What could be causing the whirling ball or page freezing in Safari (most often in Amazon)?

Oh dear, I suspected as much. As you've seen, I myself have had no success in getting this corrected. I've also found that a number of 'local storage' entries (tracking entries) have appeared in the cookies box of Safari's Privacy settings. I've always found that the contents of that cookies box are unstable at best, and now I'm finding that, despite my clearing all website data, history, caches, etc., those four tracking entries keep returning, somewhat unpredictably, into the cookies box.

As to what's caused all of this, I can only summise that either:-

1. There was a fault in the updated version of Safari (9.0.3) that was issued by Apple on 20th Jan, or

2. Amazon, and maybe a few other websites, have allowed these tracking firms to embed incompatible code into their website, or

3. The problem's being caused by Flash - any version of Flash. But there wasn't a problem before, in v.9.0.2 of Safari. The trouble is that several major sites still require Flash.

Hmm, it looks like it'll be a waste of time me applying the blountcomick fix, so instead perhaps my only option is to use my Time Machine, restoring to a position just before the last update of Safari from Apple.

Can't understand why there aren't a lot more Mac users complaining about this. But there again, I guess this is something that you wouldn't notice in just casual browsing.

Sorry to note that the problem has returned.

We have done the best we could.

Safari worked for a day or so here.

At least, it points to the fact that Safari will work.

Problem may not be with Safari after all.

I am going to study this issue a bit further.

Does Safari give you any problem with other sites?

I wouldn't recommend turning off Javascript temporarily for the sake of viewing Amazon.

If browsing with another browser meets your need, why not use it?

Best.

This is not a dig at you, Dominic, but I don't think the answer is to just throw up one's hands and say 'switch to using a different browser instead', not least because the Safari browser is required in the downloading and installing of the various OS and other updates from Apple. So you need it to hand anyway. I think instead it's up to people like ourselves, and also as many other Mac users as possible, to inform Apple that a real problem exists here (www.apple.com/feedback). But word has it that the Apple developers will only react to a problem when sufficient numbers of reports come in to them.

I myself am rapidly concluding that this problem is being caused either by a genuine bug in the last Safari update (9.0.3), which was first issued on 19th January, or is related to Flash. What do we, the users, know, for instance, of the Apple developers' views on the Flash Player? Maybe they assume that Flash is never present? Frankly, I'd like to be able to remove Flash from my Mac, but one or two websites I regularly use still insist on its use. That said, I still don't know whether the Amazon site requires it. On my Mac, that's the only site that's affected by this issue. Unfortunately, I do use Amazon quite a lot.

Just some more thoughts on this.

I'm convinced this is definitely an issue affecting Safari, though as I say I think Flash might be a factor.

It seems to me that the problem is going to be very difficult to pin down, because (talking generally) you need to be especially observant when watching out for the symptoms. First of all, it seems to affect only the Amazon site. And I've found, for instance, that the beachball doesn't appear straightaway; it sometimes takes 5 or 10 minutes of browsing at Amazon before the hand pointer, when pointing at links on the page, suddenly changes to the standard arrow and the page then freezes and the spinning beachball appears. You then have no option but to quit Safari. It's going to be a slim chance that other Safari users visiting the Amazon site will see this, especially if they normally rush at things; the beachball most certainly doesn't immediately show the moment you go to a page.

This means that any technical people at Amazon, or Apple themselves, will not be able to immediately confirm the issue (and they therefore might not trust what you're saying). So therefore anyone who contacts Amazon or Apple will need to emphasise that several minutes will need to be spent on the Amazon site, clicking here and there, before the beachball's likely to appear.

At present I'm still questioning whether the Amazon site requires Flash to work fully. I've tried running some experiments to find out (using the Security settings in Safari > Preferences > Security) but in the end couldn't conclude one way or the other; the beachball seemed to appear, in the end, regardless of whether I allowed the site to use Flash.

Incidentally, my Flash is not fully up to date, but given that blountcomick's is, I'm not viewing that as something of any real importance. BTW, one question that's come to mind is: If you set up Security to block Flash from running on a site and then you later decide to allow it, will it work, or will it remain blocked? And vice versa? Does removing the site completely from the Security listing put the block/allow position back to a null state?

One other thing to observe are the entries in the Privacy box in Safari's Preferences, as they seem to be 'all over the place'. Trackers like 247-inc, betrad, etc get included there and though you can temporarily remove them they come back. I strongly recommend that you take a look at your cookie listing and monitor how its contents change if you do any more experimenting with this problem. I've a feeling that the cookie listing is somehow corrupted and is related in some way to the beachball effect.

I notice that there's a similar topic in these forums by a certain stevethedrummer, called "Safari freezes - Rolling Beach Ball". It was started way back on Dec 24th. In it, stevethedrummer reckoned he followed a contributor's recommendation and subsequently cured the problem - a certain Extension he'd loaded - but now six weeks further on I seriously wonder whether he really did manage to cure it.

Of course, his particular problem may have been nothing to do with the one we're discussing here. I myself use no Extensions at all, and the only browser plug-in I've ever used with Safari is Flash.

