Why does Safari freeze scrolling while other browsers do not?

[theorist9]

I'm running MacOS Monterey 12.7.4 with Safari 17.4 in a 2019 27" i9 iMac.

Starting several months ago, I've regularly encountered scrolling freezes in Safari—where the page becomes unresponsive to scrolling. I read the NY Times daily, so I often encounter it there. I'm aware that many websites simply don't work well with Safari, so I figured this was just an unfortunate interaction between Safari and the design of those websites.

However, today, I experienced that on MacRumors. And if any sites are going to be Safari-compatible, this should be one of them. Hence it seems it's not a website coding issue, but rather a Safari issue.

Further, while this was happening, I copied the URL into Firefox, tested the scrolling there, and found no issues. This rules out both my internet connection and the MR servers as the source of the problem.

Here are two screenshots showing what I'm seeing. In the first screenshot, the scrollbar is at the top, and the view is at the top, as it should be. In the second screenshot, I've moved the scrollbar to the bottom, but the view is frozen at the top. I.e., there's no response to scrollbar movement. This will typically fix itself after a minute or two.

The problem is intermittent. It may have started with v. 17, which was released 9/18/2023, but I'm not certain. I am certain that it has persisted through a few v. 17 point updates.

Ideas?

SCROLLBAR AT TOP; SCREEN SHOWS TOP OF WEBPAGE, AS IT SHOULD:

SCROLLBAR MOVED TO BOTTOM, BUT WEBPAGE REMAINS FROZEN AT TOP:

 

[Isamilis]

Have you tried disabling all the extensions? Or, try create new user and see if the problem persists.

 

[JavaMania5]

Have you tried disabling all the extensions? Or, try create new user and see if the problem persists.

I have a brand new iMac M3 that I'm still getting used to but I have already experienced a similar situation. Just doing my mourning emails and a few web searches and then a screen freeze. I sometimes can get the reload to refresh the page I'm on but most often I need to close the page and relaunch it. Some of the freezes are on pages I visit every day but the freezing is hit and miss. Not a big deal yet but my old 27" iMac never froze on those same web sites.

 

[Isamilis]

I would say, it’s not normal behavior. Did you just install drivers of peripherals like printer, hard drive etc? Probably they are not fully compatible with the macOS.

 

[svenmany]

I've not seen this. I use Safari a lot on MacRumors.

Do you have private relay turned on? Safari would use that and Firefox would not.

Do you have Firefox left to its defaults regarding DNS? If so, then Firefox is using DNS servers that are different than the system ones used by Safari. It could be a DNS problem.

Safari has a web inspector under the "Develop" menu item. It's available if you check off the "Show features for web developers" in the advanced settings. If you were to look at that you would see that just scrolling on this website triggers a lot of network traffic. You might see something there that is causing a delay. It would be bad coding on Apple's part if that got in the way of scrolling, but that's well within the range of Apple's software carelessness.

 

[chown33]

There was a WebKit bug that affected Safari and Mail.app for several months. It was fixed recently:

New text typing bug where text gets randomly replaced

Update from TidBITS: https://tidbits.com/2024/02/07/macos-14-3-sonoma-text-display-bug-to-be-fixed-soon/

forums.macrumors.com

The apps listed in that thread all appear to use WebKit. Its use in Safari would be obvious, but Mail.app and Notes.app would almost certainly use it for displaying styled text.

Maybe this is just another WebKit bug.

 

[theorist9]

Have you tried disabling all the extensions? Or, try create new user and see if the problem persists.

All extensions have been disabled for at least the past year.

I would say, it’s not normal behavior. Did you just install drivers of peripherals like printer, hard drive etc? Probably they are not fully compatible with the macOS.

The only one I installed recently (within the past year) is Logitech GHub, but that was two months ago, and I believe the isssue has been going on longer than this.

Do you have private relay turned on? Safari would use that and Firefox would not.

Do you have Firefox left to its defaults regarding DNS? If so, then Firefox is using DNS servers that are different than the system ones used by Safari. It could be a DNS problem.

I'm not using Private Relay. I looked into it some time ago, and found it wouldn't work for me, but I can't recall why.

I've not made any adjustments to Firefox. Does Chrome also use different DNS servers from Safari?

