This aspect of Safari 5.1 is really lame!

Ok I have been messing around with processes today trying to free up some of 4 GB that is gone with only mail and ical opened, but that is a different topic. I thought about what if there was something wrong with the 64bit version which is the default.

What I did was I quit safari (running Lion) changed to 32bit noticed a big change. Set back to 64bit wrote down the memory usage for safari and safari web content. the set back to 32bit and did the same. Here are my results:

64Bit 32Bit

Safari: 105MB 72.4MB

Safari Web Content: 136 MB 101.9MB

The test was run with everything the same since lion opens everything back up the same way. Also, this test was done with only 2 webpages opened. What I have learned is the 64bit programs are better because the will use memory more efficiently, where this does not look like it to me. Also, Google chrome is only 32Bit for those switching over. From what i am seeing, the 64Bit may not be the problem, but I am starting to believe there are many small problems with the new safari and they are all leading to one similar problem.

I originally posted in this thread months ago and have been quitely watching all the responses.

For the most part the memory problems I was having went away with 5.1. Safari no longer gobbles up 4G of ram

However, I'm having troubles with Safari taking up a huge chunk of the CPU usage. I noticed this soon after installing 5.1 (I think). Yes, I often have many many tabs open (70+) and I'm sure this is part of the problem. Anyhow, after installing 5.1 Safari would at times start using 90%+ of the CPU. I think installed click2flash and that seemed to make a difference, cutting the CPU usage to under 50% (when the laptop was just sitting there not being used).

However, lately I noticed it occassionally going back up. Last night Safari was taking ~97% of the CPU. Why I'm not sure. I wasn't doing anything too wacky on Safari. Is anyone else seeing this type of behavior?

Lee, that's kinda a threadjack.

The sumptom we're reporting has to do with Safari spontaneously reloading everything, and then only thos epages which are being displayed.

I'm hoping this thread stays focused so that Apple will fix this specific issue.

Unfortunately the only solution I have found is to switch to Chrome or Firefox.

This reloading has made safari totaly annoying to use.

I have resisted to switching to an other browser until apple forced me to.

Four points: the current status, the fix, the thread, a deeper concern.

1) Status: It's still broken for me in 5.1.2. See the fourth item for details.

2) Fix: A fix appears to be here, not perfect but adequate for many:

http://stormchild.tumblr.com/post/10414883514/

There are a few other threads on which it is now posted. Hopefully this settles things out.

3) The thread. First, bonus points to Bluspacecow, an Apple person by appearances, for providing technical details. Still, I am troubled by those responses. The original post was technically sound, but didn't explain exactly why it meant all the pages had to be reloaded (presumably because the critical service couldn't get access to the current status of those pages). So it was extra unfortunate that when someone came back to ask why this is better, Bluspacecow didn't recognize that losing the current status of the pages (for example when offline, or when there is contextual information that is lost because of some web services behaviors on reload) is for many a Huge Deal, and Much Worse than the original behavior. Having the reloads happen in background may seem like a solution, but makes the situation worse in some cases due to losing the context on the original page without any hope of recovering it.

To be frank, not only do we expect more user-friendly functionality from Apple, but Apple has to do better than this if it is to maintain its current high standing.

4) The deeper concern. One thing that happens during this process (maybe a cause in some cases?) is that Safari can seriously hang, and (as someone in another thread reports) take 5, 10, or 15 minutes to sort itself out. I just watched this process in Activity Monitor, as the Real Memory unwound from 1GB down to under 200 MB, and the Virtual Memory went from 8 GB down to 4GB. (Wow.) All during that time Safari was unresponsive but it did come back eventually. (It may be relevant that until I quit several other applications, Safari was actually increasing its memory use. But that's for another thread.)

The point is, there may be some significant memory management issues in Snow Leopard + Safari (and for my money it may be aggravated by utilities like Google docs and Etherpad, that constantly update the browser with new information over time). Maybe all that is for another thread as well, but I think it's maybe where a lot of this comes from.

Thanks for this. A nice note.

5.1.2 has been better for me on both SL and Lion, but it's clearly not perfect. In fact Lion is laggy all over the place, even on my nice new 4-core MacBook Pro. Not sure why this should be, but certainly Safari isn't making any fans lately.

