Safari keeps crashing/freezing after install of El Capitan

@Ottius

There have been freezes happening on all different systems, absolutely. The freezes that happen exactly as I've described above and repeated every 20 or so messages in this thread for five months have happened on a small number of configurations - predominantly 2014 machines (perhaps exclusively). Inevitably, when somebody else said they had the same freeze, a few questions reveal that they had different factors triggering the freezes and different symptoms. The only shared trait was a freeze.

Perhaps there's something in common, but the conversation rarely progresses to seeing any other shared traits of the freeze because the comment usually hasn't read through the prior discussion and starts making suggestions about various extensions, utilities or Flash after several users with the tab closing/switching freeze have confirmed that the freeze still happens on freshly wiped machines with no changes to any machine preferences or installations. This is relevant as the machine is then default Apple software with zero third party software possible for the fault. This repeats every few weeks on loop and those who were commenting in the past give up after having the same conversation each time.

Just to emphasise: There are many people experiencing various freezes. As I mentioned above, those experiencing the exact cause and symptoms I mentioned above appear to be exclusively some customers who bought 2014 model machines (there may be some late 2013 machines there too, I can't confirm).

Mine is a Late 2013 rMBP.

What is everyone seeing in their Consoles?

I see this (and a bunch of other meaningless crap) every time a freeze happens:

kernel[0]: Trying to restart GPU (Intel Iris Pro)...

... along with a hang analysis for the GPU restart. Sometimes it happens once, sometimes twice, three, four, five, ten times... I guess this is why the hangs sometimes take longer: it tries to reboot the Intel Iris Pro GPU, and it fails, so it tries again and again until it succeeds. The system freezes until it succeeds.

Maybe it has something to do with YouTube videos now being GPU accelerated, requiring the discreet GPU to turn on for the video or something, and then once you're done watching the video, to turn off, and this switching is what's causing the problem. This seems to imply a hardware malfunction, which is likely considering that I've never come across a Mac with a discreet Intel GPU that didn't also have a hardware failure related to the GPU.

Also in favor of this being a hardware problem is the fact that Apple is not responding to the issue, and that no software update has been issued to address it for an unusually long time. Well-documented, widespread software issues like this one tend to eventually get solved within the meaningful lifetime of an OS, even if they're never officially acknowledged by Apple.

Apple probably did some tests based on what we reported, realized that a batch of computers they sold are all faulty, did the math, and said: "Yeah guys, you know those new computers we released that can't be repaired at all because they're basically filled with glue? They're all screwed. We messed up the GPU soldering, again. So yeah it's not worth it, we'd need to give everyone new computers because we made them to be unrepairable. We'd lose money, let's just say nothing, the idiots will just buy new computers next year anyway because they'll be thinner and made of GOLD, and then we'll make money instead of losing money. Isn't making money better than losing money? It definitely is. So rose gold it is! Make sure to fill it with glue."

Thanks for a very clear comment. I would like to point out that before I entered my first comment on this thread, I had read the entire thread up to that point in the interest of gathering as much info as possible (and hoping in vain for a solution). What you've reported reinforces my opinion that there may be a hardware root cause to at least some of what's being reported. That sort of thing is not at all unusual in the industry, nor is Apple's silence on this topic.

Anyway, I've resigned myself to the prospect that there will not be a software solution forthcoming, but I hold out hope that killing the right combination of processes may unlock whatever is blocked (this may be possible, but is not guaranteed to be a fruitful investigation).

Thanks again for your comment that's remarkably clear and non-insulting. Almost makes the Internet a pleasant place to engage in conversation :-).

"they'll be thinner and made of GOLD". LOL. I believe you're right on the money, but there will never be a "smoking gun" of the sort that sank Enron (search for enron grandma millie), because (speaking from industry experience) people at companies like Apple aren't that cynical. It's just business. Decisions like this aren't predatory, they're just part of life.

