Web pages crash all the time in Safari on iPhone

Dogcow-Moof Said:

"No idea; I personally don't come across them all that often.: Frankly, YouTube seems to trigger the issue more often than most."

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Reply with a Screenshot:

Take a screenshot of this message next time you see it, and reply back. Rarely though it may be, seeing the message would most certainly help. If you recall the message's wording, then google it in Google Images, and then reply back with what the image. When an app crashes, something is not responding. Streaming something on your device on a public LAN, you may be using too much of the services, and you're being kicked off.

My safari was crashing and up-scrolling while I was mid-read in a news articles and resetting webpages repeatedly until I got the message about “safari has encountered repeated errors”…..the way I finally stopped it was to turn off “Privacy Preserving Ad Measurement” in Safari advanced settings. All the glitching nonsense was gone instantly and completely. I don’t know enough about software and coding to be able to say what is wrong, but my best logical guess is that the error is on Apple’s end not the phone or the websites fault.

And off topic: I was a Samsung user for a decade and I switch to iPhone for my kids and I have regretted every single moment. I feel like the iPhone is stepping back to the days of dial up internet service where every program glitched, and each machine was incompatible with all other machines and any task took forever. While Samsungs are fast, efficient and compatible with any and all other devices except iPhones.

THAT IS SIMPLY MY OPINION.

I encountered persistent issues and contacted Apple Support multiple times. We went through extensive troubleshooting:

1. Verified latest iOS
2. Restarted device
3. Enabled JavaScript
4. Turned off Private Relay
5. Disabled Spoken Content
6. Turned off iCloud Safari syncing
7. Disabled VPN settings
8. Uninstalled VPN app
9. Performed a clean iOS install

Despite these steps, the problem persisted. Finally, we disabled Safari extensions, which resolved the issue.

I have been struggling with this problem for YEARS on so many of the sites I visit regularly (ESPECIALLY pcgamer, tomshardware, and ign - yes I’m a bit of a geek).

After trying every troubleshooting suggestion I could find on the issue I’d accepted I would just have to live with this pain for life.. But after hitting it like 10 times today I thought I’d try again to find a resolution. AND HERE IT IS! FINALLY! Disabling “privacy preserving ad measurement” seems to have solved the problem.

Thank you!

I figured out the issue on my end, it was one of the Safari extensions that caused the issue. After uninstalling them, I’m no longer having the issue.

As for Chrome, when it comes to iOS, all browsers are forced to use the WebKit engine, which is essentially Safari.

Desktop versions of Chrome use the Blink engine.

The reason Chrome would work is because it doesn't load the Safari extensions.

If you are experiencing any difficulty with third-party apps or a specific website then please contact the app developer or site publisher/host directly. Here is how

• To contact an App developer --> How to contact an app developer - Apple Support
• To contact a web publisher —> Scroll Down to the bottom of the web page. You will find: Contact Us, Help Center, Support, Terms of use etc.

sypoltsystems Said:

"Web pages crash *all the tine* in Safari"

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If an App with Not Respond on an iPhone:

Close All Apps:

An app may not be responding, particularly Safari.. So, close all apps. Hold you finger down as you swipe up. Then, close all of these open apps, by sweeping up quickly for all apps.

sypoltsystems Said:

"Web pages crash *all the tine* in Safari: I do this pretty much every day. This isn’t a misbehaving app. It’s something systematic with Safari, and unfortunately, closing apps and restarting don’t work.”

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Troubleshooting iOS Safari:

Safari is a builtin app that comes with the iOS. So, check your iPhone for updates.

As a last resort…

Set Up your iPhone Anew:

Set this up anew, as if you were to sell it. Perform as instructed here, including the iCloud logout and backup creation:  What to do Before you Sell, Give Away, or Trade in your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch - Apple Support. Backup what need be, prior to performing this. All would go to default, and the bugs and glitches would be expected to go away.

First, that's not the norm - tens of millions of people use Safari on their iPhones daily without any crashing issues whatsoever.

Second, the APIs used by Safari, known as WebKit, are the basis of all web browsers on iOS.

Other web browsers are just different graphical shells and handle bookmarks and cookies differently but still use the underlying WebKit APIs.

WebKit | Apple Developer Documentation

If you still see regular crashes using Safari, I highly recommend you make an appointment to have your phone examined, it's most likely a hardware memory issue with your device:

Genius Bar Reservation and Apple Support Options - Apple

Dogcow-Moof Said:

"It's a misbehaving web page. Safari detects when the page is working improperly and notifies you rather than crash. I use a lot of different web sites and only see this issue very, very rarely."

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Use Another Web Browser:

So, what are these Web pages to speak of? Note that not all sites are too fond of Safari. Schools and Banks typically have this issue.

This is definitely on Apple to fix. I noticed the issue possibly as far back as iOS 15. I notice that it happens on pages that load a lot of ads or have long-running JavaScript in the background. Web pages that heavily track users are more prone to crashing as well.

I'm fairly certain this is related to browser protections fighting against webpages. It could be stopping tracking scripts that are reloading and causing an error when they are stopped abruptly.

We'll have to wait on an update from Apple.

This is interesting. How could one possibly know that “tens of millions of people use Safari on their iPhones daily without any crashing issues whatsoever?” I would argue that a small number of people stumbling into this discussion forum and taking the time to type out this complaint in detail likely conveys a widespread issue. The lack of vocal or written complaint from the majority of users would not be evidence of proper functioning in any scenario, but complaints of crashing from a few hundred users would certainly be evidence of a potential trend at the least. Imagine if NHTSA applied your logic to recalls for safety concerns on vehicles. “So what that 45 people driving this type of car have been in accidents where their airbags didn’t deploy? We haven’t heard anything about an issue from the other 15,000 vehicle owners. It’s clearly operator error…”

It could be that this is happening regularly and people don't care, but when it comes to Apple those of us who have been helping users here for many, many years know that just doesn't happen.

As I've also said before, if you feel it is something not operating properly, either make an appointment to have your phone examined:

Genius Bar Reservation and Apple Support Options - Apple

or work with Apple Support directly:

Contact - Official Apple Support

I personally spend hours per day using Safari on my iPhone and have never seen it crash on my iPad or iPhone.

A couple of debugging steps:

* It seems Javascript related. Turning off Javascript allows me access to the page(s), they just don't work (because they need Javascript).

* I created a New User on my computer -- NOT an admin -- and I can browse to at least some of the pages as "them" (even if I login to the page as "me"), but still crashes on my main/admin account.

* The pages that crash (one example: after login -- but there are dozens, this is NOT a wave apps problem!), they crash Safari, Chrome, Firefox and DuckDuckGo browsers.

...So maybe the bug is in WebKit?

I don't know enough to offer a strong opinion about where the problem is, I'm just reporting my experience.

[Edited by Moderator]

In my case, re: my crashes on iPhone browser (both Safari and Chrome), (and yes, it still happens), it may have something to do that I cannot update to IOS 17, because my phone is no longer supported. I’m on IPhone 8.

I just saw I can update to a new IOS 16, maybe that will help.

It is definitely not on every page, only those with lots of ads going on, pages that are heavy to process, and are messy. It’s a little better with Chrome.

Need to figure out getting a new phone, I guess.