Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Jlong1962

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Dec 12, 2021
3
2
Absolutely frustrated as a first time iPhone user. My iPhone 13 has a bug that makes web browsing unusable. When I am browsing any sites and have scrolled down the page, then click a link, then hit the back button it takes me back to the TOP of the original page. Then I have to scroll back down and try to find where I was. I tried Firefox with same results. Missing my android about right now.
 
  • Like
Reactions: decypher44
Try force closing Safari (swipe up to app switcher, then swipe up again on the app to force close it), then hard rebooting the phone. Volume up, volume down, press and keep holding the power button until you see the Apple logo on the screen. Then let go. That usually clears up some bugs.

I don’t have this issue but I believe you that you do. iOS has been a buggy mess lately. The days of “it just works” are long gone. Wouldn’t blame you if you went back to Android.

Does the same behavior occur when you swipe back from left to right? That mimics the back button.
 
Try force closing Safari (swipe up to app switcher, then swipe up again on the app to force close it), then hard rebooting the phone. Volume up, volume down, press and keep holding the power button until you see the Apple logo on the screen. Then let go. That usually clears up some bugs.

I don’t have this issue but I believe you that you do. iOS has been a buggy mess lately. The days of “it just works” are long gone. Wouldn’t blame you if you went back to Android.

Does the same behavior occur when you swipe back from left to right? That mimics the back button.
Thanks for the reply. Swiping left to right as a back button does the same thing. I will try the force close and hard restart.
 
Just hard rebooted with same results. Tried uninstalling safari but Apple has decided it wants to mimic the fed government and tell you what is best for you. It cannot be uninstalled. That sucks. Tried Chrome and Firefox they both do same thing. It is impossible to browse with this crappy phone. Using the browser back button REFRESHES the page you are going back to placing you at the TOP of the page forcing you to scroll back down where you were. Hating this iPhone about now.

Thanks for the reply. Swiping left to right as a back button does the same thing. I will try the force close and hard restart.
Just hard rebooted with same results. Tried uninstalling safari but Apple has decided it wants to mimic the fed government and tell you what is best for you. It cannot be uninstalled. That sucks. Tried Chrome and Firefox they both do same thing. It is impossible to browse with this crappy phone. Using the browser back button REFRESHES the page you are going back to placing you at the TOP of the page forcing you to scroll back down where you were. Hating this iPhone about now.
 
  • Like
Reactions: aircanman
I’m no expert in Safari or web browsing but since it has something to do with opening a link, what do you have this setting on?

1639375346730.png
 
I just took a screen recording of this page which I’m using in Safari. I scrolled down as I’m simulating reading the page, then opened up a link at the bottom, scrolled down as if I’m reading that new page, swiped back and I’m where I left off at the bottom of the original page. Not sure what’s going on with your browser. Gotta be something in settings.

 
Open a link in a new tab. Then when you want to go back just swipe the tab to the right as usual (to go back) and you’ll return to the previous page AT THE LOCATION you clicked the link from. It won’t start at the top.
Tab disappears if you swipe it to the side. You don’t end up with a zillion tabs.

This is a problem in iOS 14 too.
 
Absolutely frustrated as a first time iPhone user. My iPhone 13 has a bug that makes web browsing unusable. When I am browsing any sites and have scrolled down the page, then click a link, then hit the back button it takes me back to the TOP of the original page. Then I have to scroll back down and try to find where I was. I tried Firefox with same results. Missing my android about right now.
Safari has always gone back to the top of the page when I just press the back button or swipe back. Very frustrating. It’s been like this ever since returning to iOS from the iPhone 12 PM and and 13 PM.
 
This just started happening to me, and it’s completely frustrating! Also, I have Safari settings to open links in a new tab, but it has never worked.
 
Isn’t it the intended behavior? I often read the news in the middle of a page, open an article and then go back a page, I am glad it is starting where I left off on the page so I can continue from there
 
I was curious about this since I’ve seen a few posts mentioning it. I just tried on my iPad Pro. Tapping a link on a page to go to another site and then whether using the back button or swiping back to the initial page I’m taken to the same spot I was on when I tapped the link. Must be a setting but is working properly for me.
 
I've noticed that the back button behaviour can vary between particular websites. For example, The Guardian almost always returns to the same place on the previous page. Whereas The Independent is somewhat hit and miss, and will often reload the page. This may be by design, as there are various headers that get sent in the response. For example, if a particular page tells your browser that it has a lifetime of 2 minutes, and you've taken 3 minutes to read another page, hitting the back button should be enough to trigger a page refresh rather than fetch the page from your browser cache. If the back button disregards such headers, you can get into the kind of mess where you pay twice for something on a payment website. Or get to see stale, out of date news etc.
 
  • Like
Reactions: decypher44
Wondering if any extensions cause this like ad block? Are they stopping Safari from remembering its position on a website? - Or is it something to do with memory management.
 
  • Like
Reactions: max2
Wondering if any extensions cause this like ad block? Are they stopping Safari from remembering its position on a website? - Or is it something to do with memory management.
I would be surprised if a content blocker had anything to do with it, as they just prevent key page elements from rendering.

It’s possible that iOS or iPadOS, with its minimal memory, does not cache as many pages in memory as it could. In which case Safari would request the original page from the internet rather than from cached memory, and show the page anew. Historically, the iPad would do this routinely. Quite a few years ago I did some cache tests on a particular website. The website was clearly returning pages marked as cacheable for 1 minute, but Safari would make a fresh request every time. That behaviour maximises available memory for all apps, at the expense of making a repeat web page request.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.