You can make a difference in the Apple Support Community!

When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.

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

Safari reloading pages "using significant memory"

Hey everyone, big problem on my M1 MacBook Pro. When streaming a movie (happens every time on Disney Plus, not always but often on Netflix) Safari automatically refreshes the page due to it using "significant memory". Makes watching movies very annoying.

Does anyone know how to fix this or how to stop the automatic refresh?


P.S. didn't happen on my 2014 MacBook Pro


[Re-Titled by Moderator]

Posted on Mar 3, 2021 3:09 PM

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Mar 3, 2021 4:54 PM

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.)

Similar questions

34 replies

Mar 21, 2021 1:20 PM in response to ekchew

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.

May 16, 2021 1:59 AM in response to struzzonee

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.

May 17, 2021 12:42 PM in response to Halliday

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).

Safari reloading pages "using significant memory"

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple Account.