How to determine Mac shutdown causes

Written By: Jonah Aragon
  • Comments: 22
How to determine Mac shutdown causes

Difficulty

Very easy

Steps

3

Time Required

2 minutes

Introduction

This guide will show you how to determine why exactly your Mac shut down or restarted using macOS's built-in logging.

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    • Open Terminal.app

    The terminal responded:log: warning: The log archive contains partial or missing metadata

    log: cannot use --last when archive metadata is missing

    Any advice anyone?

    Edward -

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    • Copy and paste the following command in your Terminal window:

    • log show --predicate 'eventMessage contains "Previous shutdown cause"' --last 24h

    • The "24h" portion of the command can be changed to any number of hours, depending on how far back you need to see.

    This doesn’t appear to show anything on Apple Silicon M1 systems.

    Henk Poley -

    That’s right.

    Greenie CP -

    Late 2013 cause -128 :( Probably old boy needs replacement already

    Alexsey Novik -

    My terminal reads:

    Bad predicate (Unable to parse the format string “ ‘eventMessage”): ‘eventMessage

    Any ideas?

    Richard Freeman -

    I got the same message Big Sur 11.7.1.

    Ivan Ciego -

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    • The previous shutdown causes in the timeframe you selected will appear as a list.

    • Common shutdown causes include 5 which indicates a normal shutdown, 3 which indicates a hard shutdown (i.e. holding the power button), and 0 which indicates the power was disconnected.

    • A list of shutdown causes can be found here: Shutdown causes (from George Garside blog)

    the terminal command does not work in El Capitan. Apparently this works only with Sierra onwards. Any ideas how to get this to work with El Capitan?

    Avocet Peregrine -

    Some Macs had 4 Diagnostic LED

    Daniele Carminati -

    I’m getting a Previous Shutdown Cause code that is not listed in either iFixit or in grgarside blog (Previous shutdown cause: -8). Any ideas on what it might be? Thanks.

    Chevindu Wickramathilaka -

Conclusion

Done! You should be able to use these codes to further troubleshoot random shutdowns or other strange events.

Hit the button below if this guide helped solve your issue :)

Author

Jonah Aragon

Member since: 05/08/18

5255 Reputation

13 comments

For me it says

kernel: (AppleSMC) Previous shutdown cause: -20

The attached PDF (and the internet) doesn’t seem to have any information about this code. What’s the source of the codes for the PDF? Maybe they have updated listing for shutdown codes.

Saurabh Shrivastava -

we also have -20 as a cause and have no idea what it means. did you ever find it out?

octomobiki -

I also have -20 code of shut down after macOS 10.15.5 update with MBP 16inches model.

but no information at all….

赤月小黄泉 -

writErr = -20, /*I/O System Errors*/ its this error for code -20 .. Find all error codes here :- https://krypted.com/lists/comprehensive-...

UNKNOWN X -

Sorry , that was not related, check this one : - https://georgegarside.com/blog/macos/shu...

and, error code 20- T2 security chip initiated shutdown

UNKNOWN X -

copied/pasted your terminal command and got this: -bash: log: command not found

OS 10.11.6

Chris Catalano -

Hello,

First time posting here but I’m having some issues with a Macbook Air 2020 (Not the M1) having some shutdowns, I have run the terminal command and it’s coming up with Error -67 and I can’t seem to find this one anywhere. Hoping someone has some guidance, Running most up to date Big Sur, (11.1). Clean installed the OS and didn’t transfer a backup over and it seems to be still happening. Also tried an SMC / NVRAM reset, Safe mode, first aid disk. Any advise would be appreciated!

Blair Harrison -

My MacBook air 2015 is unusable now . It keeps shutting down after 5-10 minutes of uses … and the last shut down cause is -128

What should i do now ? any one ????

CLOUD GAMING -

I have 2014 MacBook Pro 13 and I had the same problem my Mac was shutting down randomly. I looked the logs from the terminal and it stated the problem was power disconnected (shutdown cause 0). So I reset the SMC and unplugged my battery and plug it back to logic board. Also I drained my battery completely and charged it to 100 without distraction and waited 8 more hours on the %100. My problem was solved. Mac never shuts down again and my Mac is working faster. Maybe this information will be helpful to somebody.

Selim Tuzel -

cloud gaming, -128 is not the error you want to see as it refers to a problem with the logic board

cheers

marcus stephen -

Does not work on M1 Macs. 0 entries come up.

Drew -

Hello , what would be this command but for a M1 rubbing lates Ventura version ?

Erick Llanos -

in my case it is -128 which is same to -112. can you please tell me the solution

Muhammad Ali Kayani -