What’s up with Safari (18.0.1 @ macOS macOS Ventura 13.7)?!?!
Starting yesterday (10/22/2024) it started failing to load websites I regularly visit while at the same time loading many other sites without issues. Safari’s been working AOK since installing it on 10/06/2024. When Safari balked at loading a site, Firefox was able to open them without any issues
Today (10/23/2024) some of the sites it failed to load yesterday load OK while other regularly visited sites now fail to load.
Yesterday I even played around changing some of Safari’s settings I thought could be at play (e.g., Privacy> Prevent cross-site tracking, & Hide IP address from trackers, and some Website specific settings (e.g., Content Blockers, Pop-up Windows) but, alas, the problem persisted
On some sites which attempt to load f-o-r-e-v-e-r, when I cancel [ESC] some content appears, but in total disarray. Possibly noteworthy as well, while these affected sites are loading…. Safari’s tab displays the page’s proper ‘name’
When pages failed to load I also ran Speedtest which typically reported better-than-average speeds.
Soooo, just wondering if anyone else is experiencing this and seeking advice from our esteemed members here
Try holding the shift key and reloading the site in both Safari and Firefox: in Safari to see it fixes the problem, in Firefox to see if it causes the problem.
Sometimes one browser is only working because it has cached the unreachable assets.
Another thing to try is to reboot your router. I see this kind of symptom sometimes when the router’s DNS has cached out-of-date name resolutions. You’d think that wouldn’t affect Safari differently than Firefox, but Firefox may be doing DNS-over-HTTPS. You can also try temporarily changing your Mac’s DNS to 1.1.1.1 and see if it makes a difference.
I did the following (1) restart modem (2) browser tests (3) Restart computer (4) browser tests (5) restart router & restart computer (6) more browser tests
The results were mixed, but Safari has the most problems with some sites (especially IMDb, TMDb, Tubi, Substack), some of which work OK later on, but still loads many other sites without issues (YouTube, Google, Wikipedia, Bitchute, +++, and, thankfully TidBITS Talk). Firefox only had a few problems (especially TMDb "The connection has timed out” , but later loaded it AOK)
I did try the shift key-reload tip but only when the page loaded long enough that left the “Reload” icon in the address bar after I canceled loading with [ESC] - didn’t notice any changes though. Curios, too, when such is the case many of the page elements appear but without any formatting and in total disarray
BTW: what does holding the Shift key do?
…have yet to change my Mac’s DNS to 1.1.1.1
And, as I write, Safari’s still mis-behavin’ while Firefox is holding down the fort
Thanks again
Gotta go deal with some ‘real world’ things for now
Shift-reload means reload harder, or at least it used to. It means it refetches site assets instead of using what’s cached, like a site-specific cache erase. I’m not sure if it is supported by Safari.
It is interesting that Firefox has at least some problems. It means that whatever this issue is, it is affecting Safari more, but it isn’t a Safari specific issue.
It will be interesting what happens when you change the Mac’s DNS. The reason I suggested that is I’ve seen cases where the ISP’s DNS is returning out of date information, causing problems. For example, the ISP’s DNS returns a local Akamai cache, but that cache is wrong. Or the ISP’s DNS results in a redirect to an IP address that there’s no route to.
Another thing to check is your upstream bandwidth. Is it measuring what you expect? And are you running anything that would saturate it?
I used to have a problem where when a cloud backup was running that was uploading a lot of uncompressable files, it would saturate the upstream bandwidth. The backup program knew not to try to compress the files, so it was uploading them faster than the network could handle.
Saturating your upstream bandwidth is bad for TCP/IP, because it prevents the packet acknowlegements (ACKs) from reaching the servers you’re trying to download from in time, which causes a lot of retransmissions and broken connections. The symptoms are the same as you describe.
At least through Catalina/Safari 15.n, option-command-R gives you ‘Reload from Origin’.
If that doesn’t help, create a new user account or log in as guest and see if that also has problems. If it’s fine, then the problem is in the user account, either a difference in settings, or corruption somewhere or other.
Welllll, as of the wee hours this morning we’re 'back in Kansas, Toto" (knock on wood)
Both Safari and Firefox are working ‘as advertised’
I haven’t changed/done anything since what I posted earlier ??? go figure…
Michael: FYI - I had nothing extraordinary going upstream, and, as I mentioned Speedtest revealed I had better-than-average Up/Down-load speeds via my satellite based ISP (Viasat) whilst the ‘tornado’ whisked me off to OZ
My gratitude for all the folks @ TidBITS Talk !! … my go-to for all those head-scratchers