Web pages crash all the time in Safari on iPhone

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 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.

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 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!

Hello everyone, if you are having trouble with opening Safari try this, it helped me… • Settings > Safari >Extensions> Turn off all extensions

I installed Google Chrome and use it instead of Safari, it solved the problem.

First of all, if you haven't yet, upgrade to iOS 17.4.

If you still experience issues, you should make an appointment to have your phone examined:

Genius Bar Reservation and Apple Support Options - Apple

as I've never seen that issue on my 15 Pro Max or my 10.5" iPad Pro, let alone any of my Macs.

I'm a software developer, made a web-playable game that works pretty much everywhere except in my iphone 13, which throws that error.

This iphone 13 has ios 17.5.1. My wife's iphone 12 with the same ios version fails with the same error.

But... I have an iphone 10 with 16.7.8 and my game works fine.

So, it is something Apple added in an update, possibly starting with ios 17.

Perhaps some lock so heavy web stuff doesn't ruin hardware performance?

I can't speak for everything that triggers the issue, but the problem is definitely triggered by low intensity webgl applications (I know this because I am developing one). Just speculating but performance problems may be exacerbated by apple's privacy measures, which could be attempting to defeat hardware fingerprinting. The level of application performance I'm seeing on recent iphones is truly pathetic for low poly applications within minimal shader routines, far below what you would expect with hardware of this spec.

Being that so many web applications are crashing on iphone, it would be great if Apple surfaced out of memory exceptions (or whatever it is that happens when you hit the limit with the GPU) so that developers can display a helpful message to the user instead of the current useless text surfaced in Safari. The current state of affairs seems counter to the interests of internet users and developers.

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.

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

• Restart the device. That's it.
• Still not solved --> Force restart iPhone - Apple Support

In my case, the crash was caused by a third-party Safari extension.

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.

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.