What's with Safari 6? Extremely unstable, scrolling lags, typing lags...

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Level 4

1,345 points

What's with Safari 6? Extremely unstable, scrolling lags, typing lags...

I upgraded to Safari 6 just before (using Software update, I'm using 10.7) and... it's completely unusable.

I tried to post this question using Safari but it crashed 4 times, so I'm in Chrome now. (No crash report dialog appeared to report to Apple.)

And it's slow: There are huge lags in typing. And long scrolling lags.

It's basically unusable. That's not an exaggeration - it's seriously completely unusable. Just the crashing alone makes it unusable.

Wasn't this tested?

I usually use Safari as my main browser and Chrome for testing, but I'm going to have to use Chrome as my main browser until this is fixed.

Anybody know what's going on?

Thanks,

doug

iMac (21.5-inch Late 2009), Mac OS X (10.7.3), 12 GB RAM, also MBP late 2006 +....

Posted on Jul 27, 2012 1:07 AM

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Answer 1

Doug Lerner2 Author

Level 4

1,345 points

Jul 27, 2012 1:29 AM in response to Doug Lerner2

Chrome works really well. I changed it to be my default browser and imported bookmarks, etc. from Safari and I'm back to where it was - with no crashing and no lags.

I guess there is no advantage to using Safari, is there?

Maybe I'll just stick with Chrome as my default browser for now.

doug

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Answer 2

Doug Lerner2 Author

Level 4

1,345 points

Jul 27, 2012 4:55 PM in response to Doug Lerner2

This morning I tried again and Safari is running normally. It doesn't crash, and I don't see any slowdowns.

I don't know what's different, but whatever the issue was it seems to have sorted itself out by itself.

doug

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Answer 3

TildeBee

Level 7

31,917 points

Jul 27, 2012 5:44 PM in response to Doug Lerner2

Hi Doug -- I just found you, sorry!

Any chance you restarted your Mac this morning?

I thinnk maybe gremlins are afoot!

Glad you're sorted with this, anyway.

😎

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Answer 4

Doug Lerner2 Author

Level 4

1,345 points

Jul 27, 2012 6:11 PM in response to TildeBee

Hi, Bee.

I restarted my iMac sometime last evening because I was fixing another, unrelated issue (my iMac not automatically connecting to my home wi-fi upon startup). I can't say for certain if the restart was before or after installing Safari 6. So I can't deny that that may have been what fixed it.

Thanks,

doug

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Answer 5

TildeBee

Level 7

31,917 points

Jul 27, 2012 6:23 PM in response to Doug Lerner2

Honestly it wouldn't surprise me.

Anyway, enjoy your Safari!

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Answer 6

Doug Lerner2 Author

Level 4

1,345 points

Jul 28, 2012 7:25 AM in response to TildeBee

Safari 6 is acting flaky again. I can't select text on pages. I can't reply to these forums. I had to come in with Chrome just to post this.

doug

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Answer 7

elimqiu

Level 1

0 points

Jul 28, 2012 3:59 PM in response to Doug Lerner2

I'd only hope safari and chrome not go crazy the same time. When some day safari 6's problems been fixed, I'll use it again and for now. I'd rather just download chrome and use it.

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Answer 8

FAB1227

Level 1

9 points

Jul 31, 2012 11:10 AM in response to Doug Lerner2

I have restarted it 3 times this morning and it seems to only temporarily solve the problem. OnceI open multiple windows it starts slowing down until it becomes unusable again. I do not have any choice but to use Chrome now. I hope they fix this soon.

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Answer 9

Jul 31, 2012 2:00 PM in response to FAB1227

To help ascertain part of the problem - open Activity Monitor (it's in your Applications folder in another folder called 'Utilities')
Open that, in the Processes dropdown, select 'All Processes'

In the list of 'processes' check and see how much CPU % that the Safari and Safari Web Content processes are using.

For me, they have been consistently using 60-110% of my CPU% even when I have only a couple pages open - even with Flash disabled, Extensions turned off, etc.

This is the problem at its core.

I've also noticed that my IM app Adium is taking an abnormal amount of CPU % now also, I suspect because it also uses WebKit to display a message window.

Which makes me think there is a large bug in Safari 6's implementation of WebKit - which can affect any application that uses a webview to display content.
Not good.

Let me know if the high CPU% issue is true for you guys also.

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Answer 10

Jul 31, 2012 6:56 PM in response to fightattack

No high CPU here, just lots of crashes. Ran DiskWarrior and TechToolPro and it lessened the amount of crashes from 10-20 a day to 5-10 a day, but still quite aggravating. I find Safari a bit snappier, everything seems to work, My Tabs seem a bit different, but I haven't taken a look in prefs to see if something changed. Having some problem not being able to use saved passwords in a few apps, no choice to even save them (again), and they've disappeared from keychain. Gotta say this is the worst update of an Apple app I've seen, and I've been on X since 10.0.3. I can recall how stable 10.5 was. Seems like Apple is going backwards with the OS, I'm sticking with 10.7 until things sort out

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Answer 11

Aug 1, 2012 9:18 AM in response to The Dude Abides

Try rebooting in Safe Mode.

Restart and hold down Shift (takes a long time to boot)
Once everything is loaded up just restart again normally

(This worked for me in fixing Safari's high CPU oddness.)

If that doesnt work:

One other thing you can try is repairing Preferences via Disk Utility, and then downloading the Combo update for your current version of your OS X (if you have 10.7.4, download 10.7.4 Combo Update)

Get it directly from support.apple.com/downloads

Install that over the top and see if that doesnt smooth things out a bit.

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