Mac Freezing on internet

[RossJarvis]

Can anyone help please.

Using a MacBook Pro latest version, Mavericks OS, BT Homehub. Safari has been getting slower and slower and today has given up getting the internet. I was assuming it was the Wi-Fi thingy. However it isn't. The wife can get access and so can I on the Mac using Windows 7 and internet explorer via Bootcamp, so the problem is with Mavericks.

The symptoms are; On starting Safari from a new start I can access the first webpage, E.g. from Favourites or Google, but then Safari seizes, the screen goes white and the blue progress slider moves and stops in the address bar. If I restart the computer or the Wi-Fi wotsit I can get one page, or from google, the "answer page". But it won't go any further.

I've checked Apple Answers thingy and have reset Safari, checked and then unchecked "Auto Proxy Discovery" in Safari Preferences, tried a new "location" in network preferences, but this has not fixed things.

I had not fiddled with any settings before this happened and it seems to have progressively occurred over the past day. Additionally I don't think that email is connecting properly, I.e. if I restart the Mac it updates Mail with any outstanding emails. So it seems that the connection issue is anything that the Mac does, not just Safari

 

[MMUK]

Try clearing the Safari cookies and cache folders

 

[RossJarvis]

Try clearing the Safari cookies and cache folders

Thanks MMUK, tried that, still doesn't work.

 

[RogerS]

Are you running Sophos?

or try this

Open the Finder. From the Finder menu bar click Go > Go to Folder

Type or copy paste the following:

~/Library/Caches/com.apple.Safari/Cache.db

Click Go then move the Cache.db file to the Trash.


Quit and relaunch Safari to test.

If you Google mavericks safari freeze you will find you are not alone.

Have you tried Chrome?

 

[RogerS]

Slightly OT....while Googling I came across this very interesting website. http://www.thesafemac.com/mmg/ In particular this comment leapt out at me.

At this time, there is no known Mac malware that is capable of infecting a Mac running Snow Leopard (Mac OS X 10.6) or later, with a system that is kept properly updated, and with all third-party software kept properly updated, and on which certain security settings are left at their default settings. Apple has done a remarkably good job lately of keeping the system secured. There have been a number of important improvements to the system over the years.

 

[Alex H]

Slightly OT....while Googling I came across this very interesting website. http://www.thesafemac.com/mmg/ In particular this comment leapt out at me.

At this time, there is no known Mac malware that is capable of infecting a Mac running Snow Leopard (Mac OS X 10.6) or later, with a system that is kept properly updated, and with all third-party software kept properly updated, and on which certain security settings are left at their default settings. Apple has done a remarkably good job lately of keeping the system secured. There have been a number of important improvements to the system over the years.

And here's the reason why

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_systems

Windows 7 47.52%
Windows XP 28.98%
Windows 8 10.49%
OS X 7.53%
Windows Vista 3.61%
Linux 1.73%

 

[RogerS]

Slightly OT....while Googling I came across this very interesting website. http://www.thesafemac.com/mmg/ In particular this comment leapt out at me.

At this time, there is no known Mac malware that is capable of infecting a Mac running Snow Leopard (Mac OS X 10.6) or later, with a system that is kept properly updated, and with all third-party software kept properly updated, and on which certain security settings are left at their default settings. Apple has done a remarkably good job lately of keeping the system secured. There have been a number of important improvements to the system over the years.

And here's the reason why

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_systems

Windows 7 47.52%
Windows XP 28.98%
Windows 8 10.49%
OS X 7.53%
Windows Vista 3.61%
Linux 1.73%

Sorry I just don't buy this 'market share' argument. The Apple OS being based on Unix is a much more inherently safe OS Market share is immaterial.

 

[KevM]

Given that it's a Mac are you sure it's not that the Internet itself may be broken?

Okay, baiting aside, are you able to try a wired Ethernet connection? We had a problem recently where one phone was bringing the whole network to a grinding halt because of poor WiFi behaviour.

 

[nev]

Reboot the router too. I've had issues in the past where I can visit some sites but not others and slow connection etc and a reboot of the router sorted it out. Didnt make sense to me, why I could get some pages but not others, but it worked.

 

[Eric The Viking]

Safari used to be, horribly slow, and didn't render some things properly. It was a persistent frustration (up to 10.4, which we still use here).

I'm NOT up to date on the latest Mac OS, although we're hoping to get a new iMac shortly, but I'd at least download and try Firefox to start with. I *think* NoScript has an OS X binary, so install that too, and turn off any anti-virus stuff that's running for a quick test:

Try a few well-known web sites, e.g. BBC (and iPlayer in particular*), Wikipedia and Amazon. Normal performance would implicate Safari (reinstall it, if that's possible). Abnormal (slow) performance means the problem is elsewhere.

If abnormal, check there is enough disk space for the cache, AND that the disk is behaving correctly. If there's a disk or disk bus problem, that would have a huge effect on browsing nowadays. Similarly, check system memory -- I don't know how current Macs do swap files (disk used as slow memory), but if it blocks out bad real memory to use swap space instead, that will also make the thing run at a crawl.

It's impossible to guarantee software reliability 100%. Cosmic rays can alter data stored in both disks and memory, one bit at a time. This can be picked up by some error correction, some of the time, otherwise stuff just fails.

Full disks that aren't defragmented also cause performance issues, irrespective of operating system (mostly). This only works if it's a tower or you have USB/firewire/thunderbolt drives (giving you have old-style flexibility), but it's a really good idea to separate operating system and programs from user data and swap space, physically, keeping them on separate disks, and ideally on separate disk buses. This maximises the i/o throughput and stops the system having to juggle reads and writes involving the same disk at the same time. It also improves disk reliability slightly, and oddly, even continues to help performance with solid state 'disks', as the 'juggling' issue is then mostly the bus, not the storage medium itself.

Let us know what you find, as it's an interesting problem.

E.

 

[RogerS]

Given that it's a Mac are you sure it's not that the Internet itself may be broken?

Okay, baiting aside, are you able to try a wired Ethernet connection? We had a problem recently where one phone was bringing the whole network to a grinding halt because of poor WiFi behaviour.

Not the internet as his wife can access it fine...see the first paragraph.

 

[KevM]

