Safari reloading pages "using significant memory"

There is a longer Discussion, on this subject, at “Safari 14 on Big Sur: How to prevent a webpage from automatically reloading because it was using significant memory?“

It will all depend upon the way the “streaming” site has been programmed.

1. Websites are not supposed to use large amounts of browser storage: they are supposed to use Server Side storage.
2. Unfortunately, many websites have gotten increasingly lazy about using Browser memory.

Perhaps contributing to this problem are the following:

1. Many streaming sites used to use Flash for such purposes, but with the demise of Flash (at the beginning of this year, even though they were forewarned three and a half years ago, they may be new to the idea of streaming directly to browsers using HTML5.
2. There are some web-browsers that have very “relaxed” standards about the use of your computer resources: these browsers are well known resource “hogs”, but they may have contributed to websites being lazy in their use of browser resources. (Google Chrome is one well known resource “hog”.)

Have you, and others, provided Apple Feedback through their provided Feedback mechanisms? See Product Feedback - Apple.

If people don’t provide such Feedback, there is little chance that Apple will change anything.

I would provide my Feedback in the form of a Bug Report, on matters such as this.

In the meantime, there are a couple of things that have been found helpful:

1. Access such web-pages through a browser window with only a single tab: this helps isolate the resource use.
2. Other browsers, such as Google Chrome, don’t seem to have this issue. (Resource “hogs.)

I want to add a couple data points to this. My Mac mini (Late 2014), currently running Big Sur 11.2.3, has been giving me the "significant memory" and "significant energy" warnings for at least the past year (mid-2020) with some graphics-intensive websites like BoardGameArena, but otherwise hasn't caused a problem. I subscribed to Disney Plus at the start of 2021, and it has produced similar warnings, but hasn't prevented me from watching any video streaming through that service until tonight, when I couldn't go more than five minutes into any video without the page abruptly reloading itself, which obviously makes the experience effectively unwatchable.

So I tried switching to my 12.9" iPad Pro (2nd Gen) (also running the latest iPadOS), which I figured being much newer would have no trouble. Instead, to my surprise, I couldn't go more than a minute without the same problem.

I switched back to my Mac mini and opened Disney Plus in Google Chrome instead, and was able to watch two hours of a movie without trouble (stopping only because it's time for bed).

This is very frustrating and unsatisfactory.

Edit to add: the only satisfactory thing about this problem is the fact that this discussion exists and was easily findable, so that at the least I could verify this is a known problem specific to Safari and apparently I'm just going to have to work around it.

cori233 wrote:

For Disney+, I would agree that website coding likely makes the issue worse. However, given the broad spectrum of video services affected, it seems to be more than just website coding creating this issue.

Some have suggested using different browsers to avoid the issue, so perhaps it has to do with Safari translating the website coding incorrectly. Safari is different for M1 devices, right? Maybe there is a difference in Intel and M1 safari code that leads to a different translation? My point is it seems like there is some fault on Apple’s side, here, if basically any website that uses video has this issue (with different degrees of severity).

Actually, cori233, the problem is, almost invariably, found within the JavaScript code provided by the website. The website often (almost always) sends different JavaScript to different Browsers on different Operating Systems (OSs).

The principle issue is that websites are supposed to use Server-side storage, rather than Browser storage.

This issue is likely exacerbated by the following:

1. Many websites used to use Flash for video streaming, but Adobe killed Flash at the end of last year (after three and a half years of warning everyone that it was going to happen).
   1. Unfortunately, some video streaming sites have yet to get their HTML5 video streaming “act” together.
2. Some web-browsers have, in the past, been rather “lenient” with allowing websites to abuse their user’s browser resources.
   1. (This is what can allow the use of alternative Browsers as a workaround.)
3. There seems to be an effort, by the Internet Browser community, to transition to a superior standard methodology for websites to adjust to the capabilities and restrictions of various web-browsers, rather than the old method of relying upon Browser and OS “identifiers” (which can be easily “spoofed”).
   1. Since this process is underway, and, perhaps, not, yet, finalized—let alone fully incorporated into website designs—website-browser interactions can be “spotty”.

This looks like a classic memory leak. (That's when a program keeps allocating more RAM without releasing what it has already consumed.) You can see this in Activity Monitor in the memory tab as you play a movie. On my machine (M1 MacBook Air 16 GB), it starts out using maybe half a GB for the Disney+ page but climbs steadily until it reaches somewhere around 4-5 GB. At that point, Safari decides this has to stop and reloads the page. Then it starts over again from the 1/2 GB.

Chrome does not seem to leak memory in this same situation. That's not to say it is necessarily Apple's fault. It may be that Disney's code is badly behaved and breaks some rules but Chrome is working around it somehow?

I was having the same problem and noticed that it only happened on safari and not chrome! I’ve utilized this both on an intel 16” MacBook Pro and an m1 MacBook Air. Hope this helps!

Hi, same exact problem with Disney+ but on a 2019 16" intel MacBook Pro ... it's driving me crazy.

If you download the safari technology preview, it still gives you the warning but does not automatically refresh the page (not sure what will happen on your M1, but it works for me).

https://developer.apple.com/safari/technology-preview/

tylerwaite1:

I don’t know where you are getting any idea that there is any kind of «[Apple] fight towards lowering Browser-side storage usage».

