Q: iPad Safari crashing regularly

This is only a guess, and I appreciate the hours (days) you've spent trying to fix your problems -- but my view is, that by trying to restore from backup after a reformat, you are just recreating the problem with whatever piece of data is corrupt.

My advice would be to back up to your PC.

Wipe and reinstall the OS to factory default.

Upgrade to iOS5.1

Make sure ALL sync option in iTunes are off, then sync using cable (ensuring no data is copied over except for the ipads base iOS settings).

Set iPad settings on the pad as you want them and use the iPad for a week or so with nothing else in terms of Apps loaded or running - no music, no video, no photo, no imported bookmarks, calendars etc. AND most importantly - iCloud backup and synced services switched off (but don't delete the account just yet).

If you then have problems, then I would say you have a corrupt copy of iOS on your machine and you need to talk to an Apple Genius to manually remove the existing copy so that the PC performs a fresh download and instsll. (The iOS is cached to your PC and may need removing).

Then you can take it from there.  Manually reinstall one piece of old data at once and test consistency over a few days.

I would start with Bookmarks.  Then reintroduce your Apps say 5 at a time - testing for a day or so each time.  Alternatively, you could wipe your entire Apps cache and redownload the lot, then resync.

Basically you have a number of options to resolve your problems, but it will require a little bit of patience and a methodical approach to try and isolate the problem.

First call has to be to isolate the iOS and test it thoroughly on its own with basic settings.  Then move on from there, step by step.

It is frustrating I know - but we are talking binary data here and you only need one bit out of place or missing and sometimes the whole lot comes down like a pack of cards in a hurricane.

I wish you well and hope you can locate and fix the problem.  Ct.

This issue sounds like a database problem.  I'm going to delete my database for safari recreate a new one and retest for the issues.

I did the same thing for the problem of the <Other> issue in the ipads memory storage.

This shrunk my Other size by over 2 gig and it now holds a constant .62g-.72gig on backup and sync.

I'll test and come back here in a week.  Ct

These aren't corrupt versions of iOS 5 that are running around causing the problems.  The problem is iOS 5 itself. I have a brand new iPad 3rd gen, and in 3 weeks of use I have amassed seventy crash logs because of low memory. Sixty-five of them are from Safari, and five of them are from iBooks. Restoring, does nothing.  Doing a clean wipe and install of the OS, does nothing.  It may "fix" the situation for a little while, but that's only because it's cleaning out excess code and memory which every OS gathers over time, the crashes will start again.  This thing has 1GB of DDR2 on board, in no way should 4 Safari tabs and a game of Draw Something sitting in the background ever be enough to overflow it.  Don't be surprised if the problem is related to SpringBoard because looking at the memory logs, SpringBoard is using a TON of memory.  So instead of crashing SpringBoard (which would be bad) it crashes other apps which it's allocating too much memory to (less bad).

The ipad 3 has double the memory of the ipad 2. This isn't a memory issue, it just reports it is.

Have you brought your ipad 3 in for service?

In the ipad 1's case, the issue sort of made sense as low memory, although as I said the one ipad 1 I updated seems to have no problem.

Seventy crashes are in excess of what anyone has reported on this forum. Btw, the database hypothesis doesn't seem to indicate a problem with the os itself. does clearing website data do anything for you?

If it is not working, take it in, but your problem is different from what other people have reported or seen.

I would almost be inclined to open a new thread.

But a device that defective needs attention from the apple store. They will likely replace it. They could also ship it back for testing.

--Sam

I'm saying that it is an iOS issue most commonly experienced in Safari since users use Safari so often.  I went back and looked and found that I have far more than 70 crashes, here are 17 of them, just the tip of the iceberg.  You can tell that Safari is using quite a bit of memory and is quite often jettisoned.

http://pastebin.com/JuHCPAwh

Why hasn't Apple fix these problems!?!  It's been going on for months!  Safari crashes all the time.  I go to google Adwords and it crashes every time.  It is really disappointing that Apple can't make a better browser for a unit that they claim is the best way to surf the Internet!  It's obviously not the best way to surf.

Furthermore, I see thread with people going to great links to find a solution to a problem Apple should be solving! 

Also, what gives with flash player!  Its getting ridiculously that you haven't gave us a solution after all this time.

I have a Mac for years.  I have had 4 iPhones.  I use to brag about my Apple products.  Not anymore.  I'm very disappointed in my iPad.  I'm very disappointed in Apple.  You can do better.  We the customer demand better.

Thank you,

Stuart Simpson

According to your crash logs your timezone is 5 hours ahead - check and reset as necessary.  Then do a Network reset - reboot your routers etc.  clear off all your history cache cookies etc.  Try again.

Safari is timezone sensitive.

My system clock is set correctly for the timezone, so are my routers.  Besides, this happens on any network I'm on, so it's not a network issue.  I'm an iOS dev, I know how to look through crash logs. 

And just for the heck of it I went to the Genius Bar yesterday, the Genius acknowledged that this is a known issue.  They also mentioned that they see this exact same issue numerous times per day from customers.  All he could do is restore it from DFU mode (which I had already done before) to see if on the off chance that would fix it, it didn't.  All they can say is "keep updating the device to fix bugs and wait for it to be fixed."

