The error: A Mac restarts unexpectedly with a "Your computer restarted because of a problem" message, repeatedly, on a machine that was previously stable.
Environment: Any current Mac, Intel or Apple Silicon.
Why this happens: A kernel panic means something crashed at the deepest level of the OS — which narrows the field to a fairly small set of real causes: a failing or incompatible third-party kernel extension, failing RAM, or (less often now than in the Intel era, but still possible) a genuine hardware fault. The actual cause is always recorded in detail; the generic on-screen message just doesn't show it.
The fix:
- Read the actual panic log rather than guessing: Console.app → Crash Reports → look for the most recent
.panicfile, or/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/directly — the top of the report names the specific process or kext involved far more often than not. - If a specific third-party kernel extension or driver is named, that's your prime suspect — update or remove it.
- Run Apple Diagnostics (hold D at startup, or the equivalent Apple Silicon key combination) to rule out a hardware-level fault, particularly memory.
- If panics correlate with a specific activity (always under heavy GPU load, always on wake from sleep), that pattern itself is diagnostically useful — note it and include it when checking the panic log for a matching cause.
One thing worth knowing: people often replace hardware or reinstall macOS as a first move here, when the panic log usually already names the actual culprit directly — read it before doing anything drastic.