The present disclosure relates to systems, methods, and computer readable media for identifying and responding to a panic condition on a storage system on a computing node. For example, systems disclosed herein may include establishing recovery instructions between a host system and a storage system in responding to a future instance of a panic condition. The storage system may provide an indication of a self-detected panic condition in a variety of ways. In response to identifying the panic condition, the host system may perform one or more recovery actions in accordance with recovery instructions accessible to the host system. This may include performing resets of specific components and reinitializing communication between the host system and storage system in less invasive ways than slower and more expensive conventional approaches for responding to panic conditions on computing nodes.