SEP 14 For Mac Crashes and shuts down our computers when we try to connect via our VPN software called VPN Tracker By Equinux. Turning off Network Threat Protection is a work around.
These are the comments from the Equinux engineering support staff on what is going on
All I can see in the crash log is that the process that was active when the kernel crashed was ARDAgent (ARD = Apple Remote Desktop). This can mean anything or it can mean nothing. It is not said that the active process is causing the kernel panic, it could cause it, yet it could also be totally unrelated to it; it's just a "hint" the system gives you.
Our kernel extension is not in the Stack Trace, which means we didn't cause the panic directly. Looking at the actual cause, though, we may have caused it indirectly, as the cause is:
"assertion failed: m->m_flags & M_PKTHDR"
That means the kernel crashed by intention and it does so because it misses a "packet header flag" in a network packet. As our kernel extension also deals with packets, it's not completely impossible that we removed that flag or didn't add it when we should. Question would only be, why does that hit you and no other customers? I see nothing that would make your VPN connection somehow unusual.
I will do some more investigations and keep you updated. Just wanted to share that information with you already.
Kind Regards,
Martin
Hi Scott,
I'm sorry that you are experiencing issues. To me this sounds like a kernel panic as VPN Tracker has no code that could initiate a shutdown and the only reason why a computer would shut down out of the blue is when its kernel panics. And unless that is a panic caused by our kernel extension, it would be an Apple bug as no matter what a user space application does, it must never be able to crash the kernel (that's why kernels live in an own world, completely separated from the rest of the system). So far you are the first and thus only user who every reported a kernel panic with 10.12.x, so this is not a know issue to us either.
The logs would not be lost by a reboot, just create a TSR:
http://www.vpntracker.com/us/support.html?faq=640
It contains logs of up to 16 connection attempts as well as global VPN Tracker logs of up to 16 sessions (app restarts). It's a disk image, meaning you can open it yourself as well and view the logs if you wish to.
Please send a TSR of the connection in question to us as well, however, if it is a kernel panic, there should be a panic log. You'd find it if you open Console (a standard app of MacOS to view all the system log files) and then choose System Reports. There you see logs of all the system apps that recently crashed and there could also be a panic log. And if there is such a log, I'd ask you to send it as well.
Thank you!
Kind Regards,
Martin
I think the issue is caused by a Symantec product you have installed (something with maybe Internet Security in its name). I can see in the TSR that this hooked up into your kernel and it scans and manipulates networks traffic. Try removing this product (you will need an uninstaller for that, just deleting an app won't be enough as you need to get rid of the kernel hooks) and see if this fixes the issue. If it does, we found the cause. Then we need to find out if this is an issue in our code (we do something wrong and as a result this product causes a crash) or an issue in their code (we do everything right but they are unable to deal with VPN packets correctly). We can only fix it if it's an issue in our code, otherwise Symantec has to fix that.
Of course, everything I said above may be nonsense, I admit that I'm just taking a guess into the blue here as it's impossible to name a definitive cause as long as we are unable to reproduce that issue. If I'm right, you may like to get in contact with Symantec support and ask them for their opinion. If they are convinced that this is our fault, we will try to get that product and see if we can reproduce that crash on a test system as that's the minimum setup we will need to perform further investigations.
Kind Regards,
Martin
Not sure if that is interesting for you, but yesterday we had a customer with a connection issue that looked like firewalling and it turned out that this user has the same kernel extensions loaded from Symantec that you have loaded as well and just like in your case it also caused trouble. The difference is, in his case the system wouldn't crash, however, he also didn't have 10.12 but 10.11 on his Mac. So if the combination of Symantec and VPN Tracker doesn't crash on 10.11 but it does crash on 10.12, I'd personally say that it's neither the fault of Symantec nor our fault, then it looks a lot like it's the fault of Apple. Wouldn't be the first time that Apple makes a tiny change to their network code, a really harmless one, that unfortunately can cause the whole system to crash.
Do we mind if you share our mails with Symantec? No, not at all. We have nothing to hide and we are not afraid to take responsibility for our mistakes. We are also not afraid to admit that we make mistakes. If it is our fault, then it is our fault, we will not put the blame on someone else.
Kind Regards,
Martin