Q: Safari Web Content high CPU usage

Why would links to sites with video streaming be any more RAM hogging than any other link?  They are all just links, not the actual site, so nothing is being streamed. If that were the case we could never bookmark anything on YouTube, Soundcloud, CdBaby, and hundreds more, including internet radio stations, et al.

I've tried deleting all website data, running with extensions disabled, etc, and it still runs up the RAM usage, resutling in very slow going, or Safari's Web Content constantly rebooting, or it just crashes....

No other browser I use acts quite this lame, and why should the one browser supposedly most compatible run the worst of all? I don't do anything different with Safari than with FF, Chrome, or Opera, yet I can run, say Opera for days on end with no slowdown, no freezes, no sudden refreshing, or crashes. Safari won't function for at most a few hours.....

There's a recent (Dec13) update to Trusteer Rapport that drops CPU usage  into the low single digits.

Having read through the thread there does not appear to be permanent solution thus far. However, I appear to have eliminated the problems described for days to weeks by purging the system caches using OnyX, a free downloadable utility.

As stated, it is not a permanent solution but it provides respite for extended periods.

It's unlikely that you'll find a permanent solution here because there are so many different reports, most without sufficient specificity to make a diagnosis; and because the most recent version of Safari, beginning with Safari 7 in Mavericks, treats each web page as a separate process instead of the whole browser. Many of the complaints in this thread precede Safari 6, so it might be time to close this thread.

Maybe, but the issues still exist in the latest version of Safari in Mavericks.

not the same issues, and in some cases not the same causes at all.

Deleting Rapport solved the issue for me. I would have never found it on my own !

Thanks !

I experienced the problem and tried many of the resolution steps offered.

I solved my issue by checking the "Do not preload top hit in the background" under the privacy tab. I had a "Top Site" cached to an authenicated webpage which I was no longer logged into. Safari got hung up on this.

Great tip CDAH - this cleared up my outrageous Safari and Mail CPU usage immediately.

Thanks very much!

Solved it with removing Flash Player and running Onyx cleanup.

Must be a bug in Mavericks.

So here's a thing that fixed it in my case: Disabling Top Sites.

I now open new windows and tabs with top sites and I don't seem to have the problem as much / at all. I'll leave it for 24 hours and post again if this seems to fix it.

again - why I find this general topic so frustrating is that people simply describe what they did (e.g. disabling top sites), but fail to mention the specific problem, and neglect mentioning what version of Safari/OS X they are using, and on what hardware; and with what other software. Does your Dropbox, your Evernote, your Growl extension, or something installed by your printer or scanner interfere with the use of Safari or any other software?

Another example: the current version of Safari does not run Flash without explicit permission each time, so a recommendation to remove Flash is pointless. Also, Onyx cleanup runs (or re-runs) OS X regular cleanup (which runs in the background and at regular intervals, in any case), and groups things like cache cleanup and log cleanup that, if separated, might actually give you a clue to your specific problem. Activity Monitor is only a gross indication of a problem and, if a Safari web process is stuck at 100%, is it Safari, a plugin, the web code, or some other factor (e.g. have you logged into a guest account or a new user on your computer and reproduced the problem?)

Troubleshooting is a systematic effort to observe problems. This particular thread is mostly about shooting-from-the-hip. There can be a list of useful methods (disabling all plugins, creating a new user, updating software, clearing caches, opening web pages one-by-one, examining crash or hang records in the console, etc. etc.). That is not what this thread is about, and this thread is no longer "safari web content high CPU usage" because it conflates too many unrelated problems and assigns them to high CPU.

solid, I have yor exactly same problem, did you fixed it?? how?? thanks

This topic is frustrating and annoying as it is of no use and personally, I am not in for a troubleshooting process, but to get rid of the results of an annoying bug. That's why I removed Flash Player and after that no more high CPU from web contents. The problem is not confined to Safari only. Also Mail is causing high web content CPU.

As far as I can see it, it's the relation between OS X and Flash. We all know how Apple is against Flash and not only for security reasons.

I noticed that you're still on Mountain Lion or is your profile not up-to-date?

In my case it started after installing Mavericks.

To an extent I agree with JohnMM about the frustrations of this topic. However, it has provided users with various ways of resolving issues causing similar but maybe not identical problems and, it appears, certainly not identical causes.

I am a simple user looking for a solution to a problem I am not qualified to accurately diagnose. I have tried several of the solutions suggested in this thread with varying success.

Onyx cleaner appears to do a job, which Mavericks' own clean up operation is unable to do. My CPU usage certainly never spontaneously disappeared, and without regular (weekly) use of Onyx, life with Mail and Safari would have been VERY painful.

I run Mavericks on a late 2012 MacMini. I never had the problem before upgrading to Mavericks despite some people suggesting that similar Mountian Lion problems would be solved once upgrading. The only Safari extensions I run are Twitter, Pagerank and Awesome Screenshots. Both Flash and Rapport are installed in the latest versions.

The fix that appears to have permanently solved my Web Content High CPU Usage for both Mail and for Safari is to tick the box to 'not to preload the Top Hit in the background. in Safari Preferences. Why it has solved the Mail issue as well I have no idea.