Safari Not Responding

By Wayne A, 9 November, 2023

Forum

macOS and Mac Apps

Based on the comments that I have read on Applevis, I know that many Mac users are experiencing significant issues with Safari frequently locking up. While I have occasionally encountered this issue, it has not been a big problem for me. However, while trying to access my web mail through my Internet provider's website, after logging in, I consistently encountered the dreaded "Safari not responding" which lasted for several minutes. I generated a system diagnostic while this was occurring and sent it to Apple Accessibility. They immediately responded asking for more information, which I promptly provided. I'm not sure if this will go anywhere but I figure the more information they have, the better chance that the issue will be resolved.
On another note, I regularly listen to the Mac Geek Gab podcast and, on their latest episode, one of the hosts commented that he has to regularly restart Safari on his Mac because it inexplicably chews up most of his memory and causes all other apps to slow down while Safari is open. He said that he has to re-start Safari once or twice an hour to fix this. He talked about using the "nuke and pave" option to set up his Mac as new in the hopes that this would fix the problem. So, this is a sighted Mac user having Safari problems. I'm not a software engineer or coder so I don't know if this is related to the "Safari not responding" issue. Just thought I'd share it.
Maybe, the issue goes beyond just our community.

Options

Comments

Version numbers please

What MacOS version are you using? Also, please get your Safari version number from the Safari menu and post that here, too.

Thanks.

Version Numbers

I am running Sonoma 14.1 and Safari 17.1 on a 2020 M1 MacBook Air with 8 Gb of RAM.

Thanks.

Hm. That version of Safari in Sonoma is a major version bump from what I have with Ventura 13.6.1. My Safari Version is 16.6 (18615.3.12.11.2).

There are times when Safari Not Responding is totally legitimate. Your webmail server might have encountered an issue. If so, the website would also be unavailable to sighted users.

I didn't see the issue at all while on Sonoma for a couple of days. I've now downgraded to Ventura and seen it exactly once so far. I used to see it all the time. I'm cautiously optimistic that Apple is actively working on this, and that new Safari releases are changing the behavior. But what is working well for me might not be working well for others.

Thanks

The website is very busy and not easy to navigate. I had to resort to using web mail because my Internet provider, Rogers, uses yahoo and, for some reason can no longer be added to Mac mail. I just downloaded Outlook and I could link my Rogers email to Outlook.
Interestingly, though, is that I could navigate this website without the "not responding" message on Google Chrome.
Other than this particular website, I, only occasionally, encounter the "Safari not responding" issue, and then only for a few seconds.
I believe that Apple is working on this problem, but it seems to affect each user differently, which makes the issue more difficult to solve. Hopefully, more people will provide system diagnostics to Apple to help identify the real cause or causes.

Paul

Just had a thought. Have you tried deleting all your cookies and browsing history? I read somewhere recently how that kind of clutter can slow things down.

Bruce

No, not lately

I have cleared cache and history in the past, but not recently. I don't recall it correlating to any significant change in Safari Not Responding behavior.

I did not see any accessibility changes in the Safari release notes that looked like they were related to this issue. Why it was virtually non-existent in 14.1, and now much improved after downgrading to 13.6.1, is a pleasant surprise.

I reported bug to Apple and…

I reported bug to Apple and got such info. I don't want to install beta so I'll wait Hello Adrian, Thank you for your patience. We believe that the issue raised in this thread is resolved in the latest beta seed release of macOS Sonoma, 14.2 Seed 2. We were wondering if you’ve had a chance to update and if you can verify that the issue is resolved. If the issue remains unresolved, we’d like to receive the following: 1. A list of affected websites that continue to reproduce after the 14.2 Seed 2 update. 2. A new set of diagnostic logs. Sincerely,

You downgrading made me think of it

Don't cookies and browsing history get deleted in a downgrade? That's what got me thinking. Oh well.

Funny, I ran into safari not responding on my way to post this. rueful smile

Cookies and 14.2

That might be true about the cookies. My usual usage is to keep Safari running all day. Maybe upgrading and downgrading resets something that a nightly reboot doesn't.

Great news about the 14.2 beta. I've got a bottle of champagne. Looks like I better set out the flutes.

Safari preview?

Just saw on Mac Rumors that Apple released a new version of the Safari technology preview browser, and they specifically mention accessibility fixes. Maybe this fixes the not responding thing that everyone is dealing with? the release notes mention some VoiceOver fixes.

I don’t have a Mac right now, but I thought I’d share.

Cookies and Upcoming Update

Before I encountered the "Safari Not Responding" issue while accessing my web mail, I had cleared my Cookies. However, maybe the problem gets worse if you leave Safari running in the background for a long while. Based on the comments that I heard on the Mac Geek Gab podcast, it seems that Safari can chew up system resources, the longer it is running.
The 14.2 update that Adrian Wyka mentioned sounds very encouraging.