Javascript bugs in Safari 6 on Mountain Lion

I too have (a lot) of problems with Safari on ML.

IMO they are definitely JavaScript related. For example, try opening this page:

http://blog.jianhuashao.com/2011/09/generate-n-distinct-colors.html

Can any of you confirm that this does NOT happen on Macs with non-nvidia graphics ?

I am experiencing JavaScript issues on a Mac Pro with ATI graphics…

Ok, so nVidia and ATI users are affected. Several friends confirmed to me that that doesn't happen for them with Intel graphics cards (MacBook Airs). Can anyone else confirm this?

Hmm. I also experience problems on a MBP (late 2011) running Intel HD Graphics 3000/512

I am afraid it appears the latest Safari update hosed the application's cache handling. In my case, the problem manifests itself as a caching issue. No matter what steps I take to clear the Safari cache, it doesn't clear. Even after disabling cache in >Develop>"Disable Caches" and "Empty Caches", then reseting Safari, when examining the ~[Users]/Library/Caches/com.apple.Safari/Cache.db is still there and as large as it would seem approriate for several days (78.5MB). Of course, deleting the file manually works.

I discovered this while working on a website for a client... everything was fine until a recent Safari update. I modify a file, refresh the page, bang! Everything is good. But then a day or two ago, I noticed no matter what I did to the files (cascading style sheets seem to be worse than xhtml), CMD R didn't refresh my code?! Then, CMD Q and reopening Safari didn't work. So I enabled Private Browsing, disabled caching, emptied caches, did a full reset in Safari, and then restarted the MBP... no joy!

Using the inspector tools to review "resources" revealed the *.css file content didn't update when the page was reset. In other words, Safari continued to use the cached version regardless of the number of changes I made to it. The xhtml seems to update in real time, but external code files do not.

I can see how this might screw up javascript if a website updates portions of scripts in external *.js files. If the page makes a JS call from xhtml to a function in a cached file, you're screwed if changes were made to the script.

WORKAROUND: Using >Develop>User Agent>[pick any] refreshes the page and grabs the latest content frmo the site (in most cases). It isn't perfect, but at least I can see my updates in a timely fashion to get paid by my client.

Sorry about the novel, but I wanted to be as thorough as possible in hopes some Apple code guru sees this and acts on it.

I have the same problem with Safari - but I also have it with Firefox. Both are not resloving certain sites, and after one of these go-slows, the browsers often freeze completely and I have to force quit.

I've been able work around this issue by:

1. Safari > Preferences > Advanced > Show Develop menu in menu bar
2. Develop > Show Web Inspector (incidentally this will verify the problems you've all noted)
3. Minimize the Web Inspector and let it run like a ghost in the dock

I have no idea why this works for me, but it does.

In the meantime, don't try to "fix" anything that wasn't broken in Lion. If it worked before, it's clearly an issue with Mountain Lion, so file a bug report and wait for Apple to release an update.

Hope that helps!

This works for me. Weird....

Do you have AdBlock enabled, per chance? It's well-known to mess up JavaScript and SunSpider is a nice way to see it in action (also open up Activity Monitor to see your RAM disappear... even if you've got 16GBs of it!)

It does. I'm getting exactly that same thing (the weird text blocks) with the AMD Radeon 6750.

Good catch, TheAnimaster! I did indeed have AdBlock enabled. When I disabled AdBlock the benchmark ran correctly, and much, much faster. Thanks for clearing up this "problem.". BTW, does it have a similar performance hit for normal browsing?

Yep, same as the others, text ghosting out, weird flicks and glitches, gifs going AWOL, and safari crashing.

that made my safari crash

Your suggestion didn't fix my JSON string problem, meadeiator, but it did add a bit more zing to Safari, which had felt a bit slow since my Mountain Lion update.

Kudos for that!