Closing tabs in Safari freezes Macbook

jonasgs1 was saying something about 20 seconds. I was waiting minutes and I really don't even want try waiting longer.

In my case Safari typically freezes for about 1 - 2 minutes and then unfreezes itself. About 1 in 3 times it won't unfreeze and I have to hard reset it. I couldn't quite understand if you mean this method you're trying has reduced your own freezes from minutes to seconds, each time. I remain skeptical but do keep an eye on it and see if this continues to be the case (and try not doing it and see if it goes back to being minutes). If you can affect it's behaviour (guaranteed), each time you might be onto something. Otherwise it might be as effective as a rain dance.

Well, you know, I just randomly discovered this weird method that not even solves the problem. And I just decided to share it with others. Maybe that works not only for me. Or maybe I'm just being silly 😀

There's no need to leave it at maybe, I'll reference what I mentioned in the last comment:

I couldn't quite understand if you mean this method you're trying has reduced your own freezes from minutes to seconds, each time. I remain skeptical but do keep an eye on it and see if this continues to be the case (and try not doing it and see if it goes back to being minutes). If you can affect it's behaviour (guaranteed), each time you might be onto something. Otherwise it might be as effective as a rain dance.

In my opinion, it's a rain dance, but I'd be very curious if I'm wrong and it could help understand the problem a little better while Apple aren't commenting on it.

In my opinion, it's a rain dance, but I'd be very curious if I'm wrong and it could help understand the problem a little better while Apple aren't commenting on it.

If that works, it sounds like it could be related to the GUI shutting down before powering off. Interesting, but not practical for me to test since I'm using 2 external monitors.

Would just like to say that I downgraded to yosemite and haven't had any problems since. El capitan is a mess.

Would just like to say that I downgraded to yosemite and haven't had any problems since. El capitan is a mess.

Do you have a 2014/2015 mac? I had similar freezes in Safari with Yosemite. I do think it's worsened with El Capitan but that might just be my imagination. Let us know if moving to Yosemite fixed the problem after a week or two or playing videos.

I had similar freezes in Safari with Yosemite. I do think it's worsened with El Capitan

Exactly what I've experienced.

jonasgs1 wrote:

I've had a problem with Safari. I'm running El Capitan on a Macbook Pro 15" mid-2014. I noticed this problem on Yosemite as well, though. It hasn't happened a whole lot of times but TWICE today, so it's getting annoying. When I close a tab in Safari it freezes the browser and the entire Mac. Sometimes I can move the cursor but other times even that is frozen. Then I have to wait maybe 15-20-25 seconds before it unfreezes. I think it mostly happens on youtube actually. Is this something you're familiar with? Also, after it unfreezes my Mac runs slower, like laggy, so I have to restart.

Hope you can help.

Jonas

It may not be the version of OS so much as where you are located - and your connection type along with the sites you select. For quite some time I had problems with Safari freezing - with Snow Leopard. I have limited options for internet connection that will work without issues -- so noticed over time that either some websites don't get the message that I closed the tab -- and keep sending - and/or the OS does not get the message that I did it.

The slower lag you are getting could be the mac is still sending a request for more data -- and just in a never ending loop -- or the time out counter - is set outrageously high.

Have found that putting my caches folder into the private area of Spotlight helps - as I regularly delete web data so pointless to cross reference.

It may not be the version of OS so much as where you are located - and your connection type along with the sites you select

I'll respectfully question this. This issue centres around a tab being closed or switched while a HTML5 video is playing, causing the entire system UI to freeze. The UI is not reliant on an internet connection - good, bad, or non-existant - to function. This is either a bug in Safari related to the rendering of HTML5 videos or a GPU-issue.

Perhaps you were having a similar but different issue that was related to your internet connection? See my earlier comment for specifics but I have narrowed down the problem to a set of conditions to trigger it. If you're certain your past issue is the same could you confirm you had the same set of conditions (other than the OS version and model year)? Specifically:

System UI freezes when closing or switching a tab in Safari, often unfreezing after a minute but sometimes not

...

A HTML5 video was embedded and active on the page that was closed/switched from. Appears to be exclusively YouTube.

Thanks

An update for El Capitan (10.11.4) was released yesterday. I haven't tried it yet to confirm, but some reports suggest this may fix the Safari HTML5 YouTube tab closing bug.

Just bought my mac. No app installed at all

Safari freezes for a minute especially when I stop watching a youtube video and do anything else.

Any suggestion?

Downgrade to yosemite or return the laptop.

Turn off iCloud tabs

The tab closing issue was happening to me in Yosemite and, like sirbrum I had just bought the laptop. it may not resolve the issue.

Also, to follow up on my above post:

An update for El Capitan (10.11.4) was released yesterday. I haven't tried it yet to confirm, but some reports suggest this may fix the Safari HTML5 YouTube tab closing bug.

This has been unfortunately confirmed not to fix the issue. I've seen one user state the 10.11.5 beta has not fixed the tab closing freezes for them. Apple is aware of the issue from the mixture of support calls, feedback forms and bug reports it has received over the year. Any new bug report they receive on the issue is closed as they label if a duplicate. Each OSX update that doesn't address it edges me closer to my fear that it's a hardware issue. Why else would be there be no fix after all this time? It affects a small customer base but has large consequences for the usability of a machine.

Unchecked "allow plugins" in security options and everything seems fine.

yeah, it is silly and I saw somewhere, tried and it worked.

It might be a problem among safari, html 5 and some chipsets since not everyone has this problem