Crash due to WindowServer when switching between user profiles

<< Regarding the hard drive space, it's weird bc Finder says I have 70gb available. >>

Available includes Purgeable, which takes a moment longer to access. Finder's numbers are also overly optimistic and don't always add up properly.

With only 8 GB Real RAM, you also needs extra Paging Space when you attempt fast user switching. The entire First User context must be check-pointed and rolled out to disk to make room for the incoming second User's context.

Your Mac has a rather small drive at 250 GB, and you are using a lot of that space already. you should consider adding an additional drive. With any sort of Library, such as Photos, movies, sounds or MP3, those are an easy and obvious candidate for a secondary drive.

Be certain you initialize any new drive by completely ERASE-ing the Physical Device with Disk Utility, so that Disk Utility (not third-party drive-maker's Utilities) "owns" the drive.

Then it will get included in your Time Machine backups automatically.

brandiew4 wrote:

Apologies, the attachment didn't work. Just edited the post, does it show now?

I see it now, yes.

I see some issues with your DuckDuckGo

Try uninstalling it, at least don't launch it and compare your results...(?)

No insight To trouble shoot further you can:

—A SafeBoot Start up your Mac in safe mode - Apple Support will sort many anomalies

Does a quick disk repair before it fully boots up, and certain system caches get cleared and rebuilt, third party system modifications and system accelerations are disabled temporarily.

Login and test. Reboot as normal and test. Caches get rebuilt automatically.

This test will tell you if third party interference; most extensions etc are not loaded in safe boot mode.

*** (if you are using a wireless keyboard with rechargeable batteries— connect the charging cable, this will make the wired keyboard successful Safe Boot your Mac.)

—Test issue in another user (or guest user) account Change Users & Groups settings on Mac - Apple Support

This will tell you if it a universal issue or isolated to your user/admin account. 

unplug all non-essential peripherals when testing

Uninstall all third party apps that are Cleaners/Optimizers/VPN/Anti-Virus - this includes your DuckDuckGo VPN

all known to cause issues on the macOS

"   Low disk space - This computer is running low on free hard drive space. "

at only 50 GB available, you do not currently have enough free space on your boot drive to do Fast User Switching.

In fact, you are close to not being able to continue to use your Mac for ONE User.

Thanks for the help troubleshooting both of you. After messing around with Safe Boot & unplugging all peripherals, looks like the culprit is a USB-C dongle I'm using to give me additional ports. How goofy.

Appreciate the additional context about memory usage Grant. I do have an external hard drive that I use occasionally for my TimeMachine backups but wouldn't feel comfortable with it being the only place these files are stored - if my TimeMachine & offloaded files were being stored on the same drive. I will look into getting an additional drive just for storage of those items.

Thanks again for the help, both of you.

brandiew4 wrote:

I ran an EtreCheck scan and the full results are below,

? Not seeing it.

ref: How to use the Add Text Feature when posting an Etrecheck Report—OldToad

How to use the Add Text Feature When Post… - Apple Community

<< I don't use DuckDuckGo's VPN, so no problem there. >>

The mere act of installing a VPN makes fundamental changes in the network of your Mac. if you do not want to use one, you need to take steps to completely Un-Install all VPNs. Just disabling VPNs is not sufficient.

duck duck go is a great search engine and their Browser is perfectly fine.

but do not install or use ANY VPN you installed yourself.

VPN:

A virtual private network, or VPN, is a private connection over the Internet from a device to a specific network.  VPN technology is widely used in corporate environments. If you need to be "present" on an institutional network, a VPN is a great tool for accomplishing this. It is generally issued and controlled by the institution.

Almost all other uses are a SCAM. There is generally no need for you to have a private (and almost always MUCH slower) connection to a VPN vendor's Network, except to make it easier for them to harvest your data to sell. If you are behind a Router you control or Trust, there is NO security advantage whatsoever in using a VPN. Your connections are already encrypted in most cases.

If VPN vendors just stopped there, it would be bad. But many of these packages also insist on scanning all your files, non-stop, -- nominally looking for viruses, but who knows for sure what data they are harvesting. Their non-stop file reading punishes your computer's performance in the process.

Some also break into your other secure connections so they can be FIRST to examine your data, often leaving your Mac MORE vulnerable to attack.

What VPN service to use?

DON'T use VPN services

https://gist.github.com/joepie91/5a9909939e6ce7d09e29

VPN: What you need to know - Apple Community

Thanks Grant. I don't use DuckDuckGo's VPN, so no problem there. Leroy's suggestion below, I uninstalled DuckDuckGo entirely and the crash is still happening.

Regarding the hard drive space, it's weird bc Finder says I have 70gb available. Either way, I have a ton of mp3s taking up most of the space, but need to review further ways I can free up disk space. It seems like iOS has a lot of junk buried from previous installs that creep forward.

I really meant to say an ADDITIONAL drive, and not space on an already-in-use drive.

You are precluded from storing casual files on a Time Machine drive under modern MacOS. Time Machine owns and locks the entire drive, and [in my opinion] that is how it should be.

and for exactly the reason you state, essentially,

where is the backup of a file stuffed onto the Time Machine drive as if it were a valid data drive?

brandiew4 wrote:

After messing around with Safe Boot & unplugging all peripherals, looks like the culprit is a USB-C dongle I'm using to give me additional ports.

Good computing brandiew4 ! Appreciate the update on your insight & resolve

Apologies, the attachment didn't work. Just edited the post, does it show now?