Safari keeps crashing/freezing after install of El Capitan

A few days ago i removed all the caches, entire history and all that and it helped - haven't had a freeze since then. I was tempted to install the Safari Technical Preview but i didn't because you guys had the same problems with it. I don't agree that Safari is useless as someoane earlier said, but it does have issues with youtube. I am experiencing choppy playback, i can't play the free available music from the browser and so on. Other than that, Safari works just fine for me, even the flash plugin. I hope someone figures this thing out because it would be a shame for some of us to switch to other browser just for the sake of youtube.

Sorry about that, i can now listen to the music/sounds in the creator studio section. For some reason it now works 😁

I had planned to sign in today and report that I still haven't had any crashes with STP. Unfortunately, I just had my first nasty Safari/YouTube crash!

It's been a long time, but this is very disappointing. Maybe Apple can make a working browser in its 41st year.

Is it possible to set Safari in a way that it won't store any cache/cookies etc. loaded by youtube? Or simply clear them every time we close the browser? Of course cookies/caches of other site must still be available? Will that solve the problem? Youtube recognizes gmail /google account login so is any other data really needed? Once logged all likes, history and playlist would be save on the account, no need to store anything locally. Am I right? Is there any way to set safari this way?

That's a shame Adam, but at least keeps the issue consistent with those sharing the same symptoms.

@villovsky, I've seen a new theory come up over the past few months about a potential setting in Safari that's causing the issue and they've all just turned out to be confirmation bias. I unfortunately think the cache suggestions are the same and personally don't believe it's anything more than a coincidence so far. Primarily because I think it would have been addressed long ago if it was a bug with cache storage and, secondly, because those who've pulled up somewhat relevant console logs from the freezes have found messages suggesting graphics rendering errors with no mention of storage/reading/writing or cache.

1. check safari setting under privacy

2. or - simple answer - use private browsing

Same problem here.

1 - Safari Technology preview, doesn't fix the problem.

2 - OSX 10.11.5 beta with safari 9.1.1 dosen't fix the problem.

3 - Clear the cache, remove extensions, praying, jumping on one leg ... tried everything suggested, nothing seams to fix the problem.

6 months, and Apple didn't fixed the problem. Worst Apple experience ever!!!!!!!

Same problem here.

After update of El Capitan to 10.11.4, Safari started crashing. I found that mainly in imdb website. After two or maximum 3 videos safari is crashing. No flash, no add ons on safari. The problem started after the update. I did 4 clean installs and I have the same problem.

I have a Macbook Air 11-inch Early 2015, 1.6 GHz Intel Core i5, 8 GB Memory, 128 SSD, OS X 10.11.4

Go and check http://www.imdb.com/ videos. The problem happens almost immediately after two or three videos at least for me.

Where could I found a previous version of OS X El Capitan? Unfortunately I didn't keep a time machine backup with El Capitan.

Giorgos_T:

Same problem here...After update of El Capitan to 10.11.4

Saboteur:

6 months, and Apple didn't fixed the problem

I think it might be a different problem? It looks like you're discussing a freeze introduced with the 10.11.4 update and Saboteur is discussing (correct me if I'm wrong - I don't think the 10.11.4 beta was out six months ago) a freeze he had before 10.11.4 which was being discussed in this thread for months now. Personally I've had the problem for 14 months and 10.11.4 was just another update that didn't fix it.

Maybe it's a different problem but I think that the symptoms are very common.

Anyway Apple should do something urgently. I cannot work like this. I cannot lose my work because I watched a video during a break!

Giorgos_T wrote:

Maybe it's a different problem but I think that the symptoms are very common.

Anyway Apple should do something urgently. I cannot work like this. I cannot lose my work because I watched a video during a break!

Saving your work before you watch a video would of course prevent that.

Maybe it's a different problem but I think that the symptoms are very common.

There's certainly a chance. When I say there's been an ongoing discussion of Safari freezing before the 10.11.4 update I'm talking about a bunch of people here (and on plenty of other support/discussion forums) that have freezes that are caused only by what I've listed below. It looks like you've a few of these, could you tell me exactly what triggers your freeze?

