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Playing HTML5 video in any browser freezes iMac apps

Floris

Floris

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Sep 7, 2007
2,382
1,478
Netherlands
Hey guys, I got a bit of a irritating issue.

I got the 27" 5k 2017 model iMac, i7, 1TB SSD, and 8GB Ram, it has the 580 8GB GPU.

Once a week on average, when I just go to youtube.com in either Safari or Chrome, I load a video and instantly note "its that damn issue again".

The video kinda tries to load, but it hangs, it freeze, and then the beach ball happens.
I have to cmd/option/esc to force quit chrome.

I can try Safari, whatever, it doesn't matter. The *only* solution I have found to solve it is to literally turn off the system and turn it back on again. And I hate doing that.

I tried not using Little Snitch.
I tried upgrading to beta of Chrome (61)
I tried Chrome Canary

Uninstalled the apps, fresh start, incognito mode, etc.

I tried turning on and off hardware acceleration. I tried a new user profile in Chrome, I tried resetting stuff, deleting and clearing browser data, cookies and all those things people always suggest.

But I don't even know why it would be Chrome related, if it happens in Safari too. I go to Safari and boom, same problem, instantly.. once it happens in one browser, it happens in all browsers playing back html5 content.

On average: once a week, but i am pretty sure i already rebooted the other day so that makes it twice this week.

I use Little snitch as firewall, i uninstalled that and run it for a week, still happened.

I used ISP dns, google's public dns, etc.. still happened.

No extensions are being used, because it's a new machine and I didn't even get around to it yet.

So, .. besides it being a sierra issue, i can only imagine it's a hardware issue.

Before I go to that route and waste even more of my time debuggin it. I hope you guys can give me some info, perhaps you know "yeah known issue, solved in high sierra" or something.. It's so frustrating, i am willing at this point to dust off the 2009 imac 24" and just use that instead, just to watch videos without wondering if it would freeze up or not.

The reason I post today is because I got so frustrated and tried to ignore the issue, didn't restart, opened up VLC with a 2gb mkv file and it started playing without audio and then froze up. ARGH.

I tried googling already the last month and today for hours but everybody says "try a new profile" or "turn off hardware acceleration", well, nothing works. Except for literally turning off the machine and starting it up again.

Hopefully MacRumors squad can help me out.
 
Boot into safe mode and see if the issue happens. I would suggest running EtreCheck and see if it identifies anything.
 
It's unrealistic to run the machine for nearly a week in safe mode just to try and reproduce something that happens once a week. I've never heard of EtreCheck to be honest.
 
dianeoforegon said:
Etrecheck is a diagnostic tool recommended by Apple Support personnel. It's similar to Apple's System Profiler but gives you more info.


More Info:
https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-11591
Click to expand...

Ok, I gave it a go, twice. Each time it reported everything is fine and dandy. Which it should be, it's a fresh installation on a new machine.

In the meantime, I've had more success NOT auto playing videos on social networks, but the two times it happened it seems it's an embedded youtube in a tweet, that I play.. if I go to youtube by clicking 'watch on youtube', or simply switch tab and go to youtube's site manually .. the video freezes, the browser freezes, and from there on it's impossible to do anything that requires graphics beyond just opening an app.

I can't narrow it down beyond "that's what it looks like', but for all i know the youtube embedding on a tweet playing being part of the reason, could just be an utter coincidence.

I can't reproduce it on the fly, but it has happened twice since the making of this thread.

I wish I could narrow it down to software, hardware. Due to some projects that have a deadline, I can't go fooling around with fresh OS installs, or booting from external disks, etc. I have no left over usb-c SSD drive i can spare to play around with.

Logging out of the account and back in doesn't solve it, tried that twice because i didn't want to lose time during researching stuff online. I had to restart the system.

Again, it does feel like not auto playing embedded media on twitter/facebook/instagram has helped, and that as soon as i tried to play an embedded youtube and then go to youtube for another video .. that it goes bonkers. So right now i am simply not playing embedded html5 stuff at all anymore, and just go to youtube manually and find the video there just to see if i can avoid coincidences.
 
These types of issues can be the starting signs of a failing GPU. They are only associated in hindsight as much as a year later when the machine gets beyond a workable range. Many times freezing video is just software, but when you look indefinitely for a solution and everything comes back just fine it looks to the experienced users that have had GPU's fail like the start of the long decline in performance as things slowly increase to worse. I had the exact same issue myself with freezes and figured it was software. A clean install didn't fix it, safe mode did work to eliminate the issue. Found out later deleting (in my case) appleintelhd5000.kext solved my freezing issues..... which was great, but pointed to a failing GPU...... which wasn't as great.
 
