OS X 10.11.4 freezing and/or crashing while using Safari

Hi. I think this may be the problem, a graphics driver problem by El Capitan (any version). This is very, very similar to how my screen looks like when it crashes after a few minutes to a few hours to a few days (not lasting a week, I've been troubleshooting for 22 days now) despite adjusting the fans manually (a bit above 2000rpm) to cool components down (not my screenshot):

http://askubuntu.com/questions/233666/why-is-my-display-getting-garbled

It doesn't seem to be my GPU because usually when a GPU is damaged from overheating it looks like this (my actual screenshot). It got fixed after Apple Care fixed or replaced the GPU:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6137645?tstart=0

The GPU driver is probably messing up the fans during cold boot and waking up from sleep, overheating components plus possibly a buggy rendering for 3D as well. Let's hope and pray, the GPU drivers get fixed in El Capitan on 10.12 which is coming soon I believe. Right now I'm temporarily preventing it (so far) with ODD & HDD at 2200rpm and CPU at 2800rpm with sleep switched off and brightness at 11 ticks only (lesser or at it's lowest if you like). I hope it lasts longer, long enough to do meaningful work.

God bless. Philippians 2:13

- latest beta and then the 10.11.5 final/public release still have the same crashing/freezing/rebooting problem for me on my 27" iMac 2015.

- my 2009 mini has the sleeping/wakeup crash that ha been reported here as well.

- and my 2012 MBA does not shout down properly half of the time.

if Apple wanted to lose me as a customer, i'd say they have succeeded.

Well Alvin777:

I think you have cracked this issue.

I've been tried running both Yosemite (10.10) and El Capitan (10.11.4) on a MacBook Pro (2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo) with a NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT 256 MB Graphics processor, (note: this chip has been well documented to need solder reballing due to the cramped space and heat generated in the aluminum case). However, I have never had any issues with screen freezing or reboot issues since purchase in 2007, prior to the update to El Capitain.

Once updated though the freezing, crashes, garbled screen, forced rebooting, rebooting multiple times to restore working ability all began. All did seem to happen when I had a web browser open (Chrome, Firefox, or Safari all had the issue) and trying to view a video, or when editing websites in Wordpress.

So after reading the extensive forums, I went through the process of creating usb boot disks for both Yosemite and El Capitan, and did a complete fresh reinstall, first to Yosemite, but issues returned, deleted all flash and flash player extensions and apps, (used YouTube all HTML5, and Video without Flash extensions to play videos) yet problem still persisted. Then through reading several other forums, I turned off all Spotlight search functions on the computer and within web browsers, yet the problems still persisted.

Then Updated to El Capitan (10.11.4) and issues still persisted even though there was no flash, flash player or Spotlight functions enabled, so I again looked to the graphics processor, since it seemed to be the issue where the problem was originating from and the reported issues with it seemed to be tvery similar (srceen garbled, or color patterned) then freezing. I looked to NVIDIA, for updating the driver, tried their new drivers, yet the problem still persisted.

But I did notice that during issues the temperature of the top of the laptop was extremely hot (burned finger when touched), and the fans were also extremely loud.

Even with just one browser window open (safari, chrome, firefox all same result), I would see a quick blink of the screen, start seeing garbled areas of the screen, then mouse clicks became unresponsive, no choice but rebooting, and verbose startup to recover system to the desktop.

So before I started another clean install this time back to Mavericks, I tried your suggestion to use "smc Fan Control" and although I had to set the speed to the Higher RPM setting (4000 rpm) for both left/right fans and the heat has ranged from 120 Fahrenheit/48 Celsius to 200 Fahrenheit/93.3 Celsius along with the fluctuation of the fan speed 3000 rpm to 4009 rpm (trackd via tool bar) even though I am in a air conditioned climate controlled office.

BUT, I have yet to have a single issue since installing smc Fan Control.

18 hours straight now, so with some downtime, I began trying to actually make it freeze (opening multiple browsers, with multiple tabs, multiple videos playing, plus MS Outlook email, MS word, Text Edit, Adobe Photoshop CS6 with some of my largest files open, and Adobe InDesign CS6 with multiple files open) and still no crashing even though this is putting the system/memory (6GB) to its limits with this much stuff open everything is running pretty slow, fans speed up but I have not been able to crash the system.

I'll provide an update after a few more days of testing things out but it was crashing every 10-15 minutes randomly (when any browser was open) before so, 18 hours and counting without incident I really think this solved the problem.

I REALLY THINK YOU CRACKED IT! THANKS!

Hi Thanks. If Apple see's it's the GPU driver (but maybe it's more on the code in the kernel related to GPU fan handling & graphics rendering that's passed to the GPU driver coz' it occurs usually on cold boot too), it's all from God, I'm but a messenger:-) and it took 22 days of perseverance, sleeping usually at 7am sometimes.

