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Micka88

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Dec 25, 2019
345
133
Not only that Safari is not able to play 4k videos on Youtube like any other browser and ends with HD, now almost no video can be played on youtube - you can reload as many times as you want, it will never start. Switching to Firefox or Chrome - the same video playing immediately. Some websites collapse in Safari, in other browsers perfect. What is going on ? Is Apple not able to make a normally working browser ?
 
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JBGoode

macrumors 65816
Jun 16, 2018
1,360
1,922
Not only that Safari is not able to play 4k videos on Youtube like any other browser and ends with HD, now almost no video can be played on youtube - you can reload as many times as you want, it will never start. Switching to Firefox or Chrome - the same video playing immediately. Some websites collapse in Safari, in other browsers perfect. What is going on ? Is Apple not able to make a normally working browser ?


I noticed it after the last OS update on my Mac. Do you have an ad-blocker installed? Disabling Ad Guard solved the problem for me. Not an ideal solution and I'd like to know why this is happening.
 

dhoughal

macrumors regular
Jun 29, 2017
134
258
I recently switched to Firefox, because Safari gets page loading timeouts and often gets totally stuck on a lot of web sites I usually visit... with and without ad-blocker.
 
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Micka88

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Dec 25, 2019
345
133
Youtube see:
(random videos). In any other browser ok ...

Not able to play 4k is another thing
 

Micka88

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Dec 25, 2019
345
133
I use the latest MacBook Pro 16''... Nobody really noticed that Safari is unable to play 4k and 8k videos and is stuck to HD only ???

See Safari and Firefox (the same video)

Screenshot 2020-06-19 at 19.27.49.png
Screenshot 2020-06-19 at 19.25.44.png
 

.max

macrumors member
Feb 24, 2009
57
78
Not only that Safari is not able to play 4k videos on Youtube like any other browser and ends with HD

I was annoyed with this too, so I made a Safari extension that lets you know if there’s 4K. Look up 4Ktube.
 

Tomb01

macrumors 6502
Jan 6, 2009
482
49
Colleyville, TX
I can confirm that. I would love to use Safari, but it is simply too slow and unresponsive in loading certain pages.

Ditto. I find my self having to reload or 'force reload' on many pages. Simply trying to open the weather map on accuweather for my hometown hangs. Many other pages 'pause' in their loading, which takes up to 20 or 30 seconds to finally become responsive. Am shifting to Firefox which has none of these problems until Safari gets its act together.
 

Geoff777

macrumors regular
Jun 17, 2020
228
144
I use Safari mostly but Brave when things slow down - Brave fixes most issues I encounter but I'd still rather use Safari - not sure why :)
 

Tomb01

macrumors 6502
Jan 6, 2009
482
49
Colleyville, TX
I use Safari exclusively and have minimal issues. Is it just a 4K thing?

Not on my system. It is strange behavior loading miscellaneous webpages. The most reproducible seems to be accuweather.com, which hangs almost every time I open it, usually fixed by a 'force reload', but the fix is not persistent. This happens on other sites as well, often the page will load, but then selectable objects on the page will not respond, requiring a reload, or close and reopen. Often a page will 'mostly' load, then pause while it loads other objects (usually advertising, which are sourced from another site) and during the pause I can scroll but not select anything. Seems to have started with Catalina 10.15.4 but is noticeably worse (for me, anyway) with 10.15.5. Again, Firefox does not exhibit this behavior (am typing this from Firefox now).
 

boswald

macrumors 65816
Jul 21, 2016
1,311
2,192
Florida
That’s really strange! I’d try an adblocking app with whitelisting and block most ads, then use a process of elimination. Also try disabling JavaScript and see if that is a temporary workaround.
 

Tomb01

macrumors 6502
Jan 6, 2009
482
49
Colleyville, TX
Sigh, still no change in behavior on my system. Seems to be mostly complex pages that load a lot of ads or other content. Frequently have to force reload a page to get it all, or close it and re-open.
 

Tomb01

macrumors 6502
Jan 6, 2009
482
49
Colleyville, TX
For me it's not just YouTube. Even opening this forum just now, Safari froze, not letting me type anything in with an x instead of the 'reload page' in the address bar. Had to 'force reload' THIS page. Seems to be most repeatable on sites like weather.com, where only half the page will load, then the page will 'freeze' with the x and I have to force reload it to get it to finally finish. None of this happens on Firefox, have also tried Opera and none of it happens there either. Sadly, this seems to be a Safari issue.
 

Taz Mangus

macrumors 604
Mar 10, 2011
7,815
3,504
For me it's not just YouTube. Even opening this forum just now, Safari froze, not letting me type anything in with an x instead of the 'reload page' in the address bar. Had to 'force reload' THIS page. Seems to be most repeatable on sites like weather.com, where only half the page will load, then the page will 'freeze' with the x and I have to force reload it to get it to finally finish. None of this happens on Firefox, have also tried Opera and none of it happens there either. Sadly, this seems to be a Safari issue.

Have you tried creating a new clean user and see if the issue still happens in the new user account.
 
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