ap3st3r

Q: Safari freezes when visiting certain websites.

Safari freezes when I visit certain websites. The websites include espn.go.com and www.nytimes.com. I think it might have something to do with the graphics on the page. I have the latest version of Adobe Flash Player installed. The freezing causes me to reboot the computer by using the toggle switch as my mouse pointer can move but cannot click on anything. Thanks for the help.

MacBook Pro, OS X El Capitan (10.11.1)

Posted on Mar 26, 2016 3:52 AM

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Q: Safari freezes when visiting certain websites.

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  • by weskat,

    weskat weskat Apr 5, 2016 12:21 PM in response to pda-uk
    Level 1 (8 points)
    iTunes
    Apr 5, 2016 12:21 PM in response to pda-uk

    pda-uk wrote:

     

    I have the same problem and it is becoming ridiculous: I am force-quitting the browser several times a day.

     

    Safari - Version 9.1 (10601.5.17.4)

    Yosemite

     

    Force quitting is better than the power button reset that I am doing every few hours. How are able to force quit your browser?

    And sorry to hear you are having this problem.

  • by pda-uk,

    pda-uk pda-uk Apr 6, 2016 12:35 AM in response to weskat
    Level 1 (8 points)
    Apr 6, 2016 12:35 AM in response to weskat

    I keep the 'Force Quit Applications' window open on the desktop at all times at the moment.

     

    Safari really is now unusable. I'm getting a hang almost everytime I use it.

     

    Will be using Opera for a while, until Apple sorts this out. Very annoying as I only came back to Safari about a year ago, when I found Firefox hung all the time after an update. Running out of browsers.

     

    Can anyone make a browser that doesn't hang when it goes near javascript, Flash etc etc?

  • by carefulowner,

    carefulowner carefulowner Apr 6, 2016 2:44 AM in response to pda-uk
    Level 1 (47 points)
    Mac OS X
    Apr 6, 2016 2:44 AM in response to pda-uk

    Have you complained to Apple themselves about it? Unless you've already done so, leave details about your machine and its Safari troubles at http://www.apple.com/feedback. You can also find other ways of contacting Apple, including a free phoneback service, at the bottom of the webpage at http://www.apple.com/support, including the Contact Us link. Simply discussing the problem in this or another Community forum isn't going to make it come to their attention. I mean, that's fine as far as it goes, but with such a widespread issue as this one with Safari at present, those developers at Apple need to be woken up to the position a great many of us are finding ourselves in now.

     

    I must say that in all my years of Internet computing I've never come across a situation with a browser quite as bad as this one. Although it can manifest itself in some slightly different ways on various different Macs, all the evidence points to a major mismatch of Safari with Javascript. This started in earnest (in 2015 there were earlier signs of a bug in Safari that never got properly addressed) with the February update.

  • by Theregulator,

    Theregulator Theregulator Apr 12, 2016 12:24 AM in response to carefulowner
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Apr 12, 2016 12:24 AM in response to carefulowner

    Just been through a spate of iMac restarts in the last 30 minutes driving me nuts - clearly all related to safari as not much else open and every time it was while using safari.

     

    This has been going on now for the past few weeks - sometimes I have a break and go a few days without anything happening even while using safari - but after reading this post and seeing someone flag the issue of selecting 'don't use fonts less then 12ppt' that got my attention as I think I can trace my issues back to the day I selected that a few weeks ago.

     

    Ironically it was while checking out a new iMac that I noticed the fonts were bigger and I found an option to increase the font size - something I have since been unable to locate on my iMac and have therefore putnit down to hardware differences.

     

    All I could find was this option in safari so thought I would select it and give it a go - which has caused me no end of trouble it turns out.

     

    Anyway after the fifth hard turn off and restart I have de-selected the option and run safari for a bit without any issues.  I have also de-selected the safari suggestions but I don't think it is that as I had further freezes after deselecting that.

     

    Will keep fingers crossed for this solution / work around to be heavily tried but seems to be an issue with software and font sizes by the looks of things.

