As of right now (using WiFi 5 GHz in a different room in my house with my MacBook) MR still seems to be coming up OK for me but I'm seeing this (or maybe a completely different) problem with Amazon. A few minutes ago I was doing some searching on Amazon and everything was fine. Then I did a search and the search results came back fast but none of the product images were showing. I cleared the privacy cache (mentioned previously) for Amazon, opened a new tab (per your comment) and pulled up the Amazon site fast. I needed to login again (since I had just cleared the privacy cache) and it's completely hanging just from me clicking on the "Hello, Sign in" link at the top right. I open up a new Google Chrome tab and it looks like that link is loading fine (and fast) for me, so there definitely seems to be a Safari aspect to this, but I'm pretty sure that I was seeing some of my problems yesterday with Chrome, too (and I was connected via cat 6 ethernet *directly* to my primary router - AirPort Time Capsule).
The various problems that I (and my family) are seeing may all be completely unrelated, but here's some more background on my situation:
- My MacBook Pro (MBP 16 2019) is on the latest OS (Big Sur 11.2.3) - I just updated it yesterday.
- Comcast Xfinity gigabit internet
- I own my own cable modem (I'm not next to it now, but I'm fairly certain that it's the Netgear CM1200 which supposedly supports 2000Mbps download)
- One AirPort Time Capsule (latest revision, I think...not sure how to check that) running the latest firmware 7.9.1
- Two (2) other AirPort Extreme (again, latest revision, I think) also running latest firmware, both connected via Cat5e or Cat6 (or a mix of both along the run) and with a couple of switches (gigabit capable) in between one or both of those. I don't have the details/specs on the specific switch makes/models and forget how many switches are in-between the runs, but I could track that info down easily and update my post later
- After having some even worse problems about a week ago, I recently hard-reset all of my AE's and set them all up as new, accepting most/all of the default settings (I have Wireless Security set to "WPA2 Personal" which I *think* is the default). All of my AE's are configured to broadcast their SSID, all have the Guest network enabled (with " Guest" tacked on to the end of my WiFi network name), all have a separate name for the 5GHz network (again, similar, with " 5GHZ" tacked on to the main WiFi network name), and all are using the same names as the primary network (something I've considered changing to allow me to dictate which AE each IOT device uses).
- It might also be worth mentioning that I do have two Wyze cams currently connected and in use. These use on-board storage and/or are configured to give me alerts based on movement, but I've often wondered how much bandwidth they might hog up inside my home and how much data they transmit outside of my home, even though I'm not storing full data feeds in the cloud.
- I'm pretty sure that most of my IOT devices are 2.4 GHz only.
- I'm purposely setting my iPhone and MBP to use the 5 GHz network exclusively. I haven't done this yet for my wife or daughter, but will be doing so.
- My MBP's Safari is up-to-date and I'm not currently using any extensions (I have Honey installed but disabled it a while ago).
So, some incidents of issues/oddities:
- As I think I noted previously, when I was having trouble yesterday my MBP was connected *directly* to my main AETC router. My work MBP was *also* connected via ethernet (I can't remember if it was connected to the AETC or to a switch connected to the AETC). It was VPN connected for work and appeared to be working fine in that regard (I didn't attempt to bring up the same websites, so I can't comment on that).
- Also yesterday I was having a problem with the App Store not showing images (I believe, more specifically, that it started when I clicked on the "More Extensions..." button through Safari. I did a separate web search about this problem and found a recommendation to delete the cached images (I forget the details right now about where that was stored), which seemed to fix this issue, so it may be unrelated, but I note it because it feels similar to some of the web browsing issues I sometimes see with a website loading fast but not its images or CSS info.
- Last night while eating dinner, both my wife and daughter commented that they were having similar problems with *some* websites not loading or loading extremely slowly. They seemed to indicate that it was mostly with sites that they use often.
- Earlier this morning, I was surfing the web and took a look via the AirPort Utility on my MacBook and was examining which wireless clients were connected to which AirPort Extremes. I found it interesting that a couple of devices were connected to one of the farthest AE's (in this case, I believe it was one of our Echo Spots, a Meross smartplug, and an iHome smartplug). This supports what I thought might be the case (and which I've read from some online sources) that when most (all?) of these IOT devices first power on, they'll connect to whichever WiFi connection they're able to and won't change to a better/closer one later if their current connection is still "good enough").
- At one point this morning, I brought the AirPort Utility up and it was showing my AETC (primary router) and one other router as "Device not found". Yet, my internet was working fine. Quitting the app and restarting the app (a few times) didn't seem to cause this to "refresh" and show correctly. But maybe 5 minutes later, it seemed to correct itself. I just had this happen again (this time it was showing the two extended routers as being "Device not found" and this time it seemed to refresh and show them connected pretty quickly).
After writing all of that, Amazon on Safari appears to be working fine again now.
Some other random thoughts/ideas:
- I'm strongly considering getting a Raspberry Pi and configuring it with pi-hole (or something similar) for adblocking (and whatever-else-blocking) purposes. Part of me wonders if any of that may be a factor in the issues I'm having.
- I moved into a new neighborhood and have several houses within throwing distance to me now (I was previously pretty secluded in the woods). I see about 6 other WiFi networks in the drop-down list on my MBP with at least one bar, so I don't know if interference may be an issue.
- I wonder if I may be providing too much WiFi interference of my own with the 3 AE's I have in my house. Maybe I don't need all three? Maybe I don't even need more than my primary router here? But I want to utilize 5 GHz for our MacBooks, iPhones, and Apple Watches, so having multiple AE's around the house seems like it would be necessary for optimal 5 GHz coverage.
- As I was typing this reply I was also opening up other Safari tabs to search things and was hitting some slowdown on Apple's website, too. Again (in this instance, anyway), Google Chrome returned the site quickly. So at least *some* of my issues seem to be Safari-related. After typing this reply, I'll try quitting Safari altogether and restarting it. I may also look into getting the Safari Technology Preview.
Despite my super-long post, I probably forgot about some things.
