macOS Sierra freeze on iMac late 2009 using Safari

I've been having this problem (freeze when scrolling in Safari on iMac27 late 2009) since Yosemite, but not as frequent as in Sierra (I skipped El Capitan but for other reasons). I've also read the notes for the 10.12.2 update and it doesn't mention anything about a fix for this bug. This make me believe that we may NEVER get a fix for this problem. Having said that I (as many others) installed FireFox as a circumvention and I haven't had a freeze since then. This seems to be the solution for me and I'll stop hoping and wishing for a solution from Apple. I'm stuck with FireFox and I'm happy:-)

Following the re-install (How to reinstall macOS - Apple Support), without erasing my data, I switched back to using Safari as primary browser and have not had any crashes/hangs of Sierra. Fingers crossed, but would be great if others could also try the non-destructive reinstall, to see whether it makes any difference.

My theory is that the initial installation of Sierra somehow had a few bytes crossed and the reinstall fixed it.

I have an OWC 1TB Ssd in my mid2010 21.5" iMac. Haven't seen the problem since latest update but don't consider that authoritative.

My late 2009 imac also has a 1 TB EVO ssd

I've got a 512GB EVO SSD

I'm using a fusion drive comprising of the standard 1TB spinning disk together with a Samsung 940 SSD installed in the CD drive slot.

I'm using a Crucial BX100 SSD (0,5TB).

i upgraded my HD to a hybrid SSD at the same time that i upgraded to sierra. i did not have the issue in el capitan, but i was also using the orginal HD. unfortunately, i don't have a way to confirm if this is a sierra and SSD issue without rolling back to el capitan, which i don't want to do at this point.

I've got an SSD/HDD hybrid as well. Though the problem doesn't occur (for me) in El Capitan, it did in Sierra. Once, even without using Safari, which was the catalyst for me to downgrade back to EC.

Too bad: just had another freeze of Sierra, so the re-install did not solve it completely. Running the latest update of Sierra and using the original spinning disk (no SSD).

Back to Firefox again, as that seemed to fix the issue.

The issue is very probably caused by Safari in 10.12.2 by a crash in SafeBrowsing.

It is already or will be corrected in a safety update of Safari, in my opinion.

I have had this issue for quite some time, dating back from OS X Mavericks. When it started I was under the impression that Safari browsing was the trigger, but I have had the same problem with OS X Yosemite.

General browsing did not seem to trip the system as much as browsing images. I am a designer and frequently use stock image websites. I changed my default browser to Firefox and that seemed to provide a workaround. Recently the trouble seems to have spread to Firefox.

27" iMac Late 2009

2.66 i5

16 GB 1067

Hi,

I´m not shure, but some days ago I did a reinstall over internet. Up to now there are no more freezes on my iMac. What I also did was a clean install of Sierra in a VM. It seems to be stable. Including 10.12.3 beta.

Let´s see what happens. I will inform you.

iMac 27", i5 2.66GHz late 2009

16 GB RAM

1.2GB self build FusionDrive

A friend of mine has a 21" iMac late 2009. No freezing at all. NVidia Graphics.

Something wrong with ATI drivers or openGL support? I remember the MacWorld tool to see if your Mac is ready for 10.12. OpenGL shows no full support. Maybe the issues are based on this.

I also have this problem on my late 2009, 27" iMac. Switched to Chrome and problem ceased. Then the original 1 TB HDD in the iMac failed. I just had it replaced with a Sandisk SSD and finished migrating everything back over from a Time Machine backup earlier today. I was just browsing in Safari when the machine froze. The only extension I use is 1Password, which I continued to use in Chrome without issue before the hard drive failed.

Without a solution from Apple - a Sierra or Safari update that specifically addresses this issue - it may be best to go back to El Capitan, which, as far as I know, would require manually backing everything up before doing a clean install from a bootable installer, as Migration Assistant will not work when Time Machine backups are from a newer OS (I learned this the hard way as I had the repair place install El Capitan on the SSD, only to have to upgrade to Sierra in order to get Migration Assistant to work).