Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

Level 1

15 points

Laggy Scrolling in Safari with MacBook Pro

The title says it all. Safari 5 is extremely slow scrolling on many webpages. The worst culprit seems to be sites that have flash video (read, any site with ads). Scrolling is extremely slow and jerky.

By comparison, both Chrome and Firefox are perfectly smooth on sites with Flash.

As far as I can tell, Safari uses some sort of hardware acceleration for scrolling. Both Firefox and Chrome peg the CPU pretty good when scrolling (especially with smooth scrolling enabled). Safari hardly uses any CPU when scrolling, but the scrolling performance is terrible. I've done everything obvious — deleted all preference files, used the "Reset Safari" command, tried it without plugins, etc. It's still bad in general, and horrible with flash on pages.

This is a MacBook Pro 2.4 ghz with the GeForce 8600M GT. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

MacBook Pro 2.4 GHZ C2D, Mac OS X (10.6.3)

Posted on Jun 11, 2010 12:13 PM

67 replies

Schwa72

Level 1

21 points

Mar 9, 2011 6:14 PM in response to Julian_G

I've had a brand-new quad core MacBook Pro for about a week now and wondered why scrolling on certain websites was so choppy in Safari but smooth in Firefox. It's Flash. I uninstalled Flash 10.2 and scrolling was smooth as glass in both Safari and Firefox. So this problem persists, even in Mac OS X 10.6.6 and Safari 10.2.

Mar 12, 2011 5:44 PM in response to Schwa72

Did you try running Safari in 32 bit mode? I have heard that Flash seems to work better running in Safari when Safari is running in 32 bit mode. I know I switched to Chrome to run any Flash content and its much better. Probably because Chrome runs in 32 mode by default and it has its own Flash plugin.

Schwa72

Level 1

21 points

Mar 12, 2011 6:55 PM in response to John Scott1

Nope, I installed ClickToFlash instead. I liked it so much I installed it on all my computers.

exigence

Level 1

22 points

Apr 11, 2011 5:56 PM in response to Schwa72

I've noticed this as well. Out of the latest builds of Chrome, Firefox, and Safari, it's always Safari that is just a little bit choppy. That is the major reason why I'm not using Safari right now, actually. Firefox and Chrome are consistently silky smooth; Safari is not.

This doesn't necessarily have anything to do with Flash, as I've seen it happen on fairly simple, text-based pages (including pages here on discussions.apple.com).

C2D @ 2.53 GHz, nVidia 9400M, 4 GB RAM, SSD.

ClayG

Level 4

1,416 points

Apr 12, 2011 3:03 PM in response to exigence

I had this problem and fixed it completely on my MBP. Try deleting Safari preferences and caches. Note that a program like Onyx is NOT sufficient for this. You must do it manually.

1) Go to Home>Library>Preferences and delete com.apple.safari.rss.plist and com.apple.safari.plist
2) Go to Home>Library>Caches and delete the folder labeled com.apple.safari.
3) Restart your computer.

Try this and write back with the result.

exigence

Level 1

22 points

Apr 12, 2011 3:57 PM in response to ClayG

I'm afraid that doesn't help. Safari is consistently more choppy when it comes to scrolling.

exigence

Level 1

22 points

Apr 18, 2011 4:51 PM in response to exigence

Seems that an extension was causing *some of* the sluggish scrolling on some pages. Even ones with text only.

I'm still having the same problem on a handful of sites, though -- including discussions.apple.com. Happens with or without extensions enabled, and with or without Glims installed.

Any thoughts on this?

TIA.

Jun 21, 2011 10:22 PM in response to exigence

I'm a web developer, and have noticed that a site I am currently developing runs very slowly in safari:

http://dts.ulladullawebdesign.com/index.php

Not just the scrolling, but the hero image slideshow too. Very low frame rate.

Runs sliky smooth in all other browsers: Firefox 4, 5, Chrome, IE9 etc.

Any ideas?

Scott

TildeBee

Level 7

31,917 points

Jun 25, 2011 9:04 AM in response to ScottRichardson

Runs fine here, Scott.

Maybe you should start your own new post, rather than tack your question at the end of a very old thread?

In the meantime, get rid of all of that sites Cookies, restart SAfari, and try again.

Jul 26, 2011 5:58 AM in response to TildeBee

I'm happy to see that this issue is finally resolved with Safari 5.1, both on Snow Leopard and Lion (and I can finally use Safari again without being annoyed by the scrolling). In fact, Safari 5.1 on Lion also gives Macs much better hardware acceleration... check out this link with Safari 5.1 on Lion and compare to any other Mac browser:

http://demos.hacks.mozilla.org/openweb/HWACCEL/

Jeff

Jul 26, 2011 6:12 AM in response to Jeffrey Kain

Yeah I too noticed that Lion's Safari has pretty much fixed the problem - looked like the entire rendered page is one big OpenGL layer that is handled fully by GPU accelleration. Only issue I have had with new Safari was with fonts not working - where I had font duplication in my system, those fonts would render broken, or not at all.

But anyway, I digress, new Safari = way better 🙂 Lion rocks too.

Scott

blee4

Level 1

14 points

Aug 13, 2011 11:22 PM in response to gordon142

I think I may have a solution, it's worked for me so far....

I went into my /Libarary/Internet Plug-Ins/ folder and moved a bunch of plugins into Disabled Plug-Ins. I've attached a screen shot of the plug-ins I've left behind.. not many but hey Safari runs alot smoother. Give that a shot and see if it fixes things. I don't have the time right now to test each individual plugin I've disabled to find the offending plug-ins it's late in EST. Don't forget to restart Safari.

BigWood

Level 1

4 points

Aug 30, 2011 12:27 PM in response to ClayG

I had this problem and fixed it completely on my MBP. Try deleting Safari preferences and caches. Note that a program like Onyx is NOT sufficient for this. You must do it manually.

1) Go to Home>Library>Preferences and delete com.apple.safari.rss.plist and com.apple.safari.plist

2) Go to Home>Library>Caches and delete the folder labeled com.apple.safari.

3) Restart your computer.

Try this and write back with the result.

ClayG wrote the above /\

I too had been experiencing a lag in some web sites....did what he offered and NO MORE LAGGING! 😉

Thanks Clay!

lh99

Level 1

0 points

Sep 26, 2011 9:07 PM in response to ClayG

>1) Go to Home>Library>Preferences and delete com.apple.safari.rss.plist and com.apple.safari.plist

>2) Go to Home>Library>Caches and delete the folder labeled com.apple.safari.

>3) Restart your computer.

Worked for me too. I wonder how long it'll last, though.

Nov 17, 2011 12:33 AM in response to lh99

I simply uninstalled Flash, and installed the latest Flash for Lion and that fixted it perfectly.

Laggy Scrolling in Safari with MacBook Pro