Safari Issues?

[rworne]

Ran into this a day after the GM beta, and happened today with the official release:

Safari (and Mail.app, FWIW) stop loading information from the network. Odd thing is that some 3rd party apps like Firefox continue to work OK.

This happens with a Quit & restart of Safari, by disabling the ad-blocking extensions, and disabling Little Snitch (all these apps are up-to-date).

Only a reboot fixes it, and usually the Mac will fail to reboot and hangs up while logging out. Reboot has to be by holding down the power button. Mojave did not have these issues.

Anyone else seeing this in Safari?

 

[JayBayAye8]

I'm seeing this and it's driving me nuts in Safari 13.0.3 and Catalina 10.15.1

Anyone got a fix for this? Dumping cache, flushing DNS, restarting modem and router, restarting computer. Nothing is getting it done. It'll spontaneously fix itself, sometimes for weeks, sometimes for minutes.

 

[bogdanw]

I'm seeing this and it's driving me nuts in Safari 13.0.3 and Catalina 10.15.1

Why are you still on 10.15.1? Why not update to 10.15.3 & Safari 13.0.5?

 

[JayBayAye8]

Why are you still on 10.15.1? Why not update to 10.15.3 & Safari 13.0.5?

I just updated. Safari worked for about 3 minutes before "Can't connect to server". I'm posting this from Firefox.

 

[bogdanw]

Have you tried using other DNS servers?
Google 8.8.8.8, 8.8.4.4
Cloudflare 1.1.1.1, 1.0.0.1
OpenDNS 208.67.222.222, 208.67.220.220

 

[JayBayAye8]

Have you tried using other DNS servers?
Google 8.8.8.8, 8.8.4.4
Cloudflare 1.1.1.1, 1.0.0.1
OpenDNS 208.67.222.222, 208.67.220.220

I did try that. No avail. Firefox and Chrome work just fine so I'm pretty sure it's not a networking issue. I don't use extensions, no antivirus software, tried everything above like flushing caches, history, DNS cache, all that. PRAM reset.

I'm on the trashcan Mac Pro, the 2013 version I think was the year.

 

[bogdanw]

Firefox and Chrome work just fine so I'm pretty sure it's not a networking issue.

Chrome, and more recently Firefox, ignore the system DNS and connect directly to their prefered DNS: 8.8.8.8:53 for Chrome and 1.1.1.1:443 for Firefox. That's why I thought changing DNS could have made a difference.

 

[JayBayAye8]

Chrome, and more recently Firefox, ignore the system DNS and connect directly to their prefered DNS: 8.8.8.8:53 for Chrome and 1.1.1.1:443 for Firefox. That's why I thought changing DNS could have made a difference.

I wasn't aware of that but I tried again with 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4. THIS TIME however, I actually quit and restarted Safari (not sure why this didn't occur to me before). It appears to have worked. I guess my local ISP's DNS sucks pretty bad. Thanks for pushing me in this direction and continuing to stack more info on, even though I thought I was in the clear. You saved the day!

 

[JayBayAye8]

Well, I have to say. The problem is back. Using Google's DNS helped for a while and now we're back. I'm going to add the others from Cloudflare and OpenDNS and see how that plays out.

 

[bogdanw]

Well, I have to say. The problem is back. Using Google's DNS helped for a while and now we're back. I'm going to add the others from Cloudflare and OpenDNS and see how that plays out.

Here is an AppleScript to easily change the DNS servers for Ethernet.

set DNSinUse to do shell script "networksetup -getdnsservers Ethernet"
set question to display dialog "The current DNS server(s):" & return & DNSinUse buttons {"Set DNS", "DHCP", "Cancel"}
set answer to button returned of question
if answer is equal to "DHCP" then
    do shell script "networksetup -setdnsservers Ethernet Empty"
    do shell script "dscacheutil -flushcache"
end if
if answer is equal to "Set DNS" then
    set question to display dialog "Please select" buttons {"Google DNS", "OpenDNS", "Cloudflare"}
    set answer to button returned of question
    if answer is equal to "Google DNS" then
        do shell script "networksetup -setdnsservers Ethernet 8.8.8.8 8.8.4.4"
        do shell script "dscacheutil -flushcache"
    end if
    if answer is equal to "OpenDNS" then
        do shell script "networksetup -setdnsservers Ethernet 208.67.222.222 208.67.220.220"
        do shell script "dscacheutil -flushcache"
    end if
    if answer is equal to "Cloudflare" then
        do shell script "networksetup -setdnsservers Ethernet 1.1.1.1 1.0.0.1"
        do shell script "dscacheutil -flushcache"
    end if
end if
set newDNS to do shell script "networksetup -getdnsservers Ethernet"
display dialog "The new DNS server(s):" & return & newDNS buttons {"OK"}

You can save it as an app. If you connect throuhg Wi-Fi, just replace Ethernet in the script with Wi-Fi. The DHCP option empties the DNS field(s) and lets the connection get the DNS through DHCP from the router.