Safari keeps crashing/freezing after install of El Capitan

@AvoOhanian Interesting. My immediate thought, from the age of your machine, was this was a different issue. However, you've replaced parts over the years so perhaps something is shared. My hesitation is both from seeing nobody with a machine that old have this issue before (I don't think I've seen it from 2012 and earlier) and from you not confirming the trigger is the same.

I don't have an ATI card. I've an NVidia GT 750m and an integrated Iris. I also run very intensive software (all 8 threads on full) over several hours quite often. Really not ideal for a laptop. The fans kick in on full to cool the laptop for this entire time and I've never had a freeze from heating issues.

Can you confirm that the exact same sequence of events that I posted a few messages back is what causes yours too? Particularly that this occurs in Safari exactly when a tab with a HTML5 video (Flash not installed) is closed or switched from, and not at any other moment.

@Tok'ra

With respect, I still think you're believing a rain dance is what caused the clouds to release rain. Sure enough, it did rain when the people danced but they ignored other factors.

This tab closing freeze is happening to those affected on fresh installs with zero cache stored. You can prevent cache storage by browsing in private.

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.

Over 90% of Apple computer owners aren't affected by this issue in any way. It's probably over 95%. If you compare all of the machines, I don't believe the 5% or so of us affected by this have a Safari setting that's automatically different for us than the other 95% when we wipe our laptops and do absolutely nothing other than open Safari, play a Flash video and close that tab. This is why I'm repeating that people are putting false hope into this being a simple preference setting they can change. There's something fundamentally different that's inherent in these 5% of computers that are having this tab closing issue. I don't think this can be read differently when comparing fresh installs.

Returning to the following:

choppy playback and heavy loss of frames apparently depends on the codec

I believe that Safari currently only plays a single codec, H264, using HTML5. Any other codec playing is a result of using third party software.

I am having the same problem with my late 2009 iMac27, 2.8GHz since February 2016. I am on El Capitan 10.11.4 but it started on 10.11.3 already. Kind of surprised that I am not the only one on this planet but also surprised that I am relatively late with the problem? At first I was thinking hardware issues. But with so many people having the same problem with so many different systems... Never had any issues before 10.11.3. I am on Safari 9.1. If I stop using Safari and change to Chrome I don't have any problems. But I like Safari so much...

I tried a clean install already with no other than original Apple software and the problem still occurs!! I did not restore from Time Machine backup but restored only manually saved documents.

In ADDITION to all stories I read here: it seems that I am ONLY having a freeze with Safari open AFTER waking up from sleep! I can still move the mouse. It seems that all processes continue, my TM backup finishes for example. But the clock is not changing anymore.

Perhaps anyone else also can check what happens if you disable sleep in power settings? I am trying this for 2 weeks already and I did not experience any freezes. Hopefully this is not coincidental..

Thanks in advance :-)

I am just curious ppg. How do you know that only 5 percent of the machines out there are affected?

Besides the freeze, which btw I haven't had in days, Safari is ridiculously slow in loading pages ... sometimes. Sometimes it won't load at all, like this page. I had to go to Firefox in order to reply. And sometimes, a page loads partially.3

Yes this was occurring in 10.11.3, just not quite as often. And in NO WAY does this happen while watching YouTube videos. "Junk" websites, like "14 photos of WWII that will make your jaw drop," are notable offenders, both in not fully loading the page and with spinning ball freezes. And on those, I can move the spinning ball to the tab closure button and close the tab.

Success!! No more spinning ball. But then, I have blank pages on other open tabs. To "remedy" this, I close and reopen Safari.

IMHO, this crap wouldn't be going on and on and on in the Apple run by Steve Jobs.

Oops, I meant to say "And in NO WAY does this happen while watching YouTube videos .... ONLY."

Ripe Avocado wrote:

IMHO, this crap wouldn't be going on and on and on in the Apple run by Steve Jobs.

The problems some are having with Safari has nothing to do with Steve Jobs being there or not. For example, none of my Macs are having a problem with OSX 10.11 and Safari, even without Jobs.

Where could we find 10.11 or 10.11.3 version to download it?

Giorgos_T wrote:

Where could we find 10.11 or 10.11.3 version to download it?

Sorry, not what I meant. I am running OSX 10.11.4 on all my Macs. And there is no place to download 10.11 or 10.11.3 anymore.

Have you tried turning off Adobe Flash Player in Safari, Preferences, Security, Plugin Settings? I upgraded to OS X 10.11.4 and Safari was basically unusable as it kept freezing several times a day. I turned off Flash Player and have had no problems since. I use a mid-2010 iMac with El Capitan. I had never had the freezing problem before this upgrade and my iMac has run flawlessly for years with each OS X upgrade.

I decided to install the latest version of Flash Player and use it only on an as needed basis (CBS, NBC videos) until these sites do away with Flash. I basically turn it on and off if I hit a site that requires Flash Player. I know this is a compromise and I would really like to wipe out Flash Player completely. This setup has been working non-freeze for the last several days for me.

I qualified myself with "IMHO."

Clearly, IYHO I'm wrong. I accept your right to your opinion.... 😁

I first tried it with 100% clean install El Capitan. So this was without installing any software and/or plugins. It still occurs. At the moment I have Adobe plugins installed since I know that not installing was not helping either. Just in case they are switched off and I do the same as you: turn them on if needed. But even when they are on and I have disabled sleeping in power settings I do not have any issues

Here's a site that loads partially then the beach ball appears: http://www.techtimes.com/articles/148780/20160411/ufo-watchers-spot-millennium-f alcon-like-metal-object-above-earth.htm

Ripe Avocado wrote:

Here's a site that loads partially then the beach ball appears: http://www.techtimes.com/articles/148780/20160411/ufo-watchers-spot-millennium-f alcon-like-metal-object-above-earth.htm

FWIW, the site loads instantly for me. However, I remembered something, sites with ads or tracking cookies at times couldn't connect with their home servers so browsers grind to a halt waiting for them to connect. Perhaps that's part of the problem.

@palegreenghosts

Do you happen to have FCPx? I'm curious about whether there's FCPx tie-in with the Safari/YouTube crashes.

I am just curious ppg. How do you know that only 5 percent of the machines out there are affected?

Apologies, I thought I'd alluded to that number being an estimate. I read it back and I didn't emphasise that enough.