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

So far I couldn't trigger the problem with Amazon you are having.

I don't know where in the content delivery pipe this blockage occurs.

Hope someone with more advanced testing facility can figure it out for you.

I tested with two different browsers, Safari and Firefox.

I tested with two ISPs, DSL wifi and t-moble cellular.

I tested this on a Mac, iPad Air and an iPhone.

I wish someone else will be able to sort this out for you.

Best.

Eric,

I read all of Lic Davis's recommendations and the consequential responses. Some of the results in that particular thread have been negative and apparently some have been positive. However, I highly suspect that in pretty much all the cases the problem has not been solved, as the symptoms do not always necessarily appear immediately.

I myself have had this problem for a few weeks now. What seems quite odd is why the Amazon site (and maybe all of the Amazon sites) seems consistently affected by this. I'm not alone in saying that the problem doesn't exist with the myriad of other websites that I frequently use. For anyone running Mavericks or newer, you can at present pretty much guarantee that if you go to Amazon and browse for a while, the spinning beachball will appear and the webpage will freeze.

Dominic,

Thanks for your continuing efforts.

Can you remind us all which edition of OSX you're running, when you say you can't ever trigger the problem? And do you have Flash installed?

I'm currently waiting for an e-mail reply from someone who's also encountered the beachball at Amazon. If we compare OSXs and whether Flash is installed, we might at least begin to pin the problem down. Given that the problem, in all our respective situations, appeared only quite recently, my money is on an Apple update to Safari as being the cause. I myself have e-mailed both Apple and Amazon about it.

I have the same problem with Amazon; and only Amazon. And, I have the same problem while running Firefox, except that I get "script errors" instead of just a general freeze of the web page. The script errors persist while browsing until I quit Firefox and go back to Amazon. So, apparently not a Safari-only problem.

I would be hesitant to use Time Machine to revert to an earlier version of Safari. Updates are generally for "security" reasons.

I have reset Safari, to no avail. But, like I said, I have issues with Amazon while using Firefox also. I can quit Safari (or Firefox) and go back to Amazon and all is well for a few minutes of browsing for different items; but then the problem returns; every time.

I'm running Mavericks and Safari 9.0.3 and Firefox 44.0.2. The Help Forum at Amazon is near-useless, as the responses are usually something like "It's a Safari/Apple problem"; ignoring the fact that it happens with Firefox also.

There’s another thread with the same problem in “OS X El Capitan”, “Amazon pages freezing, UK and US”.

I should add that Safari doesn't freeze. I can go anywhere in my menu bar, etc and leave the Amazon web site. Same with Firefox but only after I respond to the script error.

OS X El Capitan 10.11.3

Adobe Flash player is installed on this Mac.

Usually I keep this plug-in disabled.

But I had this enabled when I tested because I read the reference to it.

I tested this with different Scroll Bar settings. System Preferences > General > Show scroll bars:

Best.

David,

I agree, "freeze' is perhaps not an altogether accurate description. In fact, your detailed description of the beachballing is exactly how I get it, at Amazon (and only Amazon).

I'm told it doesn't happen with Chrome. And you say that it also occurs in Firefox. Dominic, who runs under El Capitan, on the other hand says he doesn't have the problem. And Dominic hasn't met the problem when using Flash, either. Tricky, isn't it?

For my own sins (and I think I may have already mentioned this), I'm running under Mavericks, using Safari only, and also with Flash active. From what I observe on my own Mac, Flash seems to be a normal requirement for the Amazon site, as when I've set up Amazon initially to ask for the plug-in if it needs it (Safari Preferences > Security > Manage Website Settings), it's always asked for it. I run absolutely no Extensions, BTW.

Are we to conclude that if those of us who are running Yosemite or Mavericks were to update to El Capitan, the problem would go away? The only other thing that can be said at present is that it appears to be caused independently by the interaction of two major browsers with both Yosemite and Mavericks.

Jeeez! The more I think about this, the more it's beginning to look like a compatibility issue of the Amazon site with various different browsers - but apparently not with Chrome????. I wonder how thoroughly those who tried using Chrome have actually tested. Is Chrome truly an outsider in this regard?

Perhaps, and especially in view of us not being able to pin this down any further, we should all forget about running any more experiments (deleting this and that and plists in Safari) and just wait and see whether in time the issue goes away. Annoying, I know, but if it's due to a subtle bug in the way that the Amazon site now works, we could have already been wasting a great deal of time and upheaval for no good reason. I myself resent that I've had to delete and reconstruct so much on my Mac, but all to no avail.

