My employer has sent me another brand new laptop, exact same model and specs. I turned it on, typed my password and plugged in my monitor with an USB-C to DisplayPort cable. I disconnected the cable and reconnected it 3 or 4 times and... boom! Laptop crashed. I rebooted it and did the same thing again and got another kernel panic. I was hoping my previous (2 week old) laptop had some sort of hardware issue but it looks like this is a pretty consistent and ubiquitous bug. The only difference between the new laptop and the previous one is that the new one is running Catalina 10.15.7 and the previous one is running Big Sur 11.3.1. Given that 2 brand new laptops running widely different macOS versions are crashing straight out of the box, I suspect this must be hurting a lot of people out there.

Are you using DisplayPort or HDMI?

Same thing happened to me. I've switched to HDMI and haven't had any crashes for the last 2 weeks. In my case it's definitely a problem with DisplayPort. In fact, I can reproduce it with a single monitor and a single USB-C to DisplayPort cable (no docks or hubs involved). Plug it in and out and boom. I've upgraded from Big Sur 11.31. to 11.4 this week and can confirm the bug is still there. I hope Apple fixes this soon as my dock (CalDigit TS3 Plus, bought through Apple by the way!) only has one Thunderbolt port so I can only connect a single monitor via HDMI - the other monitor port is a DisplayPort so I'm having to use a second adapter to connect the other monitor to avoid crashing my laptop, which totally defeats the purpose of buying an expensive dock in the first place!

Have you tried connecting monitors directly to the laptop instead of via dock? Also, try a HDMI connection instead of DisplayPort if you can. In my case I found out the problem is not the dock but rather connecting/disconnecting a DisplayPort cable.

Have you tried connecting monitors directly to the laptop instead of via docks? Also, try a HDMI connection instead of DisplayPort if you can. In my case I found out the problem is not the dock but rather connecting/disconnecting a DisplayPort cable.

What Apple is claiming is absolute nonsense. I'm experiencing this issue with a brand new 16" MBP 2019 model. My employer sent me another machine, exact same specs and problem was still there! I reformatted it and did a clean install of Mojave, same problem. Upgraded to Big Sur, same. Both machines, brand new, crashing with a single monitor using USB-C to DisplayPort cable. No hubs/docks. They also crash when booted in safe mode. It's dead simple to reproduce.

I believe all 16" models have the AMD card but beware that it only shows on "About This Mac" when you plug in an external display.

To be sure go to About This Mac -> System Report -> Graphics/Displays

In my case it only crashes when using a DisplayPort connection, and never with HDMI

@DelGurth, my MBP also has AMD Radeon Pro 5500M. Did you test it with an Apple display? Which one? Maybe this issue is only affecting non-Apple monitors. I have 2 Dell monitors, and both can crash my laptop.

Interesting... will Apple bother to port the fix back to Bir Sur, I wonder!

@gurucc when you're using HDMI, are you using a USB-C/HDMI cable or are you using a dock/hub/adapter?

@nguerreiro, are you connecting monitors via HDMI or DisplayPort?

That is such a lame response from Apple. I can easily crash my top-of-the-line MacBook Pro with a simple USB-C/DisplayPort cable. How can that be a third party issue? And even if it was a third-party issue, the fact an operating system can be so easily trashed by a third-party device and they won't do anything about it is just really bad customer service. In my company (12,500+ employees worldwide) almost everyday there's someone in the public IT support Slack channel complaining their shiny new laptop is crashing. The IT guys are shocked and completely overwhelmed with the number of issues with the latest model.

Does your crash report says "element modified after free"? Big Sur 11.5 was only released on July 21st. Were you running a beta release? Were you experiencing panics on previous MacOS versions?