Laggy Scrolling in Safari with MacBook Pro

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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

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Answer 1

Jun 11, 2010 12:32 PM in response to gordon142

HI,

and horrible with flash on pages.

There's a new version of Flash available but you need to uninstall the old before you install the new.

Uninstall Flash

Install the latest version of Flash here.

Then repair disk permissions...

Launch Disk Utility. (Applications/Utilities) Select MacintoshHD in the panel on the left, select the FirstAid tab. Click: Repair Disk Permissions. When it's finished from the Menu Bar, Quit Disk Utility and restart your Mac. If you see a long list of "messages" in the permissions window, it's ok. That can be ignored. As long as you see, "Permissions Repair Complete" when it's finished... you're done. Quit Disk Utility and restart your Mac.

Carolyn 🙂

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Answer 2

Igor_G5

Level 2

323 points

Jun 11, 2010 12:31 PM in response to gordon142

Make sure that you have the latest copy of flash player installed. They just released a new one. Web pages scroll fast and smooth on my MBP. Have you repaired permissions since installing Safari 5? If not, that would be worth a try. Hope this helps.

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Answer 3

gordon142 Author

Level 1

15 points

Jun 11, 2010 8:10 PM in response to gordon142

Have the very latest version of Flash, installed it clean, repaired permissions. No change.

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Answer 4

Jun 11, 2010 8:17 PM in response to gordon142

HI,

Try installing the v10.6.3 v1.1 Combo Update .

It's ok to do this even if you are already running v10.6.3. The combo includes fixes that may help.

Carolyn 🙂

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Answer 5

andyBall_uk

Level 7

20,516 points

Jun 11, 2010 8:46 PM in response to gordon142

do you see any change if you toggle Flash hardware acceleration ?

you right(ctrl) click on a Flash item & choose 'settings' then if it doesn't show, click the 'display' icon at bottom left.

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Answer 6

Jun 12, 2010 5:00 AM in response to Igor_G5

They scroll smooth here too, but not when there's one or more Flash item on a page.

This page for example: http://www.sf.se/
Is it smooth to scroll up and down for you?

For me, Safari 5 is quite choppy but Firefox 3.6.3 is smooth.

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Answer 7

Jun 12, 2010 5:02 AM in response to andyBall_uk

Makes no difference for me.

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Answer 8

Jun 12, 2010 5:13 AM in response to Carolyn Samit

I have this same issue on two computers (10.6.3) with Safari 5 and Flash 10.1.
It wasn't there in Safari 4 and it's smooth in Firefox 3.6.3.

What is it in the 10.6.3 v1.1 Combo Update you mean will help?

While I'm sure it won't hurt applying that Combo Update it seems like a waste of time doing things that most likely are unrelated to the problem. Don't you think?

Are you saying you're not seeing a more choppy scrolling in Safari 5 with Flash 10.1 on your computer (compared to Safari 4)?

Try this page http://www.sf.se/ in both Safari 5 and Firefox 3.6.3.
No difference?

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Answer 9

gordon142 Author

Level 1

15 points

Jun 12, 2010 11:20 AM in response to star-affinity

Yes, this is a good example. So is fark.com. For that matter, so is youtube.com.

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Answer 10

gordon142 Author

Level 1

15 points

Jun 12, 2010 1:24 PM in response to gordon142

OK, I see a lot of posts suggesting general system repair and diagnostic stuff. I thought I should add the following:

I have a "rescue" external drive that has a clean install of 10.6.3 and a few disk utilities. Nothing else, very bare-bones Snow Leopard. I booted from this drive, ensured that Safari 4 was the latest release, that Flash Player 10.1 had been installed cleanly, that the disk and permissions were all in order. Scrolling was perfectly smooth. I then proceeded to install Safari 5. The result: scrolling is extremely slow and jerky, exactly as seen on my main system.

I did some research and found the following: The issue appears to be the combination of Flash 10.1 and Safari 5. 10.1 and Safari 4 work fine, and 10.0 and Safari 5 work fine, but when the two are combined, performance takes a nosedive.

I've been able to duplicate this on two different MacBook Pros (a second-generation unibody, and my early 2008 2.4 ghz model). When Flash 10.1 and Safari 5 are combined, the results are not good.

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Answer 11

TildeBee

Level 7

31,917 points

Jun 12, 2010 2:13 PM in response to gordon142

gordon --
I have 10.6.3, Safari 5.0 and Flash 10.1.
And I have no problems.

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Answer 12

gordon142 Author

Level 1

15 points

Jun 12, 2010 3:28 PM in response to gordon142

Ok. It would be really great if people with MBPs could post their exact model when they say there are or are not having this issue. My "gut" feeling is this has to do with hardware accelerated scrolling on certain systems.

Thanks.

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Answer 13

andyBall_uk

Level 7

20,516 points

Jun 12, 2010 3:32 PM in response to gordon142

gordon142 wrote:
... this has to do with hardware accelerated scrolling on certain systems.

Did you try disabling it on the macs you have that showed the issue ?

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Answer 14

TildeBee

Level 7

31,917 points

Jun 12, 2010 3:32 PM in response to gordon142

2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
2GB 1067 MHz DDR3

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Answer 15

Igor_G5

Level 2

323 points

Jun 12, 2010 4:15 PM in response to gordon142

I tried that link in Safari 5, Firefox and Chrome. Scrolling is slightly choppy in all three. If anything it's a little smoother in Safari. In Chrome at first it hardly scrolls at all then starts working a little choppier than Firefox which is a little choppier than Safari 5.

This is on an early '09 17", 2.5 ghz C2D with 4 gb of 667 mhz ddr2 sdram (MBP 4,1) with a GeForce 8600M GT video card.

Message was edited by: Igor_G5

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