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

Safari slowdown...

S

samanthas

macrumors regular
Original poster
Sep 21, 2005
170
5
Portland, OR
Safari is being very slow at loading pages and I think it has something to do with the fact that I used OnyX -- I have since delete that and Safari is still going very slow. It's annoying the (beep) out of me and don't know what to do about it. I was thinking a fresh install of Mac OS X? I just got this computer 3 days ago! When I first got the computer Safari loaded pages very fast.

Intel 1.83, 512MB.
 
samanthas said:
Safari is being very slow at loading pages and I think it has something to do with the fact that I used OnyX -- I have since delete that and Safari is still going very slow. It's annoying the (beep) out of me and don't know what to do about it. I was thinking a fresh install of Mac OS X? I just got this computer 3 days ago! When I first got the computer Safari loaded pages very fast.

Intel 1.83, 512MB.
Click to expand...

Yeah, well, that's a well known problem :( IMHO Safari is borked. Just reboot, and you should be good to go... I have the same problem and I don't have OnyX or any other maintenence software installed (see my system in sig, plenty of RAM - 1.5GB). Safari seems to go insane with memory use... after awhile, I see Safari using like 300-400MB of RAM, and 11GB of Virtual RAM! Eventually it slows down to molasses like speed. Plus I got used to it hanging at least several times a day (usually when I try to close a Safari Window), so I have to force quit it. Also it will occasionally crash (though not often). Firefox has none of these problems. However, when Safari is fast, it is fast (much faster than FF). Again, just try rebooting your computer. Good luck!
 
Do you have any other browsers? If not, download firefox. Reason is to see if the problem is not in your connection. Are you behind a router? How are you connected? Is it an ISP problem? How long has this been going on?
 
No.

I'm connected to an actiontec router via AirPort. I don't think it's not because my stepdad's compute is loading pages fast.

It's been going on since early today. After I used OnyX. My widgets when I first start up seem to load slower as well, but I can't say for sure. Adium is slow as well. I got the beachball for a few seconds in iPhoto (never happened before).

I don't know much about Mac's right now, so I don't know. Do you think a fresh install of Mac OS X would help? How do you even do a fresh install? :eek:
 
Woah, slow down, no need for reinstalling OSX just yet. Do you have any third party add ins for Safari?

Start by Resetting Safari from the Safari menu. Next, go to a folder in your User Account in the Library named Safari within which should be a folder named Icons. Remove everything from within that folder whilst Safari is closed (but not the folder itself). Finally, if it's still acting slow then drag a file named com.apple.Safari.plist from your Preference folder to the desktop (once again whilst Safari is closed). :)
 
I've tried a freshly installed Safari running on 10.4.4 and there are definitely some problems. I'm sometimes experiencing huge lag or 'non connects' when trying to connect to a new site. This is happening perhaps 1/4 of the time, just enough to be annoying. Instead of a webpage starting to download in approx 1 second, It just sits there doing nothing. If I enter the URL again and hit enter, it works straight away. I think something is borked.

I think this is more deep routed and complicated than clearing caches/deleting icons and add-ons. Something similar was happening in later versions of Panther, and possibly in 10.4 - 10.4.1. 'Lookupd' seems to ring a bell.

i've checked my connection and I'm sure it's not that. Pings and traceroutes all fine. UK servers are responding at an average of 25ms and international sites at around 180ms (perfectly normal) with no packet loss what so ever. DNS servers are working fine, as reported by many other users of my ISP.
 
It may still be useful to download another browser, like firefox for mac, to see if the problem is specific to Safari, your machine, or your connection. It will also be an opportunity to see if there's a problem with downloading speed or just a problem displaying pages (graphics card?). Give it a try, can't hurt.
 
TMA, do you have any add-ons? I haven't had any such problems with Safari from the beginning of Panther right up until now so I wonder what's different about your system compared with mine.
 
mad jew said:
TMA, do you have any add-ons?
Click to expand...

PithHelmet (a must!) - But I have tried with and without it on. I've also tried removing it completely.

I'll see if I can search up about the issues I remember happening before under Panther and early Tiger.
 
Sorry I don't mean to hijack this thread, it could perhaps be related.

There's some information about the lookupd bug I mentioned earlier on this page: http://dreamlight.com/insights/bugs/Apple/lookupd.html

It seems that certain domains have previously caused problems for nameserver caching under Tiger. By the looks of that link, it manifested itself as a need to reboot to get functional web access once the bug struck. But I also remember around this time that people were complaining of slow connects to websites, or often time outs (requiring a page re-load to access the site)

It feels to me like a part of this bug has re-appeared.

Other places this has been mentioned before:
http://www.ehmac.ca/archive/index.php/t-34956.html
http://forums.macosxhints.com/showthread.php?t=30226
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/98158/
 
Restarting the computer really shouldn't be necessary. Every now and then Safari slows down for me (a couple of times a year) so I reset it from the Safari menu and so far that has helped every time, but maybe I'm just lucky. :p

I thought Apple fixed the Tiger lookupd problem in 10.4.3 but maybe not. :(
 
"There's some information about the lookupd bug I mentioned earlier on this page: http://dreamlight.com/insights/bugs/Apple/lookupd.html"

I did the quickfix they recommended and it seems to have made the pages faster, because they started going slow again.
 
Also, in addition to resetting Safari every now and then, remember to delete all the contents in ~/Library/Safari/Icons/. That's where Safari keeps all favicons, and with too much in that folder Safari slows down noticeably. That folder does not, for some insane reason, get cleared along with everything else when you reset Safari, either, and must be cleared manually...

Edit: Exactly as MJ said way up in the thread... I gotta start reading more carefully... :eek: ...or not read through a second time so I can remain in an ignorant bliss... ;)
 
I've been thinking about ordering another 512MB of ram though... do you think I will notice a big difference? Because I've been told 512MB is not a lot for Mac OS X.

Thanks.
 
Mitthrawnuruodo said:
Edit: Exactly as MJ said way up in the thread... I gotta start reading more carefully... :eek: ...or not read through a second time so I can remain in an ignorant bliss... ;)
Click to expand...


Well, to be fair I don't think I could have possibly made my explanation any more convoluted and confusing than it already is. :eek:


samanthas said:
I've been thinking about ordering another 512MB of ram though... do you think I will notice a big difference? Because I've been told 512MB is not a lot for Mac OS X.
Click to expand...


I think 1GB of RAM is the current consumer sweet spot for most Mac users. If you can afford it, go for it, you should notice quite a nice speed increase and the ability to multitask more seamlessly. :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back