From killing a process, through a regular restart, to Recovery and a bootable external recovery disk, all you need to know about fixing your Mac in macOS 11 and 12.
restart
Step through how to work out when, how and why a kernel panic occurred in the unified log, using Ulbow.
How to tell apart unexpected quits, WindowServer crashes, kernel panics, and more – and what to do about them.
What they are, how they’ve changed, how to work out what went wrong, and how to deal with them. No Mac should ever experience a single panic.
What’s the quickest way to tear down all user apps and services? Or to force a restart? The answer is in the command tool launchctl.
Is shutdown -r now better than reboot? What advantages does Finder’s Restart have over them? The answers are in these logs.
When your Mac seems unresponsive and its GUI frozen, you don’t have to reach for the Power button. Try connecting using ssh: it’s actually very simple and valuable.
When should you reset your SMC and NVRAM, repair permissions, install a Combo update, or re-install the whole of macOS?
From 10.8 onwards, you will not see the classic grey display, but your Mac will spontaneously restart or shut down. Here are the details, and what to do next.
How to explore what happens during startup, and hone in on problems. The second tutorial, medium level.
The Eclectic Light Company 