Safari freezes for 3-5 sec

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Hi,

Recently, when I open some pages in Safari, it freezes for about 3-5 sec. In that time my cursor switches to that rainbow fan. It is really annoying, because I can't even scroll down the page!

I think it has to do with flash loading. The strange thing is that it only begun recently... And I never even installed an add-on on.
I also tried reseting safari, but the problem persists.

Does anyone know how can I solve this?
Thanks!
 
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Yes, don't use Safari.
This is normal and 3-5 seconds isn't so bad, but it is irritating.
In my experience Safari struggles with flash heavy sites, and it's why I use Firefox on my old laptop and chrome on the iMac.
 
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The strange thing is that this started happening recently. Do you think I got a trojan or virus?
 

bobtomay

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I've been using Safari pretty strictly for about a year now and I do not have this experience in general. However, using another browser to test is always a good idea... and it's always a good idea to have at least one other browser as backup on any computer.

However, when I do start seeing this with Safari, I'm also just beginning to see the beachball at other times. Safari does seem to be the first app where I really notice it, probably because it's the most used app.

On my machine, it's pretty much related to a cluttered drive and/or free space fragmentation. The way in which your drive is used does have an effect on this. I tend to move a lot of large files (1GB and larger) on and off the drive.

The first thing I do when I notice it is run Onyx and clean everything. For me, this is once every 2-3 months and typically takes care of the problem when the drive has more than about 40% free space. By the time I've hit 30%, my free space is typically over 50% fragmented and it's time not only to run Onyx, but also free up some more space and run iDefrag to get my speedy machine back.

ymmv - If you're sitting there with a drive that has 50% or more free space, the above is likely not your issue. Just wanted to throw this out there. And by all means, if just switching to another browser does the job for you, go for it. My experience may not be yours and the path of least resistance is always the easiest.
 

bobtomay

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The strange thing is that this started happening recently. Do you think I got a trojan or virus?

There are no viruses and if you're not being redirected to sites that you didn't intend to go to, then you have no Trojan.


edit: Let me also add, when you're having the issue - is it only one site and other sites are loading just fine?
This problem could be related to the site itself or it could be the ad servers. The ads you run into on most sites are not stored on that site, but they are embedded links to and are pulling the ads from one or more ad servers. When those ad servers run into problems it can make it appear as if your browser has a problem, when in reality, it has nothing to do with your machine at all.
 
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Thanks for the advices bobtomay!

To answer you, the problem occurs every time I open a page with flash. But it only occurs in the first page I open, after that safari can open other flash pages without delay.

As you advised, I used Onyx to clean everything. But I'm still getting that **** beach ball...

I run the demo version of iDefrag, but although most of my disk is red (in the image) the statistics say only 0.1/0.4% is fragmented. I attached some images so you can tell me if I'm doing something wrong.

Thanks again!

screenshot20101113at953.png

screenshot20101113at953.png
 

chscag

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Actually, the fragmentation on your drive is negligible, however, it's the free contiguous space that I would be concerned about. Notice where the free space is located... For example, you probably would not be able to create a Windows partition with Boot Camp without first consolidating that free space. But if you never intend to dual boot Windows, don't worry about it.
 

bobtomay

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Have a feeling this is going to be one of my books here.

A flash issue - or should I say one of them. Man... can't really tell you if that is an issue with flash, the site(s), the ad server dishing out the flash ads or some combination.

I doubt very seriously that defragging will take care of that issue. It could be that fragmentation is affecting the initial loading of flash into memory, but that's really above my tech level. You could probably look on the 'Files' tab in iDefrag to see if it's listed there.

While you're looking at idefrag, I can point out a couple of things about what you're seeing and my own experience. I went 3 years on my machine without defragging and not much problem. And I did have the demo copy of iDefrag on my machine during that time and checked it out on occasion.

Earlier this year my system started slowing down too much for my taste. I'd allowed it to get down to just under 30% free space. Even after moving enough off the drive to get it back to 40%, it still just wasn't back up to snuff speed wise.

You should open up the Help file with iDefrag. Head for Help - Browse iDefrag Help - Main Display - have a read over that section.

The bottom bar on the Layout tab, all that red you're seeing represents fragmented files. And, as you can see both your files and your free space (the white areas) are spread from one end of the drive to the other. That's about what mine looked like when I broke down and bought iDefrag to see if it would take care of my slow downs. Mine currently looks like this - it's been about 3 weeks since the most recent defrag:

20101114-gjfunrkgxy3jyq3mwey1nrweku.png


I will say that unlike all my Windows machines over the years, on my Mac I have not "noticed" slow downs due to fragmentation until I hit around the 30-40% free space. Under all versions of Windows up through XP, I could tell the difference before and after a defrag if I hadn't done it in awhile on drives with 80-90% free space. So OS X is far ahead of the game there.

For me, it's time to start thinking about a new drive. I've found that for my own expectations, I'm not satisfied with the operation of my machine at 30% free space even after defragging. When I get back to 40% and a defrag, then I'm satisfied with it's speed. Just have more stuff that I want on the system partition and can't keep it down to that level any more.

Like I say, ymmv. I don't think there are that many as picky as I am about slow down issues and I don't believe that iDefrag is at all necessary for most users of OS X. If you're not experiencing slow downs and the beachball, it probably would produce no noticeable effect on your machine either.

edit: One more thing - always make sure you have a current backup before moving this much data around on a drive.
 
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All right, thanks for the help!

Actually, I don't think my whole system is slow. Only safari when loading flash. So, as you said, it must be a flash issue. Anyway, I'll search for a free defrag tool (since iDefrag is a quite expensive).

Cheers!
 
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chas_m

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Maybe I'm missing something, but why not just install a flash-blocking extension?

And while you're at it, you could also check to make sure you're running the latest version of Flash ... they've been updating it a lot lately ...
 
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The thing is some sites I visit use flash technology, so I can't block it. And my system is running the latest flash version.

It's really annoying, because it is beginning to happen more often! Every time I open a webpage with flash I have to wait for that **** beach ball!!

By the way, I think this started after I've noticed my macbook making a strange noise. It's almost inaudible, I can only hear it if my surroundings are completely silent. The noise come from under the Caps Lock key or maybe the USB ports. The noise sounds like like electricity passing by. It doesn't matter if I'm running with battery or connected to the electricity: the noise is always there.

I've already run Apple Hardware Test and my macbook passed.
What do you think this can be?

And do you think I should post this in another thread?

Cheers
 

iWhat

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Install ClickToFlash, I think you'll like it.

ClickToFlash
 

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