 

[theorist9]

Here's another Safari-specific bug. Can any of you replicate it?

1) On this page, click on the magnifying glass at the top right to open the MR forums search box:

2) Enter a search term (here I used "test"), and highlight it using your mouse:

3) Then release the left click button. When I do that in Firefox and Chrome, nothing happens. The searchbox stays open, as it should. But when I do that in Safari, the search box disappears.

 

[svenmany]

I've not made any adjustments to Firefox. Does Chrome also use different DNS servers from Safari?

It probably does. I just can't remember if I changed my Chrome, which I have set to OS default. But, you can check your settings at:

Settings / Privacy and Security / Security / Select DNS provider.

-- Edit --

Actually, the setting just above that one is probably more relevant. If you have "Use secure DNS", then it is not using the same DNS as Safari.

 

[svenmany]

Here's another Safari-specific bug. Can any of you replicate it?

1) On this page, click on the magnifying glass at the top right to open the search box:
View attachment 2364082

2) Enter a search term (here I used "test"), and highlight it using your mouse:

View attachment 2364060

3) Then release the left click button. When I do that in Firefox and Chrome, nothing happens. The searchbox stays open, as it should. But when I do that in Safari, the search box disappears.

I see that bug as well. I've seen the same behavior on the Bank of America website for one of the bill pay popups. It's been that way for at least a couple of years.

 

[theorist9]

I see that bug as well. I've seen the same behavior on the Bank of America website for one of the bill pay popups. It's been that way for at least a couple of years.

What computer/OS/Safari version are you runnning?

 

[svenmany]

What computer/OS/Safari version are you runnning?

I've tested for your bug using Sonoma 14.4.1 and Safari 17.4.1 on two computers: a 2018 Intel MacBook Pro and a 2023 M2 MacBook Pro. And I've seen the Bank of America version on both computers.

As an aside, whenever I need to copy some text in the problematic popup, I type command-c before releasing the mouse.

 

[theorist9]

I've tested for your bug using Sonoma 14.4.1 and Safari 17.4.1 on two computers: a 2018 Intel MacBook Pro and a 2023 M2 MacBook Pro. And I've seen the Bank of America version on both computers.

As an aside, whenever I need to copy some text in the problematic popup, I type command-c before releasing the mouse.

Most typically, I'm not trying to copy the text. But if I am, my workaround for that is to click in the field, release the mouse, and hit CMD-A-C. [If I click in the field but don't highlight, I can release the mouse without the box disappearing.]

Instead, the reason I highlight it is typically because I want to replace it with something else. Normally I'd highlight it and simply type the new text. Since that doesn't work in Safari, my workaround is to either put my cursor at the end and then backspace to the beginning, or click anywhere in the text box and hit CMD-A and type in the new text.

 

[NewOldStock]

I clear out history and it allows me to go a while then it happens again.
Not any particular websites it will lock up/freeze.
Looking back through the forum it's been happening a while now.
Other browsers dont have that issue for me anyway.
Not sure when it started because it is so random.
Sonoma 14.5
Safari Version 17.5 (19618.2.12.11.6) June-27-2024

Sometimes I wonder if it is the track pad doing it //bluetooth interference maybe.

 

[theorist9]

I recently had Safari freeze scrolling on apple.com (!), so my theory that it's website compatability just went out the window (or at least it's not always website compatability).

 

[Ybersetzer]

I've been experiencing the very same scrolling freeze (on the NYTimes-page) as the original poster, it was a recurring problem (would appear, and disappear after a couple of days or a week) with my previous M1 Air (had been running for close to three years at this point). Just switched to a brand spanking new and freshly installed M3 Air and it shows the same problem on day two of its use. NYTimes homepage becoming unscrollable.

 

[arinamichel911]

Have you applied all the things like reset safari, clear cache and resource usage?

 

[Ybersetzer]

Have you applied all the things like reset safari, clear cache and resource usage?

To be frank, I've found the problem to be intermittent (luckily, though annoyingly enough) and hard to pin down. The problem going away on its own after a few days without clearing cache or resetting etc. seem to indicate that it's not a cache-related problem. A "fix" for when I want to finish reading an article that I can't scroll is to use reader mode – reader mode will scroll without a problem. The last days or so I have not encountered the problem. Keeping fingers crossed – I like Safari enough to put up with the issue. And since I solely encounter the problem with the NYTimes-site specifically it's not too much of a hassle.

