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internet (mozilla/safari) constantly freezing!

H

heyalex

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jul 1, 2009
7
0
hey everyone!

as of two nights ago, my internet started acting up on my macbook. the computer is about a year old and it's my first mac. anyway, i figured it was because of the massive amounts of tabs i keep open. so i closed the window and started fresh. this did not help! i started to realize that the internet would freeze when i went on twitpic or my own facebook page and some other sites like stikegently.com (a music site). weird, right? this made me force quit and have to start over. this problem does not seem to be caused by my internet connection and is not affecting my family windows computer. i also updated to the latest versions of mozilla and safari but that did not help.

i've also tried clearing the cookies and have found some strange sites listed there (2o7.net, doubleclick.net, tumri.net, tribalfusion.com) but it didn't help. the problem is getting progressively worse, i get the spinning ball symbol every few seconds now. is it possible i have a virus? do macs even get viruses? if so, what do i do!

i apologize in advance for not searching the forums....trying to open a topic froze my internet! and it doesn't help that my nearby apple store closed YESTERDAY for a month!! the nearest is now over an hour away. and my mac genius neighbor is away on vacation!

i really hope you can help! any info is appreciated!

thanks,
alex

ps. i obviously get spam in my thread, awesome.
 
Well Macs don't get viruses, so you won't have to worry about that part.

A few questions:
*is your Mac connected to WiFi along with the Windows machine? Or are they both on ethernet, one on WiFi on on ethernet, etc.?

*Is this only on a few sites or is this on every site you visit?

*Do you see any other problems like this on your Mac or is this only on the web browsers?
 
macJC50640 said:
Well Macs don't get viruses, so you won't have to worry about that part.

A few questions:
*is your Mac connected to WiFi along with the Windows machine? Or are they both on ethernet, one on WiFi on on ethernet, etc.?

*Is this only on a few sites or is this on every site you visit?

*Do you see any other problems like this on your Mac or is this only on the web browsers?
Click to expand...

thanks so much for replying! my mac is connected to the same wifi as the windows computer. besides the freezing, the internet seems to be working at a normal speed, and ichat is working normally. the freezing is on every site i visit. about every 20 seconds i'll get the spinning ball which will temporarily freeze whatever i'm doing. it's only certain websites that will actually cause me to have to force quit because it remains frozen (ex. certain parts of facebook, twitpic). this seems to be the only problem i am encountering on my mac right now. thanks!
 
heyalex said:
thanks so much for replying! my mac is connected to the same wifi as the windows computer. besides the freezing, the internet seems to be working at a normal speed, and ichat is working normally. the freezing is on every site i visit. about every 20 seconds i'll get the spinning ball which will temporarily freeze whatever i'm doing. it's only certain websites that will actually cause me to have to force quit because it remains frozen (ex. certain parts of facebook, twitpic). this seems to be the only problem i am encountering on my mac right now. thanks!
Click to expand...
Hmm, if it's only certain parts that are the worst, it migh be a Flash problem like explained above. Try downloading the latest Flash, see if anything changes, and if not tell us. Hopefully it will work, though :)
 
mathcolo, thanks for the link! i downloaded and immediately noticed a difference. the browser is not freezing every 20 seconds, which is awesome. it is still freezing on twitpic and facebook though :/

i'm trying to see if i can find other websites that have the same effect, maybe there will be something in common.
 
heyalex said:
thanks so much for replying! my mac is connected to the same wifi as the windows computer. besides the freezing, the internet seems to be working at a normal speed, and ichat is working normally. the freezing is on every site i visit. about every 20 seconds i'll get the spinning ball which will temporarily freeze whatever i'm doing. it's only certain websites that will actually cause me to have to force quit because it remains frozen (ex. certain parts of facebook, twitpic). this seems to be the only problem i am encountering on my mac right now. thanks!
Click to expand...

Although rare, I wouldn't rule out possibility of virus (trojans, worms, scientifically, they are not defined as viruses, but apple usually group them together).

There are also possibility of hardware problem, you might want to try Onyx to clean up the system, and check disk, etc.

And if its a problem of flash, sorry thats what adobe has for mac users, no good solution for it other than wait for adobe to improve the quality.
 
heyalex said:
mathcolo, thanks for the link! i downloaded and immediately noticed a difference. the browser is not freezing every 20 seconds, which is awesome. it is still freezing on twitpic and facebook though :/

i'm trying to see if i can find other websites that have the same effect, maybe there will be something in common.
Click to expand...

Right, that would be a good thing to see. Try a whole different variety of websites including Flash, Java, heavy JavaScript and heavy HTML to more easily identify the problem.