• El Capitan any version (and Yosemite for some).
• Safari any version
• Clean install, no third party software or extensions installed
• Have a HTML5 video (not Flash) embedded on a site somewhere (it may be exclusively YouTube embeds, not confirmed)
• Play the embedded video
• Close the tab or switch to a different tab in Safari

This will often trigger a freeze of the whole system UI (user interface) freeze as the animation of the tabs switching/closing happens. In plain English, only what you see freezes, everything else continues (such as music you were playing, any files that were being automated or rendered, bluetooth, log files, time keeping, etc.). The display of he time up in the upper right corner will freeze to the exact moment the problem happened but logs will show actual time keeping kept happening.

The only part of the UI that continues to work is the movement of the mouse cursor. You can freely move the mouse but it won't register any clicks or swipes. Keyboard won't register any presses.

Usually the freeze stops after 30 seconds - 2 minutes and everything returns to normal. Sometimes it doesn't and the power button needs to be held down for a hard reset.

This is the exact shared trigger and symptoms lots of people have had before this 10.11.4 (and with). Is this new 10.11.4 issue the same one?

Of course I always save my work before start doing something else but that's not the point. When you pay good money you want to have a reliable product.

Hi all,

I have been keeping an eye on this thread and several others regarding the frozen UI except for mouse. This has been happening with my late 2009 i7 iMac since OS 10.9.

I have run Apple's hardware test several times, the latest being on a very very hot day (+30 degrees C in the room). This was the extended test and the Mac passed with flying colours. This was due to the remarks that it may be a GPU or RAM issue. The HDD was replaced last year (out of warranty) as the Seagate failed. The Genius store checked the machine, gave it a good clean and said no hardware issues detected.

I rebuild my machine once every few months (for no good reason other than playing around) and this issue always randomly crops up. Current build is 10.11.4 installed using a USB key (10.11.0) then running software update.

The issue occurred about an hour ago. The same message as always with 10.10 and 10.11 - WindowsServer reported as unresponsive by watchdog daemon. Interestingly, this message used to be a GPU panic under 10.9 - exact same symptoms. Mouse moves, keyboard caps lock led toggles the OS keeps running in the background but no UI. Requires forced 5 second power toggle. Today is a very cool day so there is no way the GPU could have gotten hot.

Now, some things I have noted that gel with this thread. This always happens using Safari only. I can use any other software and the machine runs just fine, including GPU hungry resource hogs. It did not seem to happen at all when Flash was not installed (which I have just done) but I can not confirm this other than a prolonged test without Flash. Whether this is a Flash / Safari issue our not needs to be confirmed.

Might I have a stab as to suspect that people having this issue have Macs with ATI Radeon cards in them? Mine is the 512Mb 4850. Could there be a code deadlock with the ATI drivers and Flash / Safari?

The fact that this has been happening for so many years with my machine tells me the underlying problem has existed since 10.9. However, the randomness is confounding. I can go for weeks of intensive (with Flash installed) with no issue, then bang several freezes within a few days.

A.

---

PS - I just remembered that a few weeks ago during +30 degree C weather I was manipulating large photos using Pixelmator for something like 3 hours with the fans slowing spooling up to high speed. These were very large images. The screen went blank completely for about 10 minutes then returned to normal. Interestingly there was no error logged and the system was running just fine in the background. I suspect this was the GPU gracefully shutting down due to heat to save it's bacon. I continued slowly and the issue did not occur again. This to me tells me that the GPU is engineered to cool itself if it detects it is getting too hot. I really don't think this mouse cursor moving / UI freeze is heat related......

I've done a little research in the last few days and found out that all browsers used to have this (freezing) issue at some point. Safari isn't fully supported by youtube, choppy playback and heavy loss of frames apparently depends on the codec, from my end anyway. I haven't experienced any memory or cpu peaks though.

I did remove all caches and history and that helped. I haven't experienced a freeze for about a week. One thing i noticed is that i watch videos from my subscriptions and the freezes were random, but mainly when i had multiple tabs open - about 7-10. For now, my best bet is on having a clean browser:

- Remove all caches and all sites data;

- Clear all history;

- Remove com.apple.Safari.plist

Go to ~/Library/Preferences

Move the com.apple.Safari.plist file from the Preferences folder to trash

Reboot and empty trash.

Note that you should backup your data before you attempt these operations.