My mac freezes for a second and restarts all sites on chrome

Question

Level 1

4 points

My mac freezes for a second and restarts all sites on chrome

It happened after I had a few streams open I had a warning pop up saying that my mac is running out of application memory where chrome was taking up quite a bit, and my mac froze and crashed. Started up again after near 5 minutes of being frozen, and I had a diagnostic report pop up but I brushed it off thinking it would be okay after the restart. However, even after restarting, after 30 minutes or so, my mac freezes and then proceeds to refresh all my tabs on chrome. Previously, my chrome tabs would go inactive and save as such, but now every site no longer goes inactive and all the paused youtube videos subsequently play all at once. It's extremely annoying and I don't know what's causing it to suddenly short like this, my mac also feels sluggish despite my internet speed being fine, sites sometimes take a while to refresh, youtube videos lag (i rewind to the same spot and it lags at a different spot), certain applications lag when they never did before.

I ran the apple diagnostic but nothing comes up. Please help.

MacBook Pro 14″

Posted on Apr 24, 2024 1:42 AM

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Answer 1

WheelieNick

Level 8

36,981 points

Apr 24, 2024 2:28 AM in response to wafflepuffs

Try and see if you can reproduce the issue on another browser then chrome. Chrome is known to use lots of application memory

If the issues do persist, boot your Mac in the safe mode to see if the issues persist. If they don't persist in the safe mode you want to evaluate the external software installed to your Mac

The procedure of booting in the safe mode differs whether you have a Mac with apple silicon or an Intel Mac

Start up your Mac with Apple silicon in safe mode

On your Mac, choose Apple menu > Shut Down.
Wait for your Mac to shut down completely. A Mac is completely shut down when the screen is black and any lights (including in the Touch Bar) are off.
Press and hold the power button on your Mac until “Loading startup options” appears.
Select a volume.
Press and hold the Shift key, then click Continue in Safe Mode.
The computer restarts automatically. When the login window appears, you should see “Safe Boot” in the menu bar.

Start up your Intel-based Mac in safe mode

Turn on or restart your Mac, then immediately press and hold the Shift key until you see the login window.
Log in to your Mac.
You might be asked to log in again.
On either the first or second login window, you should see “Safe Boot” in the menu bar.

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Answer 2

wafflepuffs Author

Level 1

4 points

Apr 24, 2024 2:14 PM in response to wafflepuffs

Everything runs fine until it doesn't. The load is quite manageable, the occassional spike seems to be the lag I'm referring to.

And then it suddenly crashes and causes itself to go haywire:

Then struggles to recover as it refreshed all youtube videos and such:

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Answer 3

wafflepuffs Author

Level 1

4 points

Apr 24, 2024 3:53 AM in response to WheelieNick

Streaming youtube doesn't seem to lag on safari, but because the lags are so minor and the reset seems to happen once every hour, it's hard to recreate/know. However, on heavier applications such as a game, the frames spike from 110fps down to 70 (as if it's the same lags I experienced on chrome) and when the 'reset' comes around the frames drop to 1 and it struggles to go any higher than 5. When normally, it'd run at 110-120 without a problem.

So it's definitely not a chrome problem, as the game that perfectly ran before has the same issues, typing on applications like discord, notes will also lag and have the same effect from the 'reset'

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