Unexpectedly dropped connection errors in Safari

I’m getting “Safari can’t open this page because the server unexpectedly dropped the connection” way too often

It started some time ago under Monterey, and is ongoing now on Sonoma, with various versions of Safari over time. Searching around, it seems quite a few people have experienced this, and there’s no shortage on tips what to investigate (on Apple’s discussion forums and elsewhere), but few of those suggestions seem to make sense, al least not in my case.

The error message continues “This sometimes occurs when the server is busy.” but that is not the issue - it Safari won’t open the page, it does so for good, whereas Firefox never has an issue with any of those pages. It just happened with LinkedIn, and over time with various reputable sites.

I generally have a good understanding of the workings of the web, but I’m not sure why a server would drop a connection. So I’m not ruling out that this is a red herring where the problem is actually something else.

Has anyone experienced this, or any ideas what might cause this in general?

I don’t see a “dropped connection” message but have been seeing a “server busy” message when using Safari/Sonoma. As you have found, it doesn’t seem to happen with Firefox.

My suspicion is that the web pages are seeking information from the browser before allowing access. Maybe Safari is not accepting the handshake offer?

I have come across websites that require Chrome or MS Edge and won’t work with Safari. MS Teams is an annoying example. I only use Edge to join a Teams meeting (Tidbits has another discussion about the MS Teams app for Mac not working directly and I can only get it to work by first opening the invitation link in Edge).

I appreciate that those browsers have features that are not supported by Safari but those features could be security risks.

I have the exact problem too :pensive:. I noticed that when that happens, the update tab on the settings app says that there’s no internet! It happens on and off tho, in a bit it will work again and will randomly stop again. This is on my M1 mac mini, my M2 MBP does not have any issue with safari, I use it for work all day