     

    The only other thing of note that I seemed to notice was each time safari froze (am calling it that because people have been calling safari closing down unexpectedly as 'crashing' and that has not been my experience) there was a voice icon on the path bar to the right indicating that a video or at least audio was playing on the page but never was anything playing - not sure what that means if anything.

  • by carefulowner,Apple recommended

    carefulowner carefulowner Apr 12, 2016 2:16 AM in response to Theregulator
    Level 1 (47 points)
    Mac OS X
    Apr 12, 2016 2:16 AM in response to Theregulator

    TheRegulator and others,

     

    Have you tried putting your Mac temporarily into Safe Mode? There's a possibility that it could improve your current situation. In Safe Mode only the  essential elements of OSX are automatically loaded and run, and OSX then checks everything out and corrects any anomalies it finds. Safe Mode normally takes less than 5 mins to run. Worth a try, I'd say.

     

    Here's what to do:

    1. Restart the Mac by clicking Apple icon > Restart.

    2. Place your finger over the Shift key (not on it) and as soon as you hear the 'tah-dah' sound, depress the Shift key and hold it down.

    3. Release the key when you see the Apple logo in the middle of the screen.

    4. The screen should then remain essentially blank. Let OSX then do its thing in the background. It may find and correct various errors. The process could take a few minutes, so be patient and don't use the mouse or keyboard or whatever in that time.

    5. OSX should finally bring you out to the Desktop again.

    6. To leave Safe Mode, just restart the Mac in the normal way without pressing any keys.

     

    As I've said so often in a number of these forums, I'm of the view that most of Safari's current woes are caused by a mismatch of it with Javascript, the software used by websites that determines the layout of webpages when used with a browser. I'm personally convinced that Javascript developers have made fundamental changes in recent months that have been designed, at the expense of laptops and desktop machines, to cater more for iOS-run devices. Some of these changes may well include new restrictions on font types and sizes.

     

    When Safari 'bombs out' and you then subsequently look in the System Log you invariably find that a 'webpage error' (or words to that effect) has occurred. In fact, it's very interesting what the 9.1 update to Safari states (I usually do my updates manually and so can read what Apple says they're modifying before I allow the download). It states that one of the modifications to Safari is an 'updated version of WebKit, with enhanced support for images and CSS' - which therefore involves webpage layout and must surely involve Javascript! The trouble is that I don't think the change they've made to Safari in this respect is entirely bug-free.

  • by nickcohen,

    nickcohen nickcohen May 21, 2016 6:18 AM in response to carefulowner
    Level 1 (4 points)
    May 21, 2016 6:18 AM in response to carefulowner

    Setting the Safari font size as suggested worked for me (hopefully will continue to do so) on my powerbook

  • by Helgen,

    Helgen Helgen Jun 6, 2016 11:12 AM in response to ap3st3r
    Level 1 (12 points)
    Desktops
    Jun 6, 2016 11:12 AM in response to ap3st3r

    Just use Chrome, problem solved.

  • by weskat,

    weskat weskat Jun 19, 2016 4:49 AM in response to nickcohen
    Level 1 (8 points)
    iTunes
    Jun 19, 2016 4:49 AM in response to nickcohen

    nickcohen wrote:

     

    Setting the Safari font size as suggested worked for me (hopefully will continue to do so) on my powerbook

     

    Hi. Would you mind reporting back if this has taken care of the problem for you -- and if so, outline what you did to correct the freezing issue?

    Am continuing to have this issue re-occur and having to "hard stop" the mac with power button is a real burden.

  • by Corey Ginsberg,

    Corey Ginsberg Corey Ginsberg Jul 3, 2016 10:40 PM in response to carefulowner
    Level 1 (13 points)
    iLife
    Jul 3, 2016 10:40 PM in response to carefulowner

    Going into safe mode didn't work for me on this. Hoping an answer comes up soon. I'm using Chrome more often than not now.

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