What to do when some pages become increasingly sluggish or unresponsive on safari

By Luke, 28 April, 2022

Forum
iOS and iPadOS

Hi. I’m running the latest version of iOS on my iPhone SE 2020 version. Sometimes I encounter webpages that seem to continuously load no matter how long I have them open, and this usually causes the page to become less and less responsive, to the point where my phone literally starts heating up and I cannot use the page anymore. Below is a link to a WebMD page that is exhibiting this behavior. I have experienced this across different models of iPhones over the years on certain pages and I suspect it’s related to Scripps, ads or something else running in the background of these pages. Do others have the same problem with this page? You’ll notice the clicking sound VoiceOver makes when the page is loading just keeps going and never stops. Are there things I can do to fix this?

https://www.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/ear-barotrauma-facts

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Comments

By Squirrel on Sunday, April 24, 2022 - 18:33

I couldn't replicate any load issues with your test page.

I disabled content blockers.
I requested the desktop version.
I made sure that reader view was not enabled.
I tried it with iCloud Private Relay on and off.
I tried it over wifi and cellular.

In all cases it loaded immediately and I was able to navigate the page with no apparent lag.

This was on an iPhone 12 Pro running iOS 15.4.1.

I know that this doesn't truly help, but it *might* suggest that this is a local issue ... at least with this test page.

By Luke on Sunday, April 24, 2022 - 18:33

Hey, thank you for going through all those troubleshooting steps, and that definitely helps narrow down the issue. Obviously it’s some combination of that website and my particular phone/instance of Safari/whatever else.

The only third-party content blocker I run is Purify, though I don’t have this page whitelisted, so perhaps I should add it. That said, sounds like you didn’t experience any issues with or without content blockers so I’m not sure that’s the issue

By Dawn 👩🏻‍🦯 on Sunday, April 24, 2022 - 18:33

Hello! Well... I have a little experience with this. I have not been to this test page. However, sometimes, I HAVE seen this with a few other pages. For instance, Audible. It's annoying, and, I have heard that clicking ticking sound. So, what I have done, is just hit the reload button. That usually 99% of the time, makes silence reign!