Safari Loading Problem

[gasport]

Safari worked fine for me for a year on an iMac i7. In the last several months I have encountered a problem where Safari takes forever to finally load. If I reset Safari, it would start immediately but even that does not entirely solve the slow loading problem.

Initially Safari starts, the the spinning disk appears, and eventually in the Activity Monitor I see Safari using quite a bit of CPU. If I look at the Force Quit Applications window, Safari eventually becomes unresponsive. After awhile, it will load and everything is fine. I have seen many suggestions about DNS and HDD problems, but this is the only App that does this. The other browsers I have on the MAC will load immediately.

Any recent ideas or leads on what is happening?

 

[r0k]

Safari worked fine for me for a year on an iMac i7. In the last several months I have encountered a problem where Safari takes forever to finally load. If I reset Safari, it would start immediately but even that does not entirely solve the slow loading problem.

Initially Safari starts, the the spinning disk appears, and eventually in the Activity Monitor I see Safari using quite a bit of CPU. If I look at the Force Quit Applications window, Safari eventually becomes unresponsive. After awhile, it will load and everything is fine. I have seen many suggestions about DNS and HDD problems, but this is the only App that does this. The other browsers I have on the MAC will load immediately.

Any recent ideas or leads on what is happening?

Do you need Safari for a particular reason? If it is the only thing not working right, why not move on to Chrome or Firefox rather than running the risk of breaking something you do need trying to fix something you don't need?

I have Safari set as the default browser on my Mac but I use Chrome and occasionally Firefox. When I launch Safari, it seems to take a long time to load but it doesn't distract me since it's not my main browser. Another thing to note is the next version of OS X is supposed to come with a greatly improved Safari.

There are a few things to try before walking away from Safari altogether...

In Safari preferences, try the following...
General: New windows open with: Empty Page
General: New tabs open with: Empty page
Bookmarks: (during debugging Uncheck include address book and bonjour for bookmarks bar and bookmarks menu)
Bookmarks: (during debugging Uncheck synchronize bookmarks using mobileme)
Security: Web Content: (uncheck enable plug-ins), (check block pop-up windows), (during debugging uncheck java), (during debugging uncheck javascript)
Accept cookies: (check only from sites I visit)
Extensions: (during debugging change switch to OFF)

If you make the debugging settings above, Safari should launch quickly. You can then enable one thing at a time to spot the culprit. For me the usual suspects are bonjour, extensions, and most often the cause is non Empty Pages opening for new tabs and windows. If you open some site with a few meg of javascript as your default page in every tab and window, shame on you for letting some thoughtless web developer stall your browser every time you need to use it for something else.

hope this helps...

 

[gasport]

Thanks r0k,

Set all the preferences as you indicate and Safari still took a long time to load, over 2 minutes. It is obviously some other problem.

I rarely use Safari and it did work well until several months ago. I first noticed it when some app I installed, that has some integration with Safari. I wrote the developer of the app and he said it should have no impact on Safari. I did uninstall that app and the problem has continued.

If I choose to reset Safari, it still takes time to start but not as long. I think I will give up on trying to figure it out and wait for Lion. When I do need it, like you, I will just wait.