My last crash was 12:30pm, it's now 6:30pm, stable so far- I changed all the fan rpms to just 2000rpm (I'm now using Macs Fan Control coz' it has temp readings in one window and it's on Windows 10). I read an Apple technician recommends setting it manually at 2000rpm (will preserve the bearing and for noise), I guess even if a Mac is newly bought. I also turned off the Sleep in Energy Saver (but sadly the hardisk's bearing might suffer unless there's a terminal code to only let the hardisk sleep) but it has screensaver to prevent burn-in and probably won't shut this down anymore until OS X 10.12 hopefully fixes it if it's truly a problem in software. I'll post again if my 2000rpm (all fans) + no sleep combo is more stable and can beat my longest (my longest was 4 days, 16 hours a day, overnight shutdown, Safari and videos with lots of tabs w/ sleep with ODD1000rpm, HDD 2200rpm, CPU 2800rpm which I got from a site).

God bless. Philippians 2:13

Since I installed 10.11.5 a week ago, I didn't have a single freeze! I'm still doing basically the same stuff – browsing in Chrome and working in Final Cut Pro. I've uninstalled smcFanControl too. Before the update, I had 1-3 crashed a day, I believe my problem is resolved.

I'm on MB Pro Retina 13", early 2015 (2.7 GHz, 8GB RAM)

@Alvin777, I believe yours is a completely different issue. My computer never crashed after / during boot or waking up from sleep.

Hi. I switched of my sleep which make it crash less (the last one was 24 hours ago at 2000rpm sleep turned off, running more than 16 hours straight. I'm at 2100rpm now, all fans). It's a really strange issue. Godspeed on your Mac's stability.

God bless. Rev. 21:4

The askubuntu GPU driver (or maybe kernel) issue is very similar to how mine crashes (garbled screen):

Perhaps along with manual fan control and sleep off, the WebGL should be disabled too in Safari to lessen chances of a crash:

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/heres-how-fix-freezing-issue-after-os-x-el-capitan-10-1 1-4-10-11-5-update-1561383

well, I am on 10.11.6 beta 1 now, and it behaves exactly the same, all the freezes and crashes are still there. I don't even bother to open browsers anymore, just listening to itunes will reliably crash my machine.

.4, .5, .6 - will this ever be fixed?

Hey everyone,

I think I have an answer to this madness.

It's definitely hardware related at this point (at least for me)

Went to my reseller and explained everything, he told me that it's probably GPU or memory related as he saw this issue before.

Which made me think... I DID upgrade the memory myself, but that was in Januari and the problem occurred late April.

In any case I'm awaiting the repairs again now, I'll let you guys know how it went.

Nick

My iMac is finally gone. I can't even reboot it from internet recovery mode. I will have to bring it in on Friday. Apple don't make anything simple anymore. To make an appointment. These are the procedure. By now, I am beyond anything now. 😠

It is scary to think we are stuck between Apple & PC. Without them we can't function. They control us and we let them. Is there a way out.....

Gazxan wrote:

My iMac is finally gone. I can't even reboot it from internet recovery mode. I will have to bring it in on Friday. Apple don't make anything simple anymore. To make an appointment. These are the procedure. By now, I am beyond anything now. 😠

It is scary to think we are stuck between Apple & PC. Without them we can't function. They control us and we let them. Is there a way out.....

I am sorry about that.

This says you have a hardware problem. Machines fail.

It may be a RAM problem, a motherboard problem, or a graphics card.

In all likelyhood this has nothing to do with OS X.

Sorry that getting assistance is being difficult. This, however, varies wildly with geography.

Well one week ago today I was just about to downgrade from El Capitan 10.11.4 to Yosemite 10.10 at the Genius Bar. I did a final Google search on 10.11.5 and saw that an entry in another blog was reporting 2 days without a freeze on 10.11.5.

So I took the plunge. After 6 weeks of freezing and trouble re-booting after the freeze I upgraded to 10.11.5.

Well I could not be happier. No Freezing, boots up quicker, seems to run cooler as well (no loud fans). I do pretty heavy Xcode and Graphics work and my system (MBP Late 2011) is finally running like I want.

It's a shame that Apple doesn't call out the "fix" in their release notes for 10.11.5. A programmer probably made the fix and didn't formally record it as such. I'm OK with that and here's hoping the fix will last.

Tom

I still have problems, working with the 10.11.6 Beta just make it worse since kernel_task prevent safari to load a page and let it on a re-load page endless loop. Sent the feedback, let's wait to the "experts" but looks ugly.

I upgraded to El Capitan, and this process has not helped prevent freeze ups, so I gave up following these steps. Also upgrading to 10.11.5 has not help as well.