Next time I get a freeze, I'll take a look at the console log. My MBP has the Intel Iris Pro graphics chip, too. Also, the process that's trying to restart it might be a good candidate to kill - will let you know if I have a chance to try it.

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 toggle it on and off in Preferences, Security, Plug-in Settings 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 3 weeks for me. I've had no side effects at all and my iMac is running beautifully.

I just tried the latest release of Safari Technology Preview. Am no longer having freezes. Especially with YouTube. May not work for everyone but so far, so good On my 2012 Mac Mini.

Hi Steve...Thank you. All that has been raised. It's not related to this issue. The 2010 machines don't have the issue in this thread. It's mostly affecting 2014 MBPs. It happens on clean installs with no sign of Flash.

You had reported the "Trying to Restart GPU" message on page 15 also (February 21, 2016). I have it in the console log I posted on page 2 as well (December 15, 2016). I think I've seen it in another forum as well. That's got to be related. I think this is something we cannot fix.

The non-response and failure to fix this issue in all this time, along with plenty of us having reported the problem directly to Apple and the appearance of the issue in multiple threads, on Reddit, and elsewhere, would seem to indicate that Apple has abandoned us on the issue (defect?). There certainly seems to be class of some size here with the same, well documented, and frequently occurring problem.

I've saved all the pages in this to a PDF out of concern that it may "disappear" as one I started back around November or December. I think it takes more noise to get this resolved without taking further action.

@higgsb0son @xgrep @Adam F,

I used to save all my console logs when freezes happened but never came across anything I found to be particularly pertinent (in my untrained opinion) or mentioning the GPU. That said, I certainly wouldn't say I was exhaustive in checking so I'll do so again.

@xgrep,

I'm glad the comment came across that way, cheers. I never want to put anyone down when clarifying an opinion or describing an issue but it's hard to be sure it's been avoided when you're writing from a pretty frustrated feeling of deja vu. Also appreciated that you read the discussion before throwing your opinion in. I don't blame anyway for not wanting to read through pages of thoughts here but the majority of comments have already been covered in some shape or form and it's like Groundhog Day at times.

As higgsb0son suggested, if this is a hardware problem, it isn't going to be fixed, because it doesn't make business sense for Apple. I personally think that it would be very difficult to mount any legal action, as some significant level of "injury" (financial or otherwise) would have to be demonstrated in order to prevail (and don't forget that in class action suits, the members of the class typically get peanuts, while the lawyers go out and buy megayachts).

From the customer point of view, while I'm disappointed and annoyed, it is substantially to my advantage that this doesn't become officially acknowledged by Apple as an unrepairable hardware problem, because that would greatly reduce the resale value of my computer (and would be something that I'd have to disclose in a sale or be liable for failure to disclose a defect that materially affects value and/or usability). As long as all of this is just speculation, my computer is still a great machine that will fetch a nice bid on eBay when I go to sell it.

Be careful what you wish for ... you might actually get it.

@lamfra, you may not be seeing the exact problem that others of us are seeing, as we don't get the freeze until we exit the video window. I'd certainly hate to think that there's another video-graphics-related freeze of some sort, but darn, anything's possible.

I'll call again the telephone support and see what they tell me. If it is a hardware problem then yes it is serious. And to think I came from Windows and this is my first Mac.

Thanks

I strongly suggest everyone give Safari technology preview a try before ruling its hardware related. This helped me on my machine. This is a preview release of the next safari update and it's done wonders. So maybe Apple did fix the bug.

GIve this a shot before ruling it a hardware issue.

https://developer.apple.com/safari/technology-preview/

@Unloadedone

The advice is appreciated but this was discussed several pages ago and everybody who had been suffering from GUI tab closing freezes still had them in the Safari TP version. A quick summary: Some believed it fixed their issue as they didn't have freezes for days, whereas they were seeing daily freezes with the regular version of Safari. However, there wasn't a single person who believed they had a fix that didn't end up posting the unfortunate news that the GUI freezes returned in exactly the same fashion as before.