Safari jumps to the top of the previous page

It’s not a search engine problem. I open, say, the New York Times, with Safari. I scroll down to the story I want to see. I open the story and read it. When I hit the back button – once – Safari brings you back to the top of the NYT homepage. This is clearly a bug.

Didn’t work for me.

What is working for now is changing default search engine to something I don’t use and continuing to use google. If I set to any of the other default search engines and use the one selected the problem persists with all web pages originating from a click in that search engine. Interestingly if you swipe part way back you can see the last page, but if you go all the way back to the last page it refreshes no matter what.

Presently set to duck duck go and using google seems to work without the browser scrolling all the way to the top when hitting back button.

This has been an issue for me going on 3 years and has driven me nuts! One would think that @apple would address this issue either by documenting the correct settings to stop this abhorrent behavior or correct the issue in software updates. There should be no reason that safari can’t cache the last page position when browsing. Opening on additional tabs is cumbersome and utilizes more resources if you you have more tabs open or you click though multiple links and it does not close automatically.

Get it together Apple! This has been going on long enough!

Interesting, yes I can confirm this problem too since iOS 15.4.1

It’s definitely a new issue cause I would have noticed this during my heavy usage before the update. It’s most annoying when using google search, then going back to check the other results then having to scroll down to where you were before.. but it happens on other sites too. Hope Apple can fix this with the next Update. Can we report this to Apple via some kind of Form? Writing in this Forum won’t help them change it.

Bye safari, hello chrome… chrome does not appear to do this. Switch, seems easiest solution.

I also don’t remember this being issue in past.

unrelated, but apple’s auto-correct is really terrible too.

They are not going to fix it. It is now January 2023 and it still doesn't work properly. I'm going to start using Firefox, because it doesn't do it. I don't know what Apple's problem is. They really have spread themselves far too thin. Glitches everywhere are being ignored.

I had the same problem was driving me crazy.

I manage to fix it when I moved the search/address bar to the bottom of the screen.

I found if the address bar was at the top it would alway scroll to the top when I went back a page. But when the address was at the bottom when I go back a page it would stay in the same place I was last at.

In the address bar you just need to tap on the aA to adjust

Hello ashleycleve,

We appreciate all the steps you've attempted so far with these issues with Safari and searching.

To confirm, are you double-tapping the back button? If you double-tap the top edge of the screen, this will quickly return to the top of a long page.

To help test this issue, please change the search option for Safari. Go to Settings > Safari > Search Engine. If you select a different search engine, does the same thing happen?

We look forward to hearing back from you.

Cheers.

Hmm this is a very interesting fix. Thank you for pointing it out! Tested it myself and it seems to work. Although Like most people I know, having the search bar at the bottom is not nice. Never liked this design change. However, this issue has been so annoying I’m going to leave the bar at the bottom. At least until Apple finally fixes this problem. Thanks again for finding this workaround!

Again, these are all workarounds. Safari didn’t behave like this once upon a time…

SOLVED — sort of.

I noticed the issue with Safari returning to the top of the search results when using the back arrow after one of the updates in the fall of 2022.

Don’t use the back arrow at the bottom of the page to return to the previous page. Just swipe from left to right. It will take you back to the same position on the previous page.

I also noticed the cursor wasn’t behaving the same way. When you try to insert or change something in the middle of the search bar, it was a huge struggle to get it to the spot you wanted.

I have to zoom in on the page and then put my finger on it and move the screen from side to side to read the sentences because it’s too small for me. When I would get my finger too close to the edge and try to move the screen over it would change the page.

I found that it was the sliding cursor. You tap and hold the space bar. The letters will disappear. Then you just slide your finger around which controls where the cursor is and just drop it where you want it

For me, I had switched off of Apple’s new bottom tab bar option for Safari, and switching back to having the tab bar in settings fixed the back button scroll issue. The scroll issue is worse, so I guess I have to use the tabs bar. Use our new ui, or we will make you pay with bugs.

This just started for me on the most recent update of 15.5. I was able to fix it by moving my tab bar back down to the bottom. That fix is not my preference but the issue was so aggravating, I’ll learn to deal with it for now.

The solution has already been posted in this discussion but I’m going to clarify what to do.

Apple Introduced a new design feature called “Tab Bar” which allows multiple tabs to be scrolled in both directions placed at the bottom of the screen.

Many people including myself do not like this new design and switched it off. Enabled the “Single Tab” to have it back at the top of the screen where it belongs.

Then these issues with the going back to the last page started. And never stopped.

Switching back to enabling the “Tab Bar” at the bottom in settings fixed the back button scroll issue. The scroll issue is much worse and extremely annoying, so I guess we have to use this new tabs bar.

I hope Apple addresses this in iOS16 or another Update for 15. Just give us our beloved single tab bar back at the top of the screen without braking the safari experience completely.