Last edited:
one1 said:
These types of issues can be the starting signs of a failing GPU. They are only associated in hindsight as much as a year later when the machine gets beyond a workable range. Many times freezing video is just software, but when you look indefinitely for a solution and everything comes back just fine it looks to the experienced users that have had GPU's fail like the start of the long decline in performance as things slowly increase to worse. I had the exact same issue myself with freezes and figured it was software. A clean install didn't fix it, safe mode did work to eliminate the issue. Found out later deleting (in my case) appleintelhd5000.kext solved my freezing issues..... which was great, but pointed to a failing GPU...... which wasn't as great.
Click to expand...
That's quite worrying. I bought this new 2017 model iMac in June (6th) 2017.
Maybe it's worth considering contacting Apple support
 
Run a more indepth Etrecheck and Apple Diagnostics.
Both reported everything is fine.

Had a chat with Apple Support for a good while to talk over options.

One thing I am going to try is to add another user account and keep it as default as possible and try to use that for a few weeks to see if the problem returns. If so: I am going to try is to use one of my USB-C SSD disks to fresh install macOS Sierra and boot from that and run that for a few weeks without installing anything to see if the problem comes back.

There's a few more things, but there's nothing to do about those until we go through this first.

At least now there's an open case number within warranty period and chat support has been great.

It sucks that I can't just press a button and reproduce the issue. This is a bit annoying and time consuming. But some obvious options that aren't too intrusive to how I use the system daily are simply things I can do.

Hopefully I figure this out before warranty is over and I don't end up restarting my system weekly or have a hardware issue.
 
You might post the Etrecheck report here in case anyone sees something you might have missed. Etrecheck doesn't necessarily find all issues but it does show what's running.

Just to verify...you didn't migrate any users, applications or settings from a previous Mac?

The next time you restart after a freeze you could also look at Console to see if there are any clues.
 
BrianBaughn said:
You might post the Etrecheck report here in case anyone sees something you might have missed. Etrecheck doesn't necessarily find all issues but it does show what's running.

Just to verify...you didn't migrate any users, applications or settings from a previous Mac?

The next time you restart after a freeze you could also look at Console to see if there are any clues.
Click to expand...

Yep, fresh installation.

one thing I have noticed: I didn't run Plex this week and have had no issues.
I just had to start Plex for my niece on vacation .. if it suddenly happens while plex is running, then i am adding plex to the list of potential culprits.

I like the suggestion of checking console after / during an issue ..
 
BrianBaughn said:
Plex Server on that Mac? If it's transcoding it uses a lot of CPU power.
Click to expand...
I kept an eye on it, it's actually not too bad on this i7 2017 iMac. The older iMacs were all struggling a bit more.

But plex is still idle in the menubar, etc, .. while watching embedded html5 content in browsers. It's not doing anything.
 
Well, it happened again.

It didn't happen before I run plex, and before i loaded a twitter overlay embedded video. I stayed away from both.

In the last 24 hours I loaded (and quit) plex, and I have just for laughs played a twitter embedded video (was in overlay in chrome).

And it started freezing. I tried to load console app and look at whatever was flying by, and I saw soundCloud mention as a 'stall', and there were errors with quicklookd, I think soundcloud is the audio driver i needed for screenflick app. I uninstalled that and restarted the system.

Time to test again this week I guess. Avoiding plex and twitter embeds, and if i will see if it happens.. and if it doesn't and i have to watch a video in twitter or have to use plex, i will do one, but not the other.. And see if it (coincidentally) happens that day i am using the system. hopefully allowing me to narrow it down. If I use it all now and it doesn't happen for weeks, then i guess it was soundflower, despite that have been using default system audio for months, except for the screenflick app.
 
Hope it is not, but it still sounds like the harder you load the gpu the more it stalls. Makes my earlier point more valid. Maybe use iStat to monitor the gpu?
 
After specifically not having played videos on certain sites automatically, and all the stuff i've mentioned, nothing happened for a while. And upgrading to High Sierra has resolved the problem it seems.

I've slowly started going back to the main account where the problem was on.. it went well.
I started using things like plex, and loading twitter videos, etc.. so far so good.

I "guess" that the high sierra upgrade has addressed the issue, not that i know what the issue was. And I am quite content with that.
 
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