Why Am I Being Warned of a Web Page Using Too Much Energy, When it's Not?

Question

Level 2

378 points

Why Am I Being Warned of a Web Page Using Too Much Energy, When it's Not?

I am constantly getting these irritating warnings about this page or that (often it's Facebook, which apparently causes Safari all kinds of problems, since nothing works well, and the warning pops up quite quickly, and so much so, that the page will auto-refresh, no matter what I'm in the middle of), using "significant energy". Well, it popped up today on a page that is using neither "significant energy" (0.4% CPU), nor memory (200MB), so why is it showing up?

And you can see Safari alone is using over 3GB of memory, and .apple.Safari.History is using almost a whole Gig of RAM, for what? I've cleared cache, but to no effect, and I can't believe just retaining places visited would require that much memory. I thought Safari is supposed to be most efficient for those of us using Macs, that "seamless coordination" due to all from the same source, etc...

Posted on Mar 20, 2021 9:35 AM

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Answer 1

dominic23

Level 10

84,018 points

Mar 20, 2021 1:22 PM in response to Saxman

I tested the site you mentioned. It looked ok.

Try this.

When this happens, quit Safari.

Launch Safari holding the shift key down.

If this doesn’t help:

Download EtreCheck, run it to see if there is any adware installed or not.

https://etrecheck.com

Click “Free download” button,

Open Downloads folder, click on it to open, and then select ”Open”.

“Choose a problem” from the popup menu box, and then “Start EtreCheck” in the dialog.

Click “Share Report” button in the toolbar, select “Copy report” .

Paste the report when you reply.

Note: This is a diagnostic test.

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Answer 2

lkrupp

Level 7

22,237 points

Apr 1, 2021 6:33 AM in response to Saxman

It’s not a question of Apple playing nice with Facebook, it’s about Facebook making sure it works with Safari. The Safari browser is one of the few that completely comply with W3C international standards, the standards all browsers are expected to follow. If a browser makes exceptions and tweaks their product to work with a specific website that’s not good and may affect security and privacy.

Bottom line, if this bothers you then start using a third party browser like Chrome or Firefox. Apple doesn’t need to fix anything.

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Answer 3

Saxman Author

Level 2

378 points

Mar 30, 2021 10:38 PM in response to dominic23

I did another check with etre check, and it didn't find any problems, other than high RAM usage, and that some apps are using high amounts of RAM.... well, yeah, that is the problem! Sometimes I can just close the pages that I see are using a lot of RAM &/or CPU Usage, and as noted in other threads Facebook is always one of the biggest memory hogs, something I wish Apple would fix...

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Answer 4

lkrupp

Level 7

22,237 points

Mar 31, 2021 6:36 AM in response to Saxman

You mentioned the magic word... Facebook. Facebook is notorious for consuming resources like RAM and battery life, both in a browser and in their standalone app. I get the occasional message from Safari saying Facebook’s web page is using too much memory. The Chrome browser also consumes resources like a drunken sailor on a pub crawl.

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Answer 5

ckuan

Level 10

120,914 points

Mar 30, 2021 11:06 PM in response to Saxman

FaceBook is not an Apple product, best you ask the app developer on their website/forum for support.

Why do you think Apple can fix it?

FYI: If you also developed an app that uses too much resources, do you think Apple can fix it for you?

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Answer 6

Saxman Author

Level 2

378 points

Mar 31, 2021 9:51 PM in response to ckuan

That isn't even the issue I posted about, but is and has been an ongoing one for many months, with many users. And of course Apple can't "fix" Facebook, but since it appears other browsers don't run up the RAM usage like Safari does, there's obviously something Apple can do to stop the quick and massive run-up of RAM & CPU usage.

FYI: If Firefox, & Chrome, & other browsers can make their browsers play nice with FB, why can't Apple?

In fact, here's an entire thread about FB not working well on Safari, from last summer, with 210 people noting they are having the same problem...

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/251549388

But My question was why did I get the usual "too much energy" warning on a page that was using hardly any?

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Answer 7

ckuan

Level 10

120,914 points

Mar 31, 2021 10:05 PM in response to Saxman

You don't get it do you?

Maybe the developer is lazy.

FYI: The app developer need to test their app on the browsers it supports.

It's not Apple job.

Apple do provide tools for developer to optimise their apps.

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Answer 8

Saxman Author

Level 2

378 points

Apr 5, 2021 9:43 AM in response to lkrupp

Well, for some reason, FB is hardly the only site that doesn't work properly when using Safari. I fairly regularly run into roadblocks when using various other sites, only to discover it's due to using Safari, and that I must use a different browser for it to work. I'm no developer, so have no idea why this or that site doesn't work with Safari, it's just curious to me that other browsers work in those cases. Thus my questions. Also, no one has yet addressed my initial post question, being why do I get the "using too many resources" warning, for a site that is obviously using very little memory or CPU.... but that's OK.

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Why Am I Being Warned of a Web Page Using Too Much Energy, When it's Not?

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