If Steve Jobs had the opportunity to take notice of this issue, how long do you think it would last? This is a significant issue in that most folks and especially business mac users are using Safari. So far the only solutions are to put in plugins that may or may not work, use another browser, or not have tabs open. There is a total lack of response by Apple so far and even the update did not correct the issue. How can we get Apple to repair this or roll everyone back to the previous Safari version which didn't do this?

just thought i would chime in here. i don't have any tips or helpful information to offer, but, since this thread has been going on since july, with no proper fixes/workarounds, it can't hurt to reinforce that i have had the same problem for months, have resorted to using firefox (which i haven't had to do since my PC days), and also find this to be a severe annoyance.

so listen up, safari techs!!! i'm sure we're not the only ones being driven to other software platforms by this issue.

May be my issue was something diifferent; for me lameness disappeared after switching off the "net monitor" included in Little snitch.

On my home Mac this happens quite often, and at my office Mac it happens less frequently.

The difference is that I live in the hinterlands, 10 or so miles from the nearest DSL or cable connection, so my internet connection at home, while technically "high-speed" is about 1/8 the speed of most DSL or cable connections. My office is in town, so my Mac there has the benefit of an actual high-speed connection. It seems that Safari has a lot of trouble with the laggy internet connection at home.

That of course also exacerbates the problem with clicking the dreaded "Connect to Page" button. If I have 50+ tabs open (not uncommon) and try to reload all of them at the same time, I can max out my bandwidth for a half hour or more as the hamsters struggle valiantly to re-fetch all that content.

I also notice that Safari tends to take up an awful lot of RAM when it has a slow internet connection. If I am working on something and notice my computer getting really sluggish, I will check my internet connection and typically find that it's gotten REALLY slow. Even if I'm not loading much content, if my connection drops to a snail's pace, Safari will take up every ouce of RAM my computer can feed it until the connection speeds back up.

Oh the joys of rural life.

And no, I haven't upgraded to Lion. Do you have any idea how long it would take to download 3.5GB at 200-or-so kpbs?

Equally frustrating is Chrome crashes when I scroll to the top or bottom of the page too quickly using the wireless trackpad mouse. When will these issues be fixed?

I'm offering a clue (maybe):

When I did stop the spotlight server (check google for instructions) the "Force Reload" message stopped. But weeks later I realized that the App Store doesn't work with uploads of my downloaded software. After I started the daemon again, the messages on Safari reappeared as well.

wow, it's still rapidly going straight down with the quality of apple, not only the hardware (without all the ios gadgets), but now the software also suffers under the new priorities to these entertain s h i t.

with the current i5 air with 4gb and safari it isn't possible to use these computer!

same with the current i7 mini server with 16gb!

unbelievable!

firefox is also a no go till v4.x and chrome, ok no word, it's the evil himself...

best of all, when i also have newsrack open, you can restart both programs every 15 minutes, cause safar and newsrack starting a competition which can get the most ram. sometimes newsrack is the winner with over 3gb on the air, sometimes it's safari with 2,5gb but 80% cpu usage.

newsrack always doesn't react anymore after the competition is running about 10 minutes.

this all s u c k s soooooo much, first of all, these apple hardware s h i t isn't very cheap, regardless to other HARDWARE!

for me, with the purchase of the mini, it's the really last purchase from apple, cause it can't be true that every ios device is running perfect (iphone 2g,3g,3gs,4,4s & ipad 1,2 & atv2) but the ex-main business feels like i'm on windows xp again!

SO APPLE, PLZ FIX THIS IMMEDIENTLY AND DON'T TREAT THESE CUSTOMERS, WHO HAS ENEABLED YOU TO BE IN THIS CURRENT HIGH POSITION!!!!!

cause, we don't need an atv3, itv, ipad3 and iphone5 s h i t, these stuff we can buy from any other manufactor like did: sold both ipads and the atv2 and bought a galaxy and a xbox for streaming replacement.

FOR ME IT'S ENOUGH AND THE LAST CHANCE FOR APPLE TO SWITCH BACK TO BASICS! sadly to say after over 25 years of hardcore apple user.......(the 15 years i've got no (=zero) contact with any apple support, cause there were no need for it, but after the first whit emacbook, it's like to having any no name custom pc ****)!!!!