Safari busy, busy, busy, busy, busy ...

By Howard, 25 September, 2021

Forum
macOS and Mac Apps

Hello. Since upgrading to the newest Safari, I've been encountering "Safari busy" and busy and busy and busy and busy messages on innumerable Websites. I was hoping it was a temporary thing and would resolve itself, but it's not been getting better. At all.

Are others having this same problem? If so, does anyone have any suggestions for lessening it?

Thanks very much.

Howard

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Comments

By Matthew on Wednesday, September 29, 2021 - 03:42

Yes I am definitely experiencing this troublesome behavior.

By elliot2012 on Wednesday, September 29, 2021 - 03:42

Yeh having this also it’s pretty much unusable for me. Have switched to chrome

I will install the Safari Technology Preview since the busy busy is really annoying. If that doesn't work, then I will try the Chrome solution.

By Carlos M Contreras on Wednesday, September 29, 2021 - 03:42

I just tried Safari Technology Preview, and the Busy busy busy message is also there.

By Howard on Wednesday, September 29, 2021 - 03:42

it does seem somewhat less awful. Oy. It's amazing that this was allowed out the door, as this problem would have turned up if anyone had tested Safari with VO for, like, 30 seconds. But then again, I'm old enough to remember when Apple didn't suck.

By Ekaj on Wednesday, September 29, 2021 - 03:42

I installed the update to Safari yesterday, and have been playing with it off and on today. I've noticed the increasing "busy" messages but the funny thing is they seem to only occur at random at least on my machine. I have a 2013 MacBook Air, which ironically enough is hopefully going to be taken to a local Apple repair shop this week for an unrelated issue. I might be upgrading my hardware sooner than I think, but only time will tell. I'm wondering if these constant "Safari busy" messages have something to do with coding perhaps? In any case, I'm planning to contact the accessibility folks at Apple regarding this issue.

By harry6116 on Wednesday, September 29, 2021 - 03:42

For me it is happening particularly when loading pages, I'm wondering if the page is actually loading visually but VO and Safari are hanging.
It is incredibly annoying and I'm on the point of switching to chrome but I just don't find that browser verboce enough sometimes.

By Carlos M Contreras on Wednesday, September 29, 2021 - 03:42

Today I spent sometime playing with settings in the Safari preferences, and now the problem seems to be solved. I think that the offending settings is found on the Privacy tab of the Safari preferences. On that tab you should uncheck the following item:

Allow privacy-preserving measurement of ad effectiveness

If I remember correctly it is the last one there. Please try this, and report here. If this is the issue, we can report it to Apple so that they can work with it.

I suppose the issue is only with Voiceover, since I haven't found any complains on regular forums.

By Howard on Wednesday, September 29, 2021 - 03:42

Thanks for your work, and your suggestion. I tried it out, and found it better on some Websites, but not so much on others. Interestingly, it was worst when I just now went to this site to add my comment. Still, it was much better on some sites, so you are onto something. Thanks, again.

By Ekaj on Wednesday, September 29, 2021 - 03:42

Hello. I unchecked the box under Privacy settings for Safari, and it seems to help a bit. But ironically enough, immediately upon clicking on this thread I got another "Safari Busy" message. I wrote Apple's accessibility team yesterday as promised, but I am currently locked out of that email account until further notice due to some other issues which I won't get into on here. But I think this is one of those bugs that I can live with at least for now.

By Carlos M Contreras on Friday, October 29, 2021 - 03:42

I upgraded my Mac Mini yesterday to Monterey, and the problem of the Busy busy message in Safari is finally solved. It seems that there were some compatibility problems of Safari 15 with Big Sur.

By PaulMartz on Friday, October 29, 2021 - 03:42

I'm not sure Monterey actually solved this problem. Instead of "busy, busy, busy", we now get "Safari is not responding". And, just as with the "busy, busy, busy" message, there is no problem with Safari while VoiceOver announces this message. Low vision users can scroll, follow links, and otherwise interact with the web page normally.

So, whether the message is "busy, busy, busy" or "Safari is not responding" is really not relevant. The real issue is this. A given website is available to sighted users but unavailable to VoiceOver users.

100% what Paul said!

And unfortunately Safari isn't the only application I encounter this behavior on my M1 MacBook Air... although it is Safari 98% of the time😒

By Cobbler on Friday, October 29, 2021 - 03:42

Another morning with my M1 MacBook Air regularly telling me “Safari not responding.”

Another morning listening to a mainstream podcast raving about the performance of Apple Silicon.

I am pretty dam sure that there wouldn't be any “raving” if non VoiceOver users frequently had Safari becoming unresponsive for up to 5 seconds.

And, yes, I am still seeing similar behavior with other applications. Heck, I lifted the lid of my MacBook a couple days ago and had about 10 seconds of “authentication window not responding.”

It's been more than 10 years since I used a Windows PC, and I have never had to rely on a Windows screen reader. But, boy is a Windows laptop and NVDA feeling quite tempting right now.

I won't be recommending a Mac to anybody blind until Apple permanently resolves this problem.

By PaulMartz on Friday, October 29, 2021 - 03:42

Other than Safari, I mostly see this behavior with the Music app, and again, the app seems to be interactive if I use my remaining low vision. It's just VoiceOver that's hung.

By slj on Monday, November 29, 2021 - 03:42

Hi.
This has been solved after I upgraded to Monterey. I upgraded yesterday, and I haven't noticed that one single time since then. I'm using a Macbook Pro 2019 model. It's interesting that some users still are experiencing this after having upgraded to Monterey and others don't.

By neosonic2 on Monday, November 29, 2021 - 03:42

There is a simple solution to this problem, and it seems others have (rightly) pointed it out as well. If you have upgraded to macOS 12 and continue to experience this bug, and furthermore if you absolutely cannot wait for Apple to implement a resolution, then just use a different browser. Google Chrome, for example, does not exhibit the noted behavior.

By PaulMartz on Monday, November 29, 2021 - 03:42

One problem I have with other browsers is that they don't support reader view, which is the best way to read articles on the web, in my opinion.

Another is lack of keychain support. Other browsers seem to be unable to access the many IDs and passwords I have stored in keychain.

I use other browsers occasionally, when Safari forces me into it. But because of the two reasons above, it's not something I do casually.

Hi.
If you are that much worried about privacy, then you can use Private browsing. That is also supported in Crome. So when it comes to privacy, it makes no difference.

By Carlos M Contreras on Monday, November 29, 2021 - 03:42

Private browsing only affects what is kept in your computer. It will be private at the computer level, so that nobody that use the computer after a private browsing session will be able to find what happend before. But still, Google will know what pages you visited. Also that information will be available to your ISP. If you want complete privacy you should use a VPN.