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Yosemite & Safari hanging

Avatar John Elton-Wall
Has anyone else had a problem with Safari hanging following an upgrade to Yosemite (in my case latest version)? Following start up I can only get Safari to work if I do a re-start. It then works until the next time the machine is started up. Mail works reliably.

This is only one – the most serious – of our niggles with Yosemite, apart from the frequent gripe that start up takes very much longer. Is this Apple's way of persuading us to buy new Macs either with solid state or Fusion drives? I'm beginning to lose my enthusiasm for the Mac. Life seemed so simple years ago when we bought an LC, admittedly at vast cost.

Re: Yosemite & Safari hanging

Avatar Mick Burrell
I've not come across a Safari problem with anyone I see running Yosemite - 10.3. Do you have a second user you could start as to see if it persists? That will indicate whether the issue is with the Safari app itself or something in your user settings or data. You could also try a safe boot.

With regard to speed, I think this is the way things will be for some time. As hardware improves, software changes to take advantage of it (or should that be the other way round?). I think it's fair to say that the current operating system will always run best on a current machine. It will run on older machines but the older they are the less well it will run and of course, some machines will be too old to run it at all. If your machine is say a MacBook Pro, compare its processor speed, memory and graphics capability with the current equivalent - I expect there will be a notable difference.

Re: Yosemite & Safari hanging

Avatar Tony Still
John,

If I understand correctly, Safari hangs following power-up but works correctly if you then restart from the Apple menu. That's quite odd as Safari shouldn't be able to tell the difference. Perhaps by restart you mean restart (ie relaunch) Safari?

Either way, two things you could investigate:
* If you have installed any Safari Extensions, go to Safari Preferences and turn them off (Extensions tab, big switch at the top). If that alleviates the problem then use trial and error to identify the offending Extension(s).
* As soon as Safari has locked-up, launch Console (in Applications/Utilities or use Spotlight) and go to the sidebar (if it's not visible then use View->Show Log List) and click All Messages (at the top). Yosemite has sufficient problems that there will be lots of errors reported but home in on any that start with Safari: (in bold) and have a very recent time against them. If you find something then please report back (unless it answers the question).

Best of luck.

PS WRT Yosemite start-up time: I think Apple would like us to put our machines to sleep rather than shut them down. I too like to shut mine down.

Re: Yosemite & Safari hanging

Avatar John Elton-Wall
Very many thanks to Mick and Tony for your responses. Dealing with your comments/suggestions:

1) It was a system re-start the was kicking Safari into life.
2) Now no response at all when Safari hangs- both accounts tried.
3) There are no Safari extensions & and using its Preferences I have tried turning off everything that might possibly be a culprit.
4) Safe Mode start has also been tried and produced some interesting grey bars marching up the screen, but nothing follows.
5) Safari is slow even to appear on the top menu bar let alone complete connecting to a site.
6) I have looked in Console which I have never done before. Not sure of its purpose. There did not appear to be anything significantly Safari related, though interestingly my use of Photo Updater in collecting together my old iPhoto Libraries does register.
7) My feeling that I have an ailing Mac is reinforced by the behaviour in the Finder when I look in Documents for folders/files. The displayed list columns flicker several times before settling!

I do at least have an elderly G5 that does work enough to make this reply. Thanks again both.

Re: Yosemite & Safari hanging

Avatar Euan Williams
The grey bars and flickering Finder windows are designed to make users realise that they are running within Safe Boot. Yosemite cranks these indicators up a few notches. Please remember to restart in standard mode after using Safe Boot.

Some tried and trusted methods to solve this sort of issue are:
1. Run Disk Utility to repair Permissions and to check Disk data integrity

2. Download the appropriate version of "Onyx" from > www.titanium.free.fr < NB this must be the correct one for whichever OS X version you are using.

Sign in and look for "cleaning" along the row of items, especially "Internet" subsection.

In the first instance, check "Delete: Browser cache" and "Download cache" - try others later if necessary.

Then, under "Fonts" check "Delete fonts cache: System, Users and Apple applications". You can delete other font caches too, as appropriate, if you wish.

Note: always read the yellow Onyx cautions carefully.

Restart is 'required' as an action after every cleaning op. but you can "cancel" the request, do them all and then restart just once at the end.

After cleaning, your Mac and some apps may take longer to start the first time while these caches are rebuilt.

It's worth bearing in mind that a very slow start-up can be a symptom of a wider issue that may need to be fixed. It's not, always, Apple and Yosemite's fault!

Re: Yosemite & Safari hanging

Avatar John Elton-Wall
Thank you very much indeed Euan for your response.

I've used the disc utility as you suggested and various permissions related problems were flagged. Will see if the repair operation has done the trick.

There was one slightly alarming item: Warning SUID file System/Library/CoreS...... has been modified and will not be repaired.

If needs be I'll follow your Item 2 suggestion. Point taken about not all ills being due to Apple & Yosemite!

Again very many thanks for your assistance.

Re: Yosemite & Safari hanging

Avatar Euan Williams
Hi John. By way of reassurance: there are many things Disk Utility reports that need cause no alarm, a full list from Apple is here.. One good definition of SUID is: "a setting to let a process run as the root user without it needing to ask for authentication".

