Q: iPad Safari crashing regularly

So far the Genius at the Apple store seems to have been right. Using iCloud seems to have helped.

Any opinions?

Crash!

I spoke too soon

Mine crashes constantly also, sure wish they would fix this issue!

I did a DFU restore and no luck. First problem was that my iMac said my iPad could not be updated. I think that was due to some issue with Little Snitch possibly messing up with the server info on the iMac. So I went to my Mac Mini and did a full backup of my iPad on the Mac Mini. Then I did the DFU system restore and then restored my data and apps. Well, the apps did not restore. So I went back to my iMac and restored my data and apps from there.

Next I went to the HeliFreak forum which faithfully causes my iPad2 to crash when posting. Sure enough, it still crashes. I feel like I should be seeing a Windows Me logo on this iPad when it turns on. With no Flash support, and now the frequent glitches, I'm very tempted to put this thing on Craig's List and give an Android tablet a spin.

What amazes me is that after 12 pages no one from Apple has been on here with a solution, or even to acknowledge there is a problem

Bfreesun1 wrote:

 

What amazes me is that after 12 pages no one from Apple has been on here with a solution, or even to acknowledge there is a problem

Apple employees monitor these discussions but they do not participate. They never have participated. But good things can and sometimes do happen as a direct result of these discussions.

You could seel your ipad2, cause you want to get rid of it but lets face it anyone will give you nothing for an ipad that is having a problem.. I would give you $50 bucks for it, fix it and do the restore correctly, and then resell it and make some money..

Now Im just saying the above to bring some reality into your problem. So lets get to the heart of the problem.

You said:

I did a DFU restore and no luck. First problem was that my iMac said my iPad could not be updated.

"Ok , here is the first problem." You should do the DFU RESTORE correctly, which means that you hook your ipad to the original computer where you set it up.

You dont do any update..

You Said:

I think that was due to some issue with Little Snitch possibly messing up with the server info on the iMac.

"You need to make sure your computer is set up to your account, and not running any other software, network access software other than Mac OS.. preferebly the latest software on your mac.

You said:

So I went to my Mac Mini and did a full backup of my iPad on the Mac Mini.

Ok, but not necessary cause in a DFU restore, you are not going to resynch your ipad to your computer....

You said:

Then I did the DFU system restore and then restored my data and apps.

You do the DFU restore, then resync the ipad with your system and set it up as a "NEW IPAD", giving it a new name...

You said:

Well, the apps did not restore. So I went back to my iMac and restored my data and apps from there.

BIG MISTAKE AGAIN:...Once the DFU restore is set, your ipad should have "NOTHING" on it other than the operating system like brand new...

Then you RESYNC is , to create a 1st backup point...

From there, you disconnect the ipad from your computer, set up your wireless setup and connect to the "app store". Go to purchased and re-download and install all your apps from there...

Once you do that, you then replug the ipad to your computer (the original one).. and RESYNCH is again to create an updated backup/restore point.

Once you do that, you transfer all your data, that may be needed for you apps..

Once that is done, you "RESYNC it again..

That should complete it and work fine.. I have dont this for many people who has had the same problem, like I did and it works

It sounds like you are not doing it correctly which is what many people are doing.. If you dont do it right, you will still have the same problems as before, it has to do with the update, and certain apps. I dont know about rumors of viruses etc.. but do know that "THIS DOES NOT WORK"..

I dont work for apple, I have no vested interest in anyones ipad working or not, but I did have the same problems, many are having and it has nothing to do with, websites,. viruses, memory issues, etc.....Its a problem that probably has to do with remaning memory allocations for old programs or current programs that have cause this problem.

This reset, clears it all up...

I was about to do a DFU restore, but held back.

I really don't understand how a DFU restore can fix the problem.

DFU will just reset the firmware to whatever it should be, and that's it.

I get the theory that a broken download of the firmware could have weird effects, but it would be pretty amazing that a corrupted image would still boot and crash precisely on heavy web pages, with 5MB of minified javascript running.

Or that an upgrade could be busted, but just restoring to ipad and setting it up like a brand new device (which I did) should take care of that.

And I would be shocked if Apple didn't have some kind of hash verification of the image before bricking devices.

So, ok, you restore your firmware, the firmware has to come from somewhere, and that'll be the itunes you're connected to, meaning you'll get the exact same firmware you had the first time.

How is that supposed to fix anything?

Best case scenario, you start your device, do some testing, everything works fine because the device is under very light load (one tab, no backgrounded apps, you didn't set up mail yet, no icloud), you're happy and post here that it fixed the problem, you keep using it and 2 weeks later, the crashes come back.

Pretty much what I experienced with my last restore.

Getting tired of crashes, I just fired up the Activity Monitor instrument.

On my ipad1, with or without icloud, memory in use, about 120, free about 60, wired about 60, amounts up to roughly the device's physical ram.

I won't get too hung up on the missing few megs, not sure how instruments works here.

Anyway, the bottom line is: 60MB free, that's *really* not much. Apple did an amazing job on safari mobile, but still, webpages in 2011 are pretty fat, so it doesn't leave much room, and there's only so much you can do with pages that are 5MB of text, not even counting the assets.

Desktop safari gets in the GB ballpark after a few hours of usage.

Whether apps are backgrounded or not, I get roughly the same values. Not surprising knowing how iOS manages memory.

Now, 120 in use + 60 wired (or maybe the wired count against the used, but where did my extra 60 go then?) for a device doing nothing with no apps backgrounded sounds huge.

Would be worth running the same test against a 4.3 install, but I have better things to do than blow up my personal ipad and waste 2 days on that (I'll look for a 4.3 ipad at work though).