Clevin doesn't portray a good point though, a virus or hardware error could be causing the crashes.
 
heyalex said:
i've also tried clearing the cookies and have found some strange sites listed there (2o7.net, doubleclick.net, tumri.net, tribalfusion.com)

ps. i obviously get spam in my thread, awesome.
Click to expand...

Those cookies are where you get a lot of spam from. They also track what you do on the net. In Firefox download NoScript and AdBlock Plus. Don't know about Safari. NoScript will let you accept or block those cookies. It will also let you accept them temporarily. As far as those sites go locking up the internet, do you get the internet back when leaving them?
 
clevin said:
Although rare, I wouldn't rule out possibility of virus (trojans, worms, scientifically, they are not defined as viruses, but apple usually group them together).
Click to expand...

Thanks for the good laugh. Got any facts to back that up?


The Mac Malware Myth
http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2009/01/29/the-mac-malware-myth/

The Unavoidable Malware Myth
http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2008/...-apple-wont-inherit-microsofts-malware-crown/

How to check for Trojans
http://www.macworld.com/article/60823/2007/10/trojanhorse.html
 
okay guys! i've returned with some more information! i downloaded the ad block plus, which has not made a difference but seems like a good thing to have. i'm also in the process of working with onyx. i'll give anything a try haha!

i've visited more websites and have come to the conclusion that it MAY have something to do with a video feature? i went to several high impact websites like Newsday.com, Nick.com, and the video features of websites like FallOutBoyRock.com (most random websites haha) and the internet froze. i don't seem to be having a problem with youtube though. i know i have the most recent version of Java. still looking for other websites that are causing problems and i'll keep you guys updated. thanks again!
 
heyalex said:
okay guys! i've returned with some more information! i downloaded the ad block plus, which has not made a difference but seems like a good thing to have. i'm also in the process of working with onyx. i'll give anything a try haha!

i've visited more websites and have come to the conclusion that it MAY have something to do with a video feature? i went to several high impact websites like Newsday.com, Nick.com, and the video features of websites like FallOutBoyRock.com (most random websites haha) and the internet froze. i don't seem to be having a problem with youtube though. i know i have the most recent version of Java. still looking for other websites that are causing problems and i'll keep you guys updated. thanks again!
Click to expand...

Two things:

A. Open up Software Update, and install everything that's available.

B. If Safari or Firefox gives you a crash report, paste it at http://macrumors.pastebin.com and then paste the link here.
 
Have you backed up the drive recently?

When was the last time you repaired the drive?

Likely if you stick in the restore DVD and run disk first aid, you'll find some orphaned nodes. the repair must be run from fsck or the dvd, since it won't repair a currently used volume.

And if you think of repairing permissions, it must be run from the HD (aka, current volume) to make sure it picks up the data from the updates.
 
mathcolo said:
Two things:

A. Open up Software Update, and install everything that's available.

B. If Safari or Firefox gives you a crash report, paste it at http://macrumors.pastebin.com and then paste the link here.
Click to expand...

everything is up to date :/
and i don't have a crash report because i end up force quitting. it just freezes and nothing happens. buttt i have a problem report from firefox that i pasted, and maybe that will help? : http://macrumors.pastebin.com/m144f9589 i feel bad because that's so long! haha
 
Sun Baked said:
Have you backed up the drive recently?

When was the last time you repaired the drive?

Likely if you stick in the restore DVD and run disk first aid, you'll find some orphaned nodes. the repair must be run from fsck or the dvd, since it won't repair a currently used volume.

And if you think of repairing permissions, it must be run from the HD (aka, current volume) to make sure it picks up the data from the updates.
Click to expand...

ermm, i only understood about half of what you said there! sorry! but i have not backed up recently and i don't think i've ever repaired the drive? i'll go find my restore DVD and see what i can do from there. thanks!

if i can't get this figured out by tomorrow, i think i'm going have to make the drive out to the apple store!
 
If your computer crashes, and/or you tend to force quit applications or the computer a lot ... you can end up with orphaned nodes.

Enough of these and the computer will hang every now and then on drive access, or simply flash a question mark next time you restart.

You can only repair the drive with the DVD... or using fsck.

---

Repair permissions stares you in the face when you have the DVD in, don't run it from the DVD, run it from your HD when you have booted from there.
 
Sun Baked said:
Repair permissions stares you in the face when you have the DVD in, don't run it from the DVD, run it from your HD when you have booted from there.
Click to expand...
Actually, it's fine to repair permissions from the DVD now, that issue was resolved with Leopard.
 
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