Possible Safari bug - or something else??

So - this has happened 2, maybe 3 times now. I'll be chugging along on my MBP doing - whatever - and suddenly I'll notice that Safari will be struggling - for instance - if I click "Quick Links" up top - the drop down will slowly materialize. Next, I notice that the fans are cranking up - CPU is up to 178 degrees - Activity Monitor shows the CPU utilization by Safari at 100%.

Very Bizarre - actually. I quit Safari - and the problem goes away. I've only seen it a maximum of 3 times - and I can't correlate it with anything.

Yes - flash is blocked. I'm usually doing nothing more taxing than getting my Mac-Forums fix.

Haven't seen it on the iMac yet - but it doesn't have nearly the hours of use yet.

Figured I'd post this - see if anyone else has observed this. I took a snapshot of Activity Monitor - which I'll add later - it's on the other computer. If it happens again - I'll post another shot.

The odd thing is Safari just sits there stuck at 100% CPU cranking away - but doing who knows what.

That is odd Safari is working so hard. Have you tried clearing the cache and browsing history in Safari, closing it, and restarting your Mac?
I'm just guessing, but see if that doesn't make a difference. Oh, and if that doesn't work, try verifying permissions and if necessary, repairing permissions in Disk Utility.

An old link but it might be worth taking a look at. Essentially, it could be a corrupt Safe Browsing DB. Worth a try - it's easy to test.

BrianLachoreVPI said:

CPU is up to 178 degrees

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178 *C, and it didn't shut off/melt??

1.66 GB from Safari.

You need to quit browsing those HD porn sites. ;D

Don't think I've ever seen Safari hit 100% on mine unless I had some flash content running. And probably 300-500 MB memory in use - course I only have 3 GB instead of 8 to start with.


nice link there van

MYmacROX said:

That is odd Safari is working so hard. Have you tried clearing the cache and browsing history in Safari, closing it, and restarting your Mac?
I'm just guessing, but see if that doesn't make a difference. Oh, and if that doesn't work, try verifying permissions and if necessary, repairing permissions in Disk Utility.

Click to expand...

Yes - very odd - which is why I decided to make this post - having witnessed it 2 or 3 times now. Really - all I have to do is close Safari. Once I restart Safari - it'll be just fine again.

vansmith said:

An old link but it might be worth taking a look at. Essentially, it could be a corrupt Safe Browsing DB. Worth a try - it's easy to test.

Click to expand...

Nice find. Thanks much. Seems like some of the comments mimic my symptoms exactly.

robduckyworth said:

178 *C, and it didn't shut off/melt??

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No Just the aircraft engines were running strong. I can get it that warm with Aperture fairly easily.

bobtomay said:

1.66 GB from Safari.

You need to quit browsing those HD porn sites. ;D

Don't think I've ever seen Safari hit 100% on mine unless I had some flash content running. And probably 300-500 MB memory in use - course I only have 3 GB instead of 8 to start with.


nice link there van

Click to expand...

I know I should but ...

Seriously though - Safari averages about 1 GB on any given day for me. 1.6 GB was odd - a bit anomalous.

It's not uncommon for me to have 2 Safari windows with about 9 or so tabs open on each - but none of them are running flash.

I got Opera up to 2GB once (that was on purpose though). I had to open 140 tabs or something like that. I took a screenshot - I'll have to see if I can find it.

When you see Safari hit 1GB plus RAM usage, how many tabs do you have open. Most on my iMac I have seen is maybe 550-600 MB. Sometimes after a few days it gets a little jerky, but no 100% CPU or anything.

I'm running 350 MB with only 5 tabs open right now - 3 of them from this site - one the site Van linked to - and one is my Google news RSS feed.

I'm going to monitor this closely until I can correlate it with something. I'll also pay attention to what exact tabs/links are open if I see the 100% symptom again based on the lead Van posted.

Let us know if the problem is solved by removing the Safe Browsing DB if the issue comes back. It'll be interesting to see if it is indeed the problem and whether or not it's specific to Safari or the Safe Browsing service itself (which is used in Chrome and Firefox as well).

brianlachorevpi said:

y
no just the aircraft engines were running strong. I can get it that warm with aperture fairly easily..

Click to expand...

178c = 352f.....

baggss said:

178c = 352f.....

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Ahhhh - I didn't even notice that he had added the C. I didn't specify a unit - but here in the states - I can only really think in F.

vansmith said:

Let us know if the problem is solved by removing the Safe Browsing DB if the issue comes back. It'll be interesting to see if it is indeed the problem and whether or not it's specific to Safari or the Safe Browsing service itself (which is used in Chrome and Firefox as well).

Click to expand...

I definitely will. I'm waiting to run into it again before making that change. Based on that link - it should be recreatable if I find the right site. So I think I'll wait - if it happens again - take careful note of the links open - then close Safari and try to recreate the symptom - and if I can - then I'll follow the instructions and post back.

Now that I'm paying a little closer attention - almost makes me wonder if Safari has a memory leak. I have 2 tabs open - one is the Mac-Forums home page and the second is still the link Van posted earlier. Here's what I'm up to.



As I said before, I typically see Safari memory use hover near 1 GB. Will be watching this all day just out of curiosity.

Brian, to me Safari, Firefox 4 and and even Opera seem to have a memory leak somewhere. All 3 go up and up in memory usage over time here.

Have you tried opening Safari as a 32bit application?

JUKE179r said:

Have you tried opening Safari as a 32bit application?

Click to expand...

I have not. Why do you suggest this?

Also, as this has only been experienced twice (albeit within a week) it's not a huge deal - I'm just trying to see if I can isolate the cause.

Just out of curiosity, do you have Flash installed on your machine?

Whenever I have problems in Safari I run it in 32bit.
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