OS X 10.11.4 freezing and/or crashing while using Safari

correction: manual sleep switches off the internet connection it seems (can't overnight download- it'll get interrupted).

correction again sorry, usual energy saver sleep switches off the fans but it takes time (not minutes like with manually clicking sleep). 85% fan rpm is very, very stable. Thanks.

In case anyone cares: same freezes still happening in the new 10.11.6 beta 3. since i have sent over a dozen error reports to apple by now, i feel they are either going straight to /dev/null or really don't care. And to all here who recommend manual fan control, this is not a solution as my machine is running between 40 and 60 C all the time, so totally fine.

Some programs do spout random graphics error messages though, which makes me suspect this might be a (graphics) driver issue, maybe related to Metal or OpenGL. Certainly feels like the lockups i got 10 years ago with bad AMD drivers on my linux laptop...

HI Broozar,

I feel your pain as well. I downgraded to Yosemite thinking that would solve my freezing issue. No joy - had just as many freezes there.

I am now back at 10.11.5 with only a few freezes. My MBP was running quite hot so installed SMC fan. Runs a little cooler now but I'm sure that doesn't solve the freeze. I also have sent in many system dump reports and Apple has requested more details on what I was doing at the time of the freeze.

I'm hoping those on the developer macOS Sierra (aka 10.12) will report soon on whether freezing is still occurring on the new OS. All I can do is live with the freeze until Apple fixes it or tells me that my MBP (Early 2011) needs to be replaced with a faster/newer (more $$$) model.

This brings me back to the old days of early Microsoft Windows when the blue screen of death was an accepted norm.

Tom

Toca143 wrote:

I'm hoping those on the developer macOS Sierra (aka 10.12) will report soon on whether freezing is still occurring on the new OS. All I can do is live with the freeze until Apple fixes it or tells me that my MBP (Early 2011) needs to be replaced with a faster/newer (more $$$) model.

Isn't this model one of those affected by a recall due to GPU issues?

Hi. It's best for: CPU go below 60 Celsius, GPU below 70 Celsius, hard drives between 45-49 Celsius (now after hours of use at 32 Celsius climate, the Platform Controller Hub Die which I think is related to the power supply is the highest even at idle/just browser at 60 Celsius, 60 is usually a bad temperature for components when long term and may be the cause of the freeze).

Mine would crash too I thought it was Safari leaking memory but it seems to be a components that's around what the sensors do not detect. The CPU, GPU, PSU, LCD, hardisk that are detected by the sensors are all good ok when stress tested. It might likely be components surrounding the GPU and PSU (power supply) that overheats because OS X El Capitan (this may have started in Lion, coz' the last most stable one was Snow Leopard) kernel that governs the fans rpms relative to the Macs sensor reading, is not revving the fans high enough.

I have set the fans to 90% from 85% and it's surpassed my record of 2 days of no crashing using Safari (lots of tabs, two windows usually). It's more of a software problem but not an app software problem but the OS itself (kernel not a driver perhaps). Thanks. I'm on the latest stable El Capitan. It's quite stable right now and the weather is very quite hot at 32 Celsius.

Apple programmers may have programmed the kernel of OS X too low coz' they may have been testing at a cold region. They should boost all fan rpms to 90% when the Platform Controller Hub Die reaches 59 Celsius. When it's in auto, as mentioned the fans are maxing out at less than 2000rpm even if the Platform Controller Hub Die 60 Celsius and the GPU at 85 Celsius (which may mean components surrounding those two may be reaching beyond their maximum heat tolerance causing the freeze).

God bless, Rev. 21:4

Hello everyone involved in this discussion,

I just wanted to add my info to the list as I am also having a problem. Over the past couple of weeks my iMac has frozen three times while playing a video on youtube. I am on youtube constantly, so it doesn't happen all of the time. The first two times I had to do a hard reboot as everything froze except the mouse. I could still hear the sound of the videos though. The third time it stayed frozen only for a few seconds and then restarted itself. I can use Netflix, hulu, watch dvds, and another video stuff without this happening. It only seems to be happening with youtube. I wanted to bring attention to this as I am not using El Capitan or Yosemite (as I noticed most of this discussion has been about). I am on Mavericks. This problem only started happening a couple of weeks ago. The last update I've done on this computer from Apple was for iTunes version 12.4.1 on Jun 4. When the freezes occurred I figured it was just a problem with Safari and have been waiting for an update to be released from Apple. Upon reading through this discussion, I'm getting the idea that it's not that.

I am using:

iMac 27-inch, Late 2013

Software OS X 10.9.5

Processor 3.5 GHz Intel Core i7

Memory 32GB

Browser: Safari

Does anyone have any suggestions or an update on a possible solution from Apple?

Thanks

Hi. I adjusted all the fans to 90% (I'll experiment with 88% but do experiment with lower percentages) and it's quite stable now (I even switch on a small fan at the back when it boots up until it gets to load Macs Fan Control which I use to adjust the fans manually). This fan issue may have started with Lion not El Capitan; El Cap may have inherited this from Lion . Lion was the start of things being unstable. Something surrounding the GPU and/or Power Supply is overheating coz' Apple may have programmed the fans to spin too slowly.

I hope it works for you.

God bless. Rev. 21:4

Hi. The crash usually happens when it's newly booted from a shutdown. Now I'm experimenting fans at 88% and plan not to shut this late 2009 iMac off. It's good, didn't crash and it's been minutes (sometimes it freezes just a few minutes after booting up coz' I think the fans sometimes even at manual control don't catch up to the heat coz' Macs Fans Control seems to be loaded last- I help it with an external fan until Mac Fans Control start and I'm sure things are cool before I switch off the electric fan at the back).

Thanks. God bless. Philippians 2:13

Hi. If Chrome or non-Safari browser from more than 14 hours is used, does it still freeze?

This iMac's stable at 90% fan rpm under Safari (I'm on 10.11.5 but two updates ago, Safari froze OS X a lot when there were lots of tabs open. I had to use Chrome or Firefox). It may be a combo of issues: most likely in the kernel (related to maximum fan rpm) and Safari leaking memory (though mine seems to be ok now even with 30+ tabs and two windows even for more than 14 hours non-stop use). GPU driver seems to be ok when stressed tested with GPU stress test app for both Windows and OS X.

Thanks. God bless, Matt. 16:18

Hi broozar,

I only had control of the mouse for a minute after one of the freezes. I couldn't click on anything but it moved in a laggy way. It seemed like my computer was about to freeze again yesterday while on youtube. The video slowed and got laggy as did the mouse and the keyboard had no input at all. But after waiting a minute of not moving the mouse or touching the keyboard, it cleared itself up. I know it's not a fan/overheating issue. I'm a digital artist so I am constantly running my computer hot with multiple art related programs. I have been able to do all night long renders of 3d animation with no issue of overheating. Something I noticed on my first two freezes is that it happened when switching from little to full screen or vise versa on youtube. The third time I wasn't switching screen size when it happened. Maybe my problem is unrelated, but it sounded similar. I also find it odd that this problem just started two weeks ago. I can't think of anything that would have caused it from then. I didn't do any updates that would affect graphics and my computer hasn't been physically hit/damaged. In looking through it just now, I noticed my adobe flash player is out of date. So I'm updating it now but I've never had an issue before of it not being the latest version and causing freezes that require a hard reboot. I will test it today and see if I have anymore problems. Any suggestions on what else it could be (incase it isn't that) would be appreciated as I hate having to do hard reboots on my computer.

Thanks 🙂