Safari address bar slow (IMK stall detected)

Please read this whole message before doing anything.

This procedure is a test, not a solution. Don’t be disappointed when you find that nothing has changed after you complete it.

Step 1

The purpose of this step is to determine whether the problem is localized to your user account.

Enable guest logins* and log in as Guest. Don't use the Safari-only “Guest User” login created by “Find My Mac.”

While logged in as Guest, you won’t have access to any of your documents or settings. Applications will behave as if you were running them for the first time. Don’t be alarmed by this behavior; it’s normal. If you need any passwords or other personal data in order to complete the test, memorize, print, or write them down before you begin.

Test while logged in as Guest. Same problem?

After testing, log out of the guest account and, in your own account, disable it if you wish. Any files you created in the guest account will be deleted automatically when you log out of it.

*Note: If you’ve activated “Find My Mac” or FileVault, then you can’t enable the Guest account. The “Guest User” login created by “Find My Mac” is not the same. Create a new account in which to test, and delete it, including its home folder, after testing.

Step 2

The purpose of this step is to determine whether the problem is caused by third-party system modifications that load automatically at startup or login, by a peripheral device, by a font conflict, or by corruption of the file system or of certain system caches.

Please take this step regardless of the results of Step 1.

Disconnect all wired peripherals except those needed for the test, and remove all aftermarket expansion cards, if applicable. Start up in safe mode and log in to the account with the problem. You must hold down the shift key twice: once when you turn on the computer, and again when you log in.

Note: If FileVault is enabled in OS X 10.9 or earlier, or if a firmware password is set, or if the startup volume is a software RAID, you can’t do this. Ask for further instructions.

Safe mode is much slower to start up and run than normal, with limited graphics performance, and some things won’t work at all, including sound output and Wi-Fi on certain models. The next normal startup may also be somewhat slow.

The login screen appears even if you usually log in automatically. You must know your login password in order to log in. If you’ve forgotten the password, you will need to reset it before you begin.

Test while in safe mode. Same problem?

After testing, restart as usual (not in safe mode) and verify that you still have the problem. Post the results of Steps 1 and 2.

Having the same problem. Testing in Safe mode didn't solve anything, I'm still having these stalls show up in console every time Safari freezes. PressAndHold seems to be the new Yosemite feature that allows you to select from an array of additional characters while holding down a letter (similar to that of iOS 8). I tried killing the process in Activity Monitor and preventing it to load using a Terminal command, but it still pops up. There is no lag immediately after I kill the process, but it relaunches and Safari starts hanging up again.

PS. @Linc Davis I know you're trying to help, but I also find reposting the same testing algorithm over and over a bit redundant. It's clearly a problem with a built-in service (PressAndHold), as you can see in the Console log provided by maciekb.

Still looking for a fix. Hope something changes in the update (if there is one upcoming).

Looks like this wasn't addressed in the latest update. Still getting the "IMK Stall Detected" message.

I was getting this message (and stalls) too, but I disabled the feature as described here, and I haven't had the problem since.

Has anyone found a solution for this? It's driving me mad and Safari is the only browser I can really use because of iCloud integration.

I've disabled PressAndHold, but it's still showing a PressAndHold IMK stall in the log, so Safari obviously doesn't honour the PressAndHold settings.

Update:

I think I've found the cause. This is only occurring for me when the address in the address bar is longer than the visible width of the address bar, and "Show full website address" is enabled in Safari Preferences -> Advanced.

Does this fix it for anyone else?

I have the same problem. Disabling press and hold service doesn't help. It happens regularly. It is very annoying 😟

19/01/15 09:57:47,857 PressAndHold[2532]: IMK Stall detected, *please Report* your user scenario in <rdar://problem/16792073> - (activateServerWithReply:) block performed very slowly (2.03 secs)

Nope. I'm afraid that doesn't fix it for me.

The bug occurs for me when "Homepage" is set to "Empty page". I worked around it this way:

- Open Safari Preferences > General

- Set "Homepage" to "about:blank", or some other web site address.

- Set "New tabs open with" to "Homepage"

However, the stall may occur anyway, as soon as I click on the address bar, even if all the "Smart search field" preferences are off.

PressAndHold is what makes the small popup containing various accented characters (Â, ä, etc.) show up when you press and hold a key on the keyboard.

Why this would interfere with Safari's ability to open new tabs is beyond me.

Disabling this functionality has solved the problem for me. This means holding down a key will simply keep repeating the same character in the usual way. You can still add accented characters through the Character Viewer.

Here is how to disable PressAndHold:

1. Open the "Terminal" App (just write 'terminal' into Spotlight)
2. Enter the following command (without quotes) and press Enter: "defaults write -g ApplePressAndHoldEnabled -bool false"

If that doesn't do the trick for you, or you want to go back to the default setting for any reason, just do the same thing over but write "true" instead of "false".

Hope that helps!

Edit: It seems other people have already tried similar things. I should make a note of not jumping to conclusions upon seeing that a thread has not been marked 'solved'. Let's see if the problem resurfaces in my case, as it seems to have done with others. For the time being, disabling PressAndHold works.

Update: THIS TIME, I REALLY THINK IT IS SOLVED

After a while, the problem returned.

What was interesting was that Activity Monitor still showed that PressAndHold.app was still alive. It's parent process was launchd. This means that if you try to

Force Quit it, the system just reopens it immediately.

$ launchctl list | grep PressAndHold

identified PressAndHold to be com.apple.PressAndHold.83812.

I was baffled to see that, despite being loaded by launchd, there were no files in any of the following directories that contained the text PressAndHold.

• /Library/LaunchAgents
• /Library/LaunchDaemons
• /System/Library/LaunchAgents
• /System/Library/LaunchDaemons

Since I couldn't find the corresponding file to unload, I just did what I could:

$ launchctl remove com.apple.PressAndHold.83812

And to my disappointment, it spawned right back up! Even a reboot did not do the trick.

And then I went to sleep.

When I woke up, I was utterly surprised to see that there was no sign of PressAndHold in Activity Monitor. It was also gone from launchctl list. It disappeared.

I rebooted the system. It did not come back.

And now that I have been using Safari for a while, it has not stalled even once.

Ultimately, I think the solution is still related to the following command:

$ defaults write -g ApplePressAndHoldEnabled -bool false

Its just that the system does not put this into effect straight away (strangely, even with a reboot). Anyhow, through the things I did last night and in the time that passed by sleeping, something happened that triggered the setting into having effect and launchd stopped restarting PressAndHold.

I used this code and it never freezes again

$ defaults write -g ApplePressAndHoldEnabled -bool false

but, anybody knows if it is going to be fixed in future updates?

Same here:

18/12/15 15:21:42,866 PressAndHold[318]: IMKServer Stall detected, *please Report* your user scenario attaching a spindump (or sysdiagnose) that captures the problem - (activateServerWithReply:) block performed very slowly (2.01 secs)

Also disabling press and hold doesn't help. Tried everything. It's very annoying.

What OS version do you have?

Btw, you have to insert the code in the terminal and then leave your computer sleeping for a while.

When the process "PressAndHold" will be no more on the process list in the activity monitor, Safari will work again. Just, let it sleep for a while.