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Why is Facebook so slow in Safari 6?

Just wondering if anyone else is experiencing incredibly slow Facebook since updating Safari?


It barely even loads. Works fine on FF & Chrome still. Interestingly, it works fine on my iMac, just having problems on the MBA.


Any ideas?

MacBook Air, OS X Mountain Lion, 1.86 GHz, 2GB

Posted on Aug 4, 2012 7:17 AM

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Posted on Aug 4, 2012 1:15 PM

Exactly the same experiences here!

FB works just fine in all other browsers. But in safari, all pics, info 'windowlets' when you mouse-over the upddates in the right column, etc etc don't show, or load soooooo sloooooooow. Lot of blank spaces on the page, only. And this stuck window even slows down or blocks all traffic in the other safari windows as well. In Safari5, I could go on browsing in the other open safari windows w/o problem, even when one window got occupied with a slow download....


But: I have managed to narrow down the problem to the following:

Are you running Facebook on a secure connection? Https ? This seems to be the culprit, for me, at least!


I turned off 'secure connection' temporarily on my Facebook page. At once, the Facebook pages started to work as normal, and really fast. But when I turned it back on, it immediately goes back to barely working.

So I guess it is how Safari6 handles traffic through SSL/TLS. Especially on a page like Facebook, that is updated continously, receiving a full load of new info every second, new pictures,columns, ads etc.


I have also done some of the traditional exercises, just for the sake of it:

turned off and on again Java and Javascripts, and rebooted safari, deleted and reinstalled java, also cleaned safari a number of times, even manually deleted all safari caches in Library. And also went through a full OS cleanup with Onyx... No improvement.


If it is https:-related for you too, and you don't like the idea of an unsecure FB connection, the workaround until Apple can sort this out, is to either use another viewer like Chrome, or just invoke another viewer temporarily from within Safari. (In the Developer drop-menu). Safari runs like a charm, except from FB, so I use the latter solution myself.


Question: did you do an upgrade /'patching' from lion on both macs? Or did e.g. the imac get a clean install, and therefore works better?


morten

...


Tech stuff:

Safari build is: 6.0 (8536.25) - Imac mid11, 27", 12 gig, I5 3.1 Ghz; AMD Radeon HD 6970M

17 replies
Question marked as Best reply

Aug 4, 2012 1:15 PM in response to mcarbl

Exactly the same experiences here!

FB works just fine in all other browsers. But in safari, all pics, info 'windowlets' when you mouse-over the upddates in the right column, etc etc don't show, or load soooooo sloooooooow. Lot of blank spaces on the page, only. And this stuck window even slows down or blocks all traffic in the other safari windows as well. In Safari5, I could go on browsing in the other open safari windows w/o problem, even when one window got occupied with a slow download....


But: I have managed to narrow down the problem to the following:

Are you running Facebook on a secure connection? Https ? This seems to be the culprit, for me, at least!


I turned off 'secure connection' temporarily on my Facebook page. At once, the Facebook pages started to work as normal, and really fast. But when I turned it back on, it immediately goes back to barely working.

So I guess it is how Safari6 handles traffic through SSL/TLS. Especially on a page like Facebook, that is updated continously, receiving a full load of new info every second, new pictures,columns, ads etc.


I have also done some of the traditional exercises, just for the sake of it:

turned off and on again Java and Javascripts, and rebooted safari, deleted and reinstalled java, also cleaned safari a number of times, even manually deleted all safari caches in Library. And also went through a full OS cleanup with Onyx... No improvement.


If it is https:-related for you too, and you don't like the idea of an unsecure FB connection, the workaround until Apple can sort this out, is to either use another viewer like Chrome, or just invoke another viewer temporarily from within Safari. (In the Developer drop-menu). Safari runs like a charm, except from FB, so I use the latter solution myself.


Question: did you do an upgrade /'patching' from lion on both macs? Or did e.g. the imac get a clean install, and therefore works better?


morten

...


Tech stuff:

Safari build is: 6.0 (8536.25) - Imac mid11, 27", 12 gig, I5 3.1 Ghz; AMD Radeon HD 6970M

Aug 5, 2012 4:30 AM in response to mep

Thank you for your help. It was the secure connection issue; turning that off has resulted in Facebook and Safari being friends again!


To answer your question, my iMac had a clean install. It is bizarre that I can use the secure connection on that machine, and have no issues, but on the Air it is terrible. Ah well.


Thanks to you too Carolyn, for your reply. I followed your steps first, but to no avail, unfortunately.

Aug 5, 2012 4:49 AM in response to mcarbl

Thanks to both of you! I tried your good tips, Carolyn, after been through of some of them already. But, regretfully, didn't help...

@mccarbi - thanks for reporting back. Then we have indications that secure logins can give us problems in Safari6. (Not sure it is only on FB-pages, probably a https-problem in general?, but since FB pages are so the more 'active', they provoke the routines more strongly.


Thanks also for letting me know about the clean instal differencel. I suspected something like that ;-) I will consider a complete (re)iinstall here. And my airbook, which still is on lion, will get a clean install when it's due for update!

Dec 10, 2012 5:22 PM in response to Saxman

You can turn on/off https:// from within the Facebook preferences. Account - > Security. (not sure about the translation, as I use a localized version...)


You can invoke from the 'Developer' dropdown menu -> User Agent. (again a bit unsecure about translation)

You need to have this drop menu activated, which is done from Preferences->Advanced, Tick the box at the bottow of that window (Show Developer Menu in...)


(After the last updates of Safari and OSX the last months, the initial problems seem to be solved by Apple.)

Why is Facebook so slow in Safari 6?

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