Thanks for the update and observations.

carefulowner wrote:

. And I've found, for instance, that the beachball doesn't appear straightaway; it sometimes takes 5 or 10 minutes of browsing at Amazon before the hand pointer, when pointing at links on the page, suddenly changes to the standard arrow and the page then freezes and the spinning beachball appears. You then have no option but to quit Safari.

Last night I kept Amazon Electronic & Computers department pages open for about an hour and reading about computer accessories available there.

While these pages were open, I ran EtreCheck to check web content reading. I didn't observe anything unusual.

I have kept Flash Player disabled recently. Tonight I will enable the plug-in and test.

I am going to go through Amazon related threads that can be read here.

Best.

Thanks for the work you're putting in on this, Dominic. I hope you eventually find a tangible clue. I myself am stumped.

It might be that even my reverting to a pre-19th January backup won't eliminate the problem, if stevethedrummer's in reality is the self same one. It's mighty weird though that, on my machine, the only site at which this happens is the Amazon one. Could it be something embedded in the website itself that's causing the problem, rather than a corrupted browser - maybe something that now makes for incompatibility with the current edition of Safari?

If this is anything to go by, I can recall a period, perhaps some six months ago now, when Safari got very 'laggy' at certain websites I use and I got in touch with one or two of the webmasters concerned and asked them about it. In the end it turned out that Flash was the problem. I subsequently applied the latest Flash update and the problem then seemed to disappear. There'd been no beachballs in that scenario, though. But Flash had definitely been giving a problem.

The point I'm making is that, as far as I can gather, Apple don't take Flash into account when they update Safari each time; it's not part of Apple's current design philosophy, so if you install the Flash plug-in it's at your own risk, so to speak. I think it's the case, though, that one or two people have lately tried removing Flash (though maybe not in a thorough way) to no avail over this beachball problem.

Dominic,

Hope you've seen my latest contributions to this exceptionally annoying problem.

As a result of writing and sending a lengthy, analytical report about it to another tech-savvy friend of mine who uses several different Mac machines (it's often surprising how writing your detailed thoughts down can help), I'm erring on the probability that this issue is being caused by something embedded into the Amazon webpages. Could it be, for instance, that Amazon has recently approved one or more third-party tracker firms to use their site, or maybe certain trackers are now using the Amazon website illegally? If the Amazon website people aren't sufficiently au fait with subsequent testing for browser compatibilities or for security risks, which is the response we heard from one of their sales personnel, then maybe a number of trackers are now collecting data covertly and causing a freezing of Safari when the two interact?

I think it's worth persisting with Amazon in so far as trying to contact their website people to report this, and the more of us who do this the better. The fact that this beachball error event affects only the Amazon site (I've heard similar of certain other large sites in the USA, BTW) kinda suggests that this might be an addition (agreed by Amazon, or otherwise covert) to the Amazon site that conceivably hasn't undergone sufficient pre-testing by them.

No matter how many times I delete them from Safari's Privacy tab listing, cookies (or rather, local stored data) from the following trackers seem to continue returning whenever I go to the Amazon site:

247-inc.net

betrad.com

luckyorange.net

veinteractive.com

badgeville.com

I suggest you look in your own cookie listing to see if you also find these trackers. They've become entries in mine despite me having configured Safari to reject all third-party cookies. But there again, these aren't cookies per se, they're trackers.

Thank you for info.

I am familiar with betrad.com and 247-inc.net tracking cookies.

These are pretty harmless web usage trackers.

I haven't seen other three yet.

I checked few old threads related to this problem.

This problem has cropped up before.

This is not a Safari version specific problem.

Original Poster blountcomic has OS X Yosemite installed on his Mac.

I have OS X El Capitan installed on this Mac, probably with enhanced security features beyond Safari.

After making new a CCC clone, I am going to test some associate sites of Amazon.

Let us see whether I can trigger this problem.

We removed Caches and .plist folders and started with folders in pristine condition, in the case of blountcomic's Mac.

That worked for a day or so. Then the problem reemerged.

I believe that there is an external factor to this problem.

Best.

I've now completely updated my edition of Flash. Needless to say, it made no difference to the beachball issue.

I've also just heard from a tech-savvy friend of mine who runs three different Macs and to whom I've related this problem in the last couple of days and suggested he try out for himself. This is what he's now reported back to me:

I tried out the Amazon site using Safari and soon got the spinning ball problem. Actually the spinning ball appeared any time I clicked anywhere in the window, not just when clicking ona link. What's more, it always went if I scrolled the page. The spinning ball only ever came when a page failed to download completely. It did not freeze or lock Safari, which I was ableto quit. When the spinning ball appeared and I got rid of it by scrolling, then sometimes I was able to go back to the previous page using the back command in the menu. Tried otherweb sites and all was well.

I had no problems whatsoever doing all this with Chrome, even on the Amazon site. It definitely looks like a bug in Safari doesn't it?

Unfortunately, he's not said which version of OSX was in use for this, and also whether Adobe Flash was on his machine, but I've now asked him to give that information. As you can see, he himself thinks it's Safari that's the problem. I can understand why, but it doesn't really explain why the beachball appears almost uniquely on Amazon. In the last 24hrs I myself have noticed that the beachball has appeared on my machine when I've clicked on a Flash configuration caption in OSX (at the time, I had an Amazon webpage still open onscreen).

Safari Corruption See post by Linc Davis