macOS Sierra freeze on iMac late 2009 using Safari

Same Problem here:

• 27" iMac late 2009
• 3,06 Ghz Intel Core 2 Dua
• 12 GB 1067 Mhz DDR3
• ATI Radeon HD 4670 256 MB
• Clean-Install macOS Sierra

Reproduce:

• Start Safari
• Surf around for a while
• Randomly freezes
• Mouse still working - whole UI unreachable - no input from keyboard or mouse possible
• Have to force reboot
• unrelated to Website

Fix:

• Not using Safari anymore
• Using Chrome
• But no real solution - Safari has all the Passwords ... 😟

APPLE... PLEASE FIX...

Seems like a huge bug in Safari rendering engine... related with WebGL maybe? -> Deactivated that...

Had not had the Problem till now since deactivating WebGL in Safari....

... will report if it freezes again...

martin

Just to be on this list, too:

Same problem here, reported to Apple support already.

iMac 27 late 2009

ATI 512MB graphics

Sierra 10.12.1

Safari latest, switched now to Chrome - let's see if this happens here, too.

No issues on my MBP late 2011 with Intel graphics.

So happy thatI found this thread! Keep up reporting!

I went 4-5 days without this happening and ironically, when I went to view the previous thread, it crashed.

Hi,

I Have exactly the same problem on my 21.5" imac late 2009. Ssh and mouse works, but the rest of the UI does not respond anymore. Very annoying! Also the 10.12.1 update did not help.

My iMac late 2009 went a couple of days without freezes, but had an unexpected reboot last night and showed Sleep Wake Failure this morning.

Reading the thread, it seems that it's not unique to iMacs with ATI Radeon video. As I only have these freezes occur on one Mac out of three in the household, I'm trying to find out what different.

One obvious thing is that the Mac that freezes is on ethernet, Wifi disabled and Siri enabled. The others are on Wifi and have Siri disabled.

I'm now trying to run it with Wifi enabled (while still on cabled LAN) and Siri disabled as well. Also did a SMC and PRAM reset as that is mentioned in many threads as a solution for just about anything. Let's see whether this makes a difference...

Anyone else has freezes and Wifi disabled?

My setup is a bit different: Ethernet yes, no Wifi, Siri disabled. Running Chrome since last night, so freeze so far. Set machine to hibernation last night automatically (with "Shutdown Timer"), no reboot and it woke up perfectly this morning.

I have wi-fi disabled and an old iMac (late 2009 era). I had the numerous freezes also after upgrading to Sierra; after seeing this thread I setup the default browser to be Chrome and have not had a problem since. Also in my experience, it seemed to always be while running Safari as so many other users have seen. My iMac has been stable since we stopped using Safari.

Try create another user - then log into that after quitting your normal user and see if the same issue persists there.

I'm on wifi but I just disable Siri so we'll see if that helps.

This is exactly what my IT guy just did for me on Friday. I will report if it work. As I mentioned before, my guy says that's how we fixed this last year after El Capitian update that did the exact same thing.

I'm very frustrated about this issue... but happy that I'm not the only one having the problem.

2009 iMac 27 with ATI Radeon 4850, daily freezing as I can remember, always using Safari. Decided to move to Chrome minutes ago, thanks to the recommendations on this post, to see what happens.

I already opened my iMac to clean up the dust of the fans as some people said overheating could be the issue. I refuse to install a fan speed control, it makes the Mac noisy. TRIM was another possible solution, enabled that and didn't work too. Considering to update the firmware of my intel SSD, but I'll wait and see if just using Chrome instead of Safari will solve this!

I hope they can find a solution.

I switched on Wifi, and switched off Siri, but still had a freeze while using Safari. I'm afraid it's back to Firefox again for me and fingers crossed Apple will fix this with a next update.

I have the same problem with Safari freezing about once a day now. I upgraded to Sierra about three weeks ago, and I've been having the problem since. Only a hard restart button push gives me any control of the Mac. On restart I might use Safari for a few hours before the freeze happens again. I guess I'll switch to using Firefox until the next Sierra upgrade occurs.

late 2009 iMac running Sierra Mac OS 10.12.1

Hello,

After one day working with Firefox only (is using Gecko engine for rendering as far as I know) I got absolutely no freeze this day. So I would assume it has nothing to do with Wifi and Siri but only with Safari.

But would switch to a browser that is not using WebKit really sufficient? What about other apps using WebKit? I'm not sure but I believe at least all Apple provided software displaying web content is using WebKit (mail, iTunes, QuickTime, preview...?!?)

UPDATE:

NO: Did not change anything. After about 3 hours iMac froze...