Then, opening up safari, I see low memory events flooding in (nothing unexpected actually, that's pretty much standard behaviour), a couple of "app terminated" events, which means iOS is doing its job of killing backgrounded apps holding on to (much needed) memory.

Then, on to loading pages known to crash safari mobile.

First, techcrunch. Loading page (blue progress bar), available memory drops, low memory warnings flood in, available drops, drops, down to 4MB, page finshes loading, back up to 12MB. Yay, it did it. Page has been hit previously, so very very likely to be cached.

Then I scroll, available ram drops, drops, drops, 2MB available, and boom, good bye safari. Sounds consistent with an out of memory crash.

On to google page status pages, notorious for always crashing safari, Same thing here. Page loads (blue progress in the url bar), memory drops, about 4MB available.

Page load happens, I suppose google's javascript is still running, a couple of seconds later, safari crashes, no available memory.

Ran the same thing on the fancy iphone 4s, with a truck load of apps running, including memory hogs (fruit ninja puss in boots, safari with a few tabs open etc).

Available memory, 90MB. Hu. Intersting.

On to the task bar, kill everything out there.

Physical memory used, 170, free 227, wired 75, amounts to about 500MB.

Now you talkin'.

And consistent with the fact that I had a really hard time getting iOS to kill my apps when working on backgrounding features. Device is loaded with so much memory that it will hardly ever have to kill anything.

Same thing on an iPod 4th.

Same values than on the ipad.

Why i never had a crash on my ipod could be due to two things:

- I hardly ever use safari on the ipod, screen is too small for my chubby fingers and I hate the constant scrolling to read a line

- safari mobile for ipod might also need much less ram due to the screen being smaller (memory ram) and usually getting mobile version of previous websites.

Anyway, what I see from this quick run is that the crashes are not due to any gremlins injecting a virus in your ipad or whatever, just that the ipad1 is borderline on physical specs when it comes to running ios5.

And could maybe explain why apple dropped the multitasking gestures on ipad1 in the first place.

This move sounds very un-Applish (releasing software that can barely run on a popular device), but once again, look at apple's history in the past few months.

iphone 4s delayed by a few months, potentially due to ios5.

BatteryGate on the 4s due to software issues.

iTunesMatch getting delayed by a few months (beta testers should have had 3 free months, turns out they get nothing because the service was in beta for 3 months with 4 wipeouts), and actually missing apple's own public deadline (end of october).

5.0.1 fixes the massive battery drain for some by turning it into a mild battery drain for all. My 4s gets warm by just sitting on my desk, on 3g, how can that happen?

5.1 changelog is almost empty. I know it's still in beta, but is that seriously supposed to be a dot release? Looks more like a massive bug fix release to me.

My guess is apple has had a hard time getting ios5 out the door, shipped it too early due to physical devices produced and waiting to be sold, that had to be out some time before christmas.

Not blaming anybody, I write mobile software for I living and know what this kind of problems look like, and I can't get close to imagining how it is for the iOS team seeing how the mobile space is experiencing revolution over revolution every 6 months.

I really hope 5.1 will at least partially address this safari crash issue, it's getting old. I'm certainy not going for an ipad2 when the 3/HD/whatever is predicted to be launched in 4 months.

Safari is strange, in addition to crashing whenever I do anything other than reading plain text it has an annoying habit of refusing to load pages on tabs I am not looking at. I usually open a page see if it at all starts loading and open another one while the first one loads on the background. A strange and annoying thing happens when I go back to the page to see its progress, it starts loading as new!

I see what you're saying George but here is what doesn't make sense. I wiped all the data off from my iPad before doing the DFU update on the MacMini. Probably not necessary but I did it. On the MacMini it downloaded the firmware from Appke and reinstalled it on the fresh iPad. So I did successfully replace the firmware on the iPad. The restore later on the mini and then my iMac would not have changed the firmware. I believe Safari is part of the firmware so the fact that I restored my data from the mini and then the iMac should have no impact on Safari crashing right? So why is it that with only Safari running it still crash after the firmware was reinstalled?

It was precisely because of stuff like this that 3-4 years ago I dumped MS and switched everything over to Apple. So I'm disappointed to see my iPad and many others behaving like a buggy MS product. If Apple did it right we wouldn't be having this conversation now.

teweldemedhin, Safari on my ipad 1 has always done that, I think it's a function of the flash memory on it. It is annoying, I agree.

I was forced to update my iPad. It crashes all the time not matter what website, even apple. It happened three time in five min. Sometimes I think it cannot handle the tabs. I use my iPad for three things, movies, saved not streamed, browsing the net, and playing solitare alone, not on the net.  is it possible to remove the updates and go back to the original software? I have an iPad one and it was fine the way it was. Also, I used to get almost thirteen hours bat life with the wifi off, now I get about eleven.

Anyone else out there with these issues?

Thanks

Hi. 

Safari on my iPad crashes several times daily after upgrading to ios 5.0.1. (think it started with ios 5.0)

Br. Anders

Same problem here! had it for 18 months-perfect. In last 3 months constant safari crashing. Seems to be deteriorating  to level of the competitors rubbish. To cap it all it crashed when i was finalising the finance to buy a new imac online. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot. Maybe the imac order gets cancelled and i go back to the other (cheaper) rubbish..  Wdyt mr moderator?

Apple have been dropping the ball a lot recently. Safari is practically unusable, which for a cloud based device is sheer ineptitude on the part of the developers. Unfortunately Steve isn't around to fire whoever was responsible for this garbage and hire someone who knows what they're doing.

And don't even get me started on all the so-called auto-sync apps that don't sync anything, ever.