The general aim for your troubleshooting is to find any corruption somewhere which is likely to cause the System or an application to repeatedly try for a "reliable" read of that file - which means it will run very slowly or crash. One really useful place to look is among the caches. These will re-establish themselves (albeit slowly) if they are "cleaned". I have known corrupt font caches in particular to cause widespread chaos.

Similarly, of the Disk Permission repairs, almost all will be of no (user) consequence whatever, but just sometimes a repair will fix a serious problem - which is why we repair them when problems occur.

One thing to remember: if there is a dodgy file which is allowed to get more dodgy by neglect, the consequences will probably be harder to cope with, so it's always best to sort it out early.

Let us know how you get on.

Re: Yosemite & Safari hanging

Avatar Tony Still
Could you just confirm please that, following Euan's suggestion, you used Verify in Disk Utility as well as repairing permissions. If you didn't, I suggest you do and repair the disk if DU says it needs doing.

Is it only Safari suffering from slow start-up? Do you ask it to reopen windows when it starts - if so, you could try clearing that too.

If you feel sufficiently brave, you could check that you have the correct DNS settings in your network set-up (System Preferences > Network > Advanced [possibly authenticating to unlock it] > DNS). A value like 192.168.0.1 (and particularly the 0.1 on the end) is typical but you're really looking for whatever your ISP recommends. I raise this one as there is a problem with Yosemite's network stack in some DNS configurations that can result in slow access to web sites; the good news is that it is allegedly fixed in 10.10.4 so, if you're not feeling brave, you can wait for that to be released.

Console accesses the system logs where Mac OS records significant events and errors that it does not want to bother the user about. It can sometimes show underlying issues.

Re: Yosemite & Safari hanging

Avatar John Elton-Wall
Thanks again for continued support. I have been busy doing other computer related housekeeping but will now give more systematic attention to the Safari hanging problem.

Interestingly, (curse it) my wife has just started using the Mac Mini. She went first to Mail, then to Safari, which then hung! So now it seems the Mac Mini has joined the MacBook Pro. These two machines are joined wirelessly with the router. Food for thought?

Re: Yosemite & Safari hanging

Avatar Euan Williams
Hi John: at a guess, your offending Mac(s) could do with a serious spring clean, but before you do that, have you tried not just restarting your Router, but in extremis, resetting it (with the assistance of your ISP to get the correct settings re-established)?

I'm not sure which (Onyx) cleaning processes you have actually used, have you tried them as previously suggested, not forgetting the DNS cache?

If neither of these has worked, then I would back up (clone) the drive or partition, erase the drive (or partition), reinstall OS X and then migrate my important data. This is one of those occasions when partitions can be very useful.

Re: Yosemite & Safari hanging

Avatar Mick Burrell
As (I believe) the Mac Mini is new, I wouldn't suspect your Macs at all but a broadband/router issue. Do try restarting the router as Euan suggested but how old is it and is it one you purchased or a free one supplied by your ISP? In the early days of 'free' routers, the stuff sent out was not of the highest quality(!) but in the last couple of years, things have improved.

Re: Yosemite & Safari hanging

Avatar Mick Burrell
Could you say what you tried when you concluded that Safari had hung? Are you able to gat any response to Safari menu items like Preferences, History etc. Are you able to use File>New Window or File>New Tab?

Re: Yosemite & Safari hanging

Avatar Euan Williams
It seems that OS X 10.10.4 update will replace > discoveryd < and activate > mDNSResponder < (from pre-Yosemite days) instead.

This (presumably new ? version is said to fix a variety of networking issues, including resolving DNS which may be causing your Safari problems.

As 10.10.4 is due anytime soon (maybe for the WWDC on Monday onward) it may be worth keeping an eye on the Keynote in relation to this. See Monday 8th June at 18.00 (6.00pm) UK summer time here.

Re: Yosemite & Safari hanging

Avatar John Elton-Wall
Apologies Euan, Mick and Tony for my half-hearted/delayed responses to your suggestions in connection with our Safari ‘hanging’ problem. It is simply that there have been a number of pre-occupations which have had to take precedence.

It currently seems to be the case that the Safari problem might well be confined to the MacBook and not also to the new MacMini as feared at one point – see below.

Some light has been shed on the situation because we also began to have problems with e-mail. Sent messages were sticking in the outbox of the MacMini and not passing via the outgoing mail server. This problem was solved by my re-setting up the mail account (i.e. by re-entering exactly the same info that had been there before); and we have since had no problem with the functioning of Mail. I had referred the mail problem to our ISP help-line (John-Lewis Broadband who were very efficient) and changes were also made at the ISP end, though I am not sure what. J-L Broadband were also able to confirm that we seemed to have a very curious and erratic connection history, so some of the fog was lifted!

Meanwhile we still have the problem with Safari on the MacBook. In an effort to clarify the situation I have now also moved the modem & router to the BT box nearest to where the line enters the house (they are recent kit incidentally and we are using wireless to connect both the MacBook & MacMini). The ISP has put us on an active monitor status. As well as a possibility of an intermittent physical line connection fault there might be an interference problem, either with neighbours or even street lighting – that’s a new one to me! There was mention of possible recourse to re-setting the Wi-Fi channel frequency.

We are due to be hosted by Orange in France in a few days (with both machines) so it will be interesting to see if – as I anticipate– the problem continues with the MacBook and Safari. I will of course be on the look out for the Yosemite upgrade to 10.10.4, which was mentioned by Euan & Tony. Meantime a repeat of my thanks to you all.
 
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