Embodiments may include apparatus, systems, and methods associated with an Enhanced Serial Peripheral Interface (eSPI) channel interface to couple to a data bus to link an eSPI primary device to an eSPI secondary device. In embodiments, the eSPI primary device includes an eSPI device controller and is coupled to the channel interface and transmits a notification of a crash event, e.g., a catastrophic error (CATERR), via packet-based signaling, such as a virtual wire (VW) over the data bus to allow the eSPI primary device to transmit the notification of the crash event without allocation of a dedicated wire signal for the notification between the eSPI primary device and the eSPI secondary device. Other embodiments may be described and/or claimed.