Safari 5.1 under 10.6.8: various issues (responsability, scrolling, etc)

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Level 1

30 points

Safari 5.1 under 10.6.8: various issues (responsability, scrolling, etc)

Hi,

here my observations, issues after upgrading to Safari 5.1 (from 5.0.1) under 10.6.8.

Scrolling is often choppy (with two fingers, with scroll wheel). Terribly annoying.

There is – not always, bit quite often – a strange refresh-effect when switching tabs or windows: the switched-to tab/windows goes blank for a very short moment before it comes back with its content (no reload involved, apparently just a display issue), of course terribly annoying.

Text input is lagging (like here, like now).

The beach ball is seen way too often, and way more often than in 5.0.1.

Text selection is lagging. You have to do it veeeeeerrrrry sloooooowly.

I guess, you can sum it up this way: responsability and UI interaction is not right.

This is not the case with regard to page loads, which is snappy, probably even better than in 5.0.1.

Another point: Window switching changed its algorithm back to how it used to be quite some time ago (maybe pre 5.x): The order of the windows does not get re-shuffled, but stays the way it was – so, on the one hand, you have to ‘caroussel’ to all of the windows to get back to the first; on the other hand, you don’t see (as in Safari 5.0.x) one window again and again just because you paused switching for a moment, or closed out some tab. A bit hard to describe, but I guess people will recognize what I mean.

Both algorithms have their pros and cons. I guess I like 5.1’s change back to the ‘traditional’ better, but it’s also a matter of taste, I guess.

RAM usage is pretty hefty as well: “Safari Web Content” 720MB, “Safari” 267MB, Flash Player (Safari Internet plug-in) 25,8MB – I have 2 GB RAM installed.

Text input is horribly lagging. Consider me brave to have finished this posting here.

Please, Webkit/Safari team, fix it.

Best,

Peter

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.8)

Posted on Jul 22, 2011 10:13 AM

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Answer 1

raffi4

Level 1

0 points

Jul 22, 2011 1:26 PM in response to Kadima

same problem for me same conf

and there is more since now there is 2 process getting all availble power :: horrible

want to come back to 5.0.1

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Answer 2

Kadima Author

Level 1

30 points

Jul 23, 2011 7:32 AM in response to raffi4

Good news: I can report that you can successfully and easily downgrade from Safari 5.1 to 5.0.5 under 10.6.8 by means of Charlessoft’s excellent (und for a long time well respected [I’m in now way affiliated with Charlessoft]) tool Pacifist (http://www.charlessoft.com/).

Just download this Safari 5.0.5 installer (for Snow Leopard) from Apple’s site (I hope it’s okay to put this link up here; of course Apple prefers you to download only its very latest – alas, the problems with this very latest is why you’re reading this post):

http://appldnld.apple.com.edgesuite.net/content.info.apple.com/Safari5/041-0564. 20110413.Fi9pb/Safari5.0.5SnowLeopard.dmg

Then proceed as described here (look for the part named “Force Install”; don’t get confused that it mentions older Safari versions, like 5.0 and 4.0.5, the procedure is the same now):

http://appletoolbox.com/2010/06/down...-safari-4-0-5/

Also see the concise documentation that comes with Pacifist.

Basically, in all the dialogues coming up just choose “Replace” (not “Update”), a choice clearly marked in Pacifist’s documentation for cases of downgrading. One restart, and you’re back to Safari 5.0.5 without touching any other part of your OS. And, of course, Safari 5.0.5 is supposed to work under 10.6.8, since it gets installed with the 10.6.8 Combo Update, so no surprise.

(Why not just use the above linked 5.0.5 updater, by double-clicking it? This updater denies to install 5.0.5 under 10.6.8, instead claiming to require 10.6.7 – but this seems to be due only to the fact that at the time the Safari 5.0.5 installer was current, 10.6.7 was the up-to-date version of Snow Leopard. And again, I’m writing this post – and, other than the one above which I wrote from within Safari 5.1, without any hiccups – from within Safari 5.0.5, which “flies” compared to my 5.1 experience under the very same, otherwise untouched 10.6.8 installation.)

Just one further caution: After the downgrade, Safari 5.0.5 cannot re-open the last session’s (the one under Safari 5.1) windows and tabs (something to be quite expected); so, in case, bookmark accordingly before initializing the downgrade. (And, of course, you do not loose any other information, like bookmarks, history, passwords, etc. The downgrade does not effect any kind of “brutal” reset of Safari.)

Finally, after the downgrade OS X’s Software Update does offer you the update of Safari 5.1. So, you clearly can get back again to the newest and latest if you wish to.

Best.