The fact that this thread is 60 pages long screams as evidence that this is a widespread issue, not a select few who don't have their settings correct.

This is a native iPad iOS issue through and through, it is not Safari specific, it just presents itself most oftenly in Safari because that is the app people use the most, and because Safari is a memory hog.  Which is why I posted the crash logs, to show that Safari is using memory like crazy, and other (both native and 3rd party) apps can be affected by this.

I was about to visit genius bar but cancelled after a complete restore fixed it for about a week. Back to crashing Music player, some websites (found a celebrity gossip site that can consistently crash it withing seconds), google currents, iTunes store, any iCloud usage.

The diagnostics show more 'low memory' entries than any other reason.

Only had the iPad 1 for less than a year as a birthday pressie. the store would replace but I don't think that's a solution. Hope they fix it soon

iPad 1 memory is a little thin - however the real problem may lie with the number of system services running in the background.  Consider turning some or all of the following off - particularly if you dont or rarely use them.

Settings\General\Sounds - Change with buttons - off; Lock sounds - off

General\bluetooth - if not using a peripheral that needs it - turn Off

General\Spotlight search  - this can impact in various ways as it runs an indexing service - turn off those options you dont really need, better still turn off altogether.  this is allayed to a database sync file which grows steadily with sync usage and is stored under <other> as can be seen in the memory map when syncing your device to a PC.  if you have large collections of Music etc, then turn the aassociated spotlight search off to limit the index size and prefetch use of memory.

general\Accessibility options - Off - unless you have a real need for any;  Mono Audio - off; Assistive touch - off - again unless you have real need of the ease of access facilities; Triple click home.

Settings\Mail,Contacts,Calendars - Preview- show topic - ask before delete-load remote images-organize by thread - BCC myself - consider having all Off.

Settings\Facetime - Off if no use for

Settings\Music - iTunes Match-EQ-VolumeLimit- Group by - can all be Off

In addition to these - review the settings for some other Apps to see if there are features which could be running in the background when loaded but not in use.  Document Sharing Services for instance will retain network bandwidth when open or in the backgraound.

Spotlight Search is the interesting one for me.  Upto a month ago I never used it and kept it off - neither had I seen more than one memory crash in any one week - everything is on in the options, and now I see several a week, sometimes several a day if multitasking at a sustained and application intensive rate.

Perhaps their are parallels with the Windows system after all :(

Best wishes, Ct

I am still having the crashes and I have erased and reformatted my iPad FIVE TIMES!! I am serious.  And you know what?  It didn't work.  I have my iPad down to nothing on it.  Just the factory apps that came with it.  And you know what?  It still crashes on a regular basis.  I really don't see the point in me doing it a sixth time.  I have done it on the computer and off the computer (over the air).  Doesn't make a difference at all.  When it comes time to replace it, I am getting a cheap laptop instead.  I'm done.  That is why there hasn't been much posting.  People have given up.

I just had success recently! The iPad reported disk space called 'other' taking up a large amount of space, leaving only 200meg or so. This I discovered was because iCloud had dozens of queued music downloads that had not completed yet after a couple of months when the download started.

I supervised the download till complete, then all the crashing stopped!!

Don't know if this helps at all.

Go to music, click store and see if there's anything waiting to download. Worked for me

Turn off automatic downloads for music, books and apps. Turn off Safari bookmark and reading list sync. Ensure you are running 5.1. Does it crash only on specific sites or randomly?

Have you sent your crash logs into Apple? What do they say? Do you have an ipad 1, 2, or 3 (the new ipad)?

Is it jailbroken? I doubt it, but just thought I would ask.

Does unplugging and replugging your router resolve the crash or hang? How often does it happen?

--Sam

Spoke too soon. Was fine up till an hour ago when suddenly the available disk dropped from 7.6 Gb to 123meg.

No automatic downloads, nothing in the download queue.

Connected to itunes I can see that 'other' is back to a huge figure around 7Gb.

Interestingly, the number of files in 'Purchased' on the device is up massively. I can see items I synced to the cloud using itunes match but actually didn't purchase via itunes?!!!

I also notice that itunes match is asking if I want to match this computer again?. Strange as I used this computer to upload those files under 'purchased'?.

ooops! after answering 'yes',  'other' shot up to 8.6Gb this time.

Now I am clueless....

Genius bar after all....??

IOS 5.1, Ipad 1.1, itunes 10.6.0.4

Why are any of us wasting our time anymore?

It's quite clear that it is either the new IOS (5.1), the new iCloud, or a combination of both... It's happening on 1's, 2's, and even 3's.... So quit saying its about memory, processor speed, hard drive size, blah blah blah.... It's their new OS, or their new Cloud, or possibly both.

But until Apple puts HALF the effort into fixing it as we have, and roll us all back to the good ol' IOS 4.x.x system, figure out the problem, then re-introduce it, they will just continue to watch their an base shrink more and more every day...

I'm done trying to figure why it's not working now, but was prior to 5.1 was released....