Perhaps all we need to do is be patient and the techies at Amazon will eventually discover something and then put it right? I have to concede, though, that it's going to make the using of the site quite tricky in the interim because of the somewhat random occurrence of the beachballing. Last night, for example, I went to the site and deliberately browsed and clicked in various depts for maybe 10 minutes. No beachball. I then came out of Amazon, closed Safari completely, then re-opened Safari and went back to the Amazon homepage. On the first click there I instantly got the beachball.

Just because it's at times looked like Safari has been at fault doesn't, in the absence of any further evidence, mean that it is necessarily due to Safari itself. But if it's true that the 'crashing' also happens in Firefox (and presumably that's Firefox for Mac) and we know that it happens uniquely at the Amazon site, then the finger begins to point toward the site itself, doesn't it?

Hi carefulowner

I have been looking at this post for a while because I am too having the same problem with the freezing beachball

and Amazon everytime I click anywhere with browsing the site, at first I thought it was a problem with my recent update to El Capitan but I have done all the deletions and re-installations possible as described in this thread and the problem is fix only momentarily but reappears after a few clicks and is back again to Freezing.

I have Goggle chrome also installed and I can assure you this does not occur with Chrome at all, amazon behaves perfectly well under Chrome no hang ups. To me it looks like and incompatibility with the Amazon site and various browsers in PARTICULAR Safari or it is a Safari problem that needs to be addressed I don't know how the people at Amazon if they are aware of this or not but Apple should be made aware somehow or even Amazon.

for now I' done using Amazon with Safari and will use only Chrome for browsing the Amazon site, I have done enough deleting crap to no avail, LET THEM FIX IT!!!!, OUTSIDE THE AMAZON SITE SAFARI BEHAVES PERFECTLY WELL ALSO

THANKS,

APPLELOU

Well everybody, go figure this one! This evening (Thurs) I happened to open the GUI of my router in order to look at some line stats and I almost instantly got the beachball! So, it's NOT unique to the Amazon website after all!

In my case, it points very much to Safari being the cause.

I note, Applelou, that you're using El Capitan and yet you're most definitely getting the problem, so that rules out another possibility that I was going to put forward, which was that maybe Apple were no longer caring about users who drag their heels in updating to the latest OSX each time, with the consequence that sometimes their existing Safari and apps fail to function properly any more. But I think we can knock that theory on the head.

May I just give a reminder that you can report this issue to Apple by going to http://www.apple.com/feedback and following the simple procedure there. If you read my earlier postings, you'll see that I myself have done so, and the more users that do, the more likely the matter will come to the attention of the Apple software developers and it be investigated.

Thank You for the link, I will report it just like you did, One thing that I also noted is that Safari is behaving more slowly than usual.

Thanks

Applelou

Yes, I too have noticed that Safari runs slower than before, though not remarkably so.

Safari (and Firefox) running just fine here; no slowness.

I tried Safari>Amazon with Sys Prefs>Flash Player>Block all sites from storing info on this computer. Didn't do any good. So, I doubt all the "fixes" do anything more than just quitting Safari (or Firefox), restarting, and going back to Amazon. Usually, I can do stuff for a "click" or two before the freezing reoccurs; sometimes several "clicks" within the web site. I'm going back in a minute and when it happens, I'll do the Apple feedback thing.

I'm also going to download Chrome. I don't care that much for Firefox anyway. Then I think I'll start a thread at

https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/forums/ref=cs_hc_g_pg_pg3?ie=UTF8&forumI D=Fx1SKFFP8U1B6N5&cdPage=3

I think you'll find that the Amazon site requires Flash. If you've Flash installed as a plug-in with Safari and initially you don't give it carte blanche to install automatically at every site you visit that requires it, then in Amazon you'll eventually get a pop-up asking you for permission for the Amazon webpage to use Flash.

I have around 20 'favourite' websites and that includes Amazon. I've found that 2 others in that 20 require Flash, one of which is the BBC UK site. I recently asked the BBC why they still insist on using Flash, given that it's known to cause more problems than is worthwhile and that we've now HTML5 as an alternative (or so it's said). Their response was to say that they were continuing with Flash for some time yet. Personally, I'd rather not have Flash on my Mac. It's always had privacy issues as well as security ones.

I started a thread at the above Amazon Help Community, "Amazon Web Site Freezes". Feel free to chime in.

Like I said, "...going to Prefs>Flash Player>Block all web sites from...." didn't do any good. Also, must not be a Flash Player problem since the freezing only occurs at Amazon. I browse there a good bit since I look at Kindle books from Book Bub suggestions 3-4 times a week. Then I usually check out Daily Deals, etc...not to mention actually buying stuff every now and then.