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Answer 3

kman

Level 1

10 points

Jul 25, 2011 9:12 AM in response to Kadima

I just wanted to say that I'm having the same problems. I'm on a 2.26Ghz C2D Macbook, 8GB RAM, OS 10.6.8.

It's like the whole program periodically stalls, just for a second. When I'm scrolling it reacts slowly, or when I click a link. Just now the text stalled for a second as I was typing and then all showed up. When I play Bejeweled Blitz, sometimes it freezes for a second. It's all very frustrating...I'm hoping someone finds a solution.

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Answer 4

Kadima Author

Level 1

30 points

Jul 25, 2011 9:21 AM in response to kman

kman, just read my second post above (the one right before yours) – there you find how to get back from Safari 5.1 to 5.0.5; it’s safe, simple, and not much of a hassle. Other people followed my example and we’re all very happy with Safari 5.0.5 under 10.6.8. 5.0.5 under 10.6.8 is fast and decent.

After the downgrade you can, if you wish so, at any time re-upgrade to 5.1, or something better to be coming in the future, via OS X’s Software Update; so no risk at all.

Best.

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Answer 5

Jul 27, 2011 11:50 AM in response to Kadima

I'd just like to mention that I am experiencing exactly the same issue...

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Answer 6

kman

Level 1

10 points

Jul 27, 2011 1:15 PM in response to Kadima

Disabling extensions seemed to help a lot. I had already disabled AdBlock, so I don't think that was the sole culprit. Click2Flash might have done it. It's better, but not perfect. Playing Bejeweled Blitz while running a flash video in another window definitely causes some stuttering, even though I can easily do that in Firefox or Chrome.

I think the major issue may be that Flash and Safari 5.1 aren't playing friendly. No shocker there. Hopefully someone steps up and fixes it.

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Answer 7

Bern.bb

Level 1

2 points

Jul 28, 2011 11:41 AM in response to Kadima

On reliability of 5.1 with Lion when saving a page, I am wondering whether people can check on this post:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3199538

I get a spinning beachball almost always when saving a page as .webarchive.

Does this happen to other as well?

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Answer 8

jice0

Level 1

10 points

Aug 1, 2011 7:55 PM in response to Kadima

I also see the same "refresh" effect happen occassionally in all open windows. I thought that it was a reload; I notice that it seems to reset the content in windows where I have interacted (for example listening to a baseball game on mlb.com, I need to select a source again).

It does happen when I switch to a new window (usually just popped one safari window to the foreground when it happens).

Based on another thread (and my checking), it might be caused by the "Safari Web Content" process dieing and then restarting.

Hope that a fix is in the works.

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Answer 9

Aug 13, 2011 5:56 PM in response to jice0

I just wrote 10 paragraphs on a forum and my broswer all of the sudden refreshed. There was no way of getting it back and I tried the back buttons. Apple needs to fix this NOW. There's so many screwed up things in Lion which make me honestly feel that it was more a downgrade than upgrade. This is one of them, which adds on to the fact that Lion is the exact opposite of what an OS should be: productive.

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Answer 10

begemot2

Level 1

28 points

Aug 17, 2011 12:42 PM in response to Kadima

THANK YOU very much for posting this; worked like a charm and I am now very happily back in 5.0.5. Will keep my eye out for future 5.1 updates, but I may personally wait until Adobe figures out how to get their acrobat plugin to work again, since I much prefer it to Safari's barebones pdf plugin, and there are some pages that appear to require the acrobat plugin (not Apple's fault, of course, but still). Plus I like having Glims working fully again. And things running smoothly and not scrolling with the aching slowness that Safari 5.1 caused. So, again, thank you Kadima for posting how to downgrade.

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Answer 11

Kadima Author

Level 1

30 points

Aug 17, 2011 3:19 PM in response to Kadima

Here’s an alternative method, apparently even simpler (but obviously, you have to had installed Safari 5.0.5 before, otherwise you will go back to whatever Safari version you had actually installed before; you probably can get 5.0.5 by applying the 10.6.8 Combo Update after the downgrade):

http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20110722154439693

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Answer 12

Aug 17, 2011 10:09 PM in response to Kadima

i have exactly the same issues, including this strange refresh bug. i hope apple soon delivers a fixed version.

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Answer 13

Sep 2, 2011 2:21 AM in response to Kadima

Good one, thanks!

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Answer 14

Brains

Level 1

10 points

Sep 2, 2011 9:09 AM in response to Kadima

Thank you have reverted back to 5.05 a la Pacifist and seems to be working much better!

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Answer 15

Oct 7, 2011 12:11 AM in response to Kadima

Many thanks for those helpful instructions Kadima. Safari is my browser of choice but I'm retreating to 5.05 while the issues the latest version are sorted out.

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