This is far from new, it most certainly did not «became an issue when they[Apple] promised crazy battery life on the M1 chip».

There are no «spiteful actions Apple is taking toward websites», as far as I know.

I first ran into this years ago when I modified the JavaScript, for a webpage, in order to create a quick and “dirty” program (having to do with Quantum Entanglement).

The original code didn’t have anything about Server Side storage: it only used Browser memory.

However, it wasn’t doing anything near as extensive as my modified version tried to do.

I found that while Safari executed the JavaScript code faster than any other Browser, it had the tightest memory limits of the various Browsers.

It was then that I did some research on Browsers, memory use, and learned about Server Side storage.

Unfortunately, in my case, I had no Server Side that I could use for any storage. So. I simply had to live with the limitations of the Browsers.

(I did wish that JavaScript had a way to find out, from the Browser, what the memory limitations were. Unfortunately, I didn’t find anything that was available that wasn’t Browser specific [and not even much of that].)

So. In short, this is a long-standing issue, that is not Browser specific. (However, there are Browsers that are more “permissive” [resource “hogs”] than others.)

ekchew wrote:

This looks like a classic memory leak. …

Chrome does not seem to leak memory in this same situation. That's not to say it is necessarily Apple's fault. It may be that Disney's code is badly behaved and breaks some rules but Chrome is working around it somehow?

Web servers can use different (JavaScript) code for different browsers (there’s a browser “ID” sent to the server, that includes Browser and Operating System [OS] information). So, it may simply be that the code Disney+ is using on Safari (on macOS) exhibits the problem, while using better code on Chrome.

(Maybe Disney+ hasn’t received enough complaints from Safari users.)

Didn’t we see someone try Disney+ in Safari on an iPhone without issue? This would suggest that Disney+ is using better code on Safari, when on an iPhone.

Welcome, dynamitekid, to Apple Support Communities!

I have been able to reproduce this issue using Disney+ on Safari, on an Intel Mac mini (2018), 8GB RAM, running Big Sur 11.2.3. I was watching at 4K.

The Memory Pressure tended to be steady for a while, but would then gradually increase over a couple of minutes, before the Website process, on the Safari Tab, would terminate and be restarted a little before where it had terminated.

No warnings. Not even an error displayed.

I tried to reproduce this issue using Netflix on Safari, on the same machine, but couldn’t succeed at getting it to do 4K, and no issue occurred.

I’ll try similarly on my M1 Mac mini sometime soon.

(My wife and I watch both Disney+ and Netflix about daily, but we use the Apps, not web-browsers. The worst we ever have is buffering, on occasion.)

I have had this same issue on my M1 MacBook Pro since I received it in January 2021. It has happened with Disney+, Prime Video, Zoom (recordings), and Themis videos while using Safari, so far. I do not use other video streaming services on my laptop, so I cannot say if it would affect those too. I also do not use other browsers with these sites.

I have only noticed it with sites that use video, and the page will only reload while a video is playing. I wish the page did not automatically reload because on most of these sites do not save where I was in the video. It is also extremely inconsistent: I can return to the same video and never have the warning pop-up. It also happens consistently when I have only one tab open. I have no idea what conditions lead to the laptop registering significant energy use, and thus cannot avoid it.

I will say that I have had more issues with Disney+ that have nothing to do with apple products, so it seems their UX/UI is poorly designed in general. I often have to re-start videos, and sometimes the entire app, while using my PS4 because the video will freeze while the audio continues to play. Most of the time I have to re-start something at least twice before I can watch it all the way through. This also happens on my iPad Pro, though the issue resembles the one on my PS4, so I think it is a Disney+ issue. It is getting to the point that I am reconsidering my subscription; it is pricey for a product that is barely usable.

i use netflix, hbo plus, and other services... this only happens on Disney+ for me. And it gets old fast. I'm on a new M1 chip... and i can't get through a 30 minute show on Disney+, even though on the settings I changed the settings to the lowest possible video quality. Someone needs to fix this.

For Disney+, I would agree that website coding likely makes the issue worse. However, given the broad spectrum of video services affected, it seems to be more than just website coding creating this issue.

Some have suggested using different browsers to avoid the issue, so perhaps it has to do with Safari translating the website coding incorrectly. Safari is different for M1 devices, right? Maybe there is a difference in Intel and M1 safari code that leads to a different translation? My point is it seems like there is some fault on Apple’s side, here, if basically any website that uses video has this issue (with different degrees of severity).

Yes, cori233. This issue is, indeed, a website coding issue!

(Personally, I have only used Disney+ [and Netflix] in a Browser for testing purposes; otherwise, I use the App.)

Same issue with recorded zoom lectures.

But here's a new issue - Safari assumes that whatever you're doing on the webpage is saved automatically and you won't lose any data when it auto-reloads. I was writing code in a free online IDE and safari reloaded, I lost all of my work.

PLEASE GIVE US THE *OPTION* TO DISABLE THIS.

Loss of data through *expected* behavior is not a good look, Safari Developers.

And don't tell me to just submit a feedback report because I already did.