It turns out it wasn’t Avid software that was causing video editors’ Macs to crash

By MixDex Article may include affiliate links

Professional film, TV and video editors began reporting strange Apple Mac Pro crashes Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2019.

• The issue initially appeared to be isolated to the Los Angeles area, which is the heart of entertainment film and TV production.
• Multiple editors reported having their computers shut down or refuse to start, leading many of them to warn others not to shut down for fear of being locked out of their work.
• It soon emerged that all of the devices demonstrating issues were using Avid software — Media Composer in particular.
• Avid, for its part, launched an all out investigation into the issue.
• However, as investigations into the issue continued it turned out a Google Chrome update was likely to blame.
• According to Google, an update was pushed out that conflicted with Macs that had the “System Integrity Protection” setting turned off.
• This setting is somewhat obscure, but it happens to be one that needs to be disabled to support some external video and audio hardware, which is why the issue may have appeared to be more isolated to the media production industry.
• Google said it had stopped pushing out the update while it worked on a resolution.