac is awake and connected to AC power. Confirm the Mac’s battery health via system_profiler SPPowerDataType | grep -A2 "Health Information" — a degraded cell can cause voltage sag during Thunderbolt retimer initialization.

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

Toronto, ON | "Battery cycle count beats random percentage guesses."

[Liam O’Connor]

AirPods Pro 2/Max firmware 6F7/6F8 introduced a Bluetooth LE audio handoff race that can deadlock the AppleThunderboltNHI DMA engine when a dock’s USB-BT controller shares the same PCIe root complex. Capture a Bluetooth HCI dump during wake via sudo /usr/bin/hcidump -X -t -w /tmp/bt_wake.pcap and inspect for HCI_LE_Set_Connection_Parameters collisions with Thunderbolt hot-plug interrupts. Disable “Automatic Switching” for AirPods in Bluetooth settings and toggle sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.Bluetooth.plist DontPageAudioDevices 1 to prevent AirPlay 2 discovery storms. If the dock uses a Realtek RTL8153/8156 Ethernet controller, update its firmware via the vendor’s macOS utility — outdated PHY firmware causes spurious link-change interrupts that panic IONVMeController during APFS snapshot mount.

iMac 24″ M3 (16GB) | HomePod mini Stereo Pair

Dublin, IE | "Clean Wi-Fi multicast fixes half of AirPlay drops."

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