 

[betaperson]

I have the same freezing problem. Intermittent. I blame it on Sonoma 14.5 update as it is a roundish number update. hoping a .51 update will correct. Same with Safari being 17.5. That might be old Microsoft thinking but that's my thinking.

 

[bogdanw]

3) Then release the left click button.

What do you mean by that?

Regarding scrolling, there are several scroll flags that can be turned on/off.
“Show features for web developers” https://support.apple.com/guide/safari/ibrw1075/

 

[theorist9]

What do you mean by that?

Not sure what your confusion is. It's exactly as described: To select a word, you move your cursor to one end of a word, depress your left click button, drag the cursor across the word, and then release the left click button. If you try doing it now you'll see what I mean.

With the behavior I was seeing, as soon as you release the left click button, the search box disappears.

Regarding scrolling, there are several scroll flags that can be turned on/off.
“Show features for web developers” https://support.apple.com/guide/safari/ibrw1075/

Any idea what I should turn on or off to fix my scrolling issue?

 

[bogdanw]

Not sure what your confusion is. It's exactly as described: To select a word, you move your cursor to one end of a word, depress your left click button, drag the cursor across the word, and then release the left click button. If you try doing it now you'll see what I mean.

With the behavior I was seeing, as soon as you release the left click button, the search box disappears.

I usually double click to select words. Anyway, it doesn’t happen either way in Sonoma 14.5 (23F79) Safari 17.5 (19618.2.12.11.6)

Any idea what I should turn on or off to fix my scrolling issue?

I don’t know, I don’t have any problems with scrolling in the default configuration.

Maybe an extension is causing this problem.

 

[theorist9]

I usually double click to select words. Anyway, it doesn’t happen either way in Sonoma 14.5 (23F79) Safari 17.5 (19618.2.12.11.6)
View attachment 2398730

I don’t know, I don’t have any problems with scrolling in the default configuration.

Thanks for testing it out. svenmany was able to reproduce the disappearing search box in Sonoma, on two different Macs (though he tested it earlier than you did, and thus on earlier versions of Sonoma/Safari):

I see that bug as well. I've seen the same behavior on the Bank of America website for one of the bill pay popups. It's been that way for at least a couple of years.....I've tested for your bug using Sonoma 14.4.1 and Safari 17.4.1 on two computers: a 2018 Intel MacBook Pro and a 2023 M2 MacBook Pro. And I've seen the Bank of America version on both computers.

As an aside, whenever I need to copy some text in the problematic popup, I type command-c before releasing the mouse.

Maybe an extension is causing this problem.

Someone else was wondering that earlier. Here's my answer (from post #7, above):

All extensions have been disabled for at least the past year.

 

[bogdanw]

svenmany was able to reproduce the disappearing search box in Sonoma, on two different Macs

It happens if you release the left click button outside the box, in Chrome too.

All extensions have been disabled for at least the past year.

Why disabled and not deleted?
Also delete AppExtensions, SandboxExtensions.db, SandboxExtensions.db-shm, SandboxExtensions.db-wal and WebExtensions from ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.Safari/Data/Library/Safari/
and ContentBlockerStatistics.db, ContentBlockerStatistics.db-wal, PerSitePreferences.db-wal, PerSitePreferences.db, PerSitePreferences.db-shm from ~/Library/Safari/

 

[svenmany]

Thanks for testing it out. svenmany was able to reproduce the disappearing search box in Sonoma, on two different Macs (though he tested it earlier than you did, and thus on earlier versions of Sonoma/Safari):

I just retested and it still happens. A bit of detail...

After dragging to select, if I release the mouse when it's left the area of the popup, the popup will close. If I release the mouse when it's still within the area of the popup, it doesn't. One might guess that Safari is registering the release of the mouse button as a "click". A click outside of the popup is expected to close it.

That's not quite to say that it's entirely a Safari bug or some incompatibility with some particular Javascript. There's some Javascript framework that's in use that is triggering the close of the popup when some event happens. The release of the mouse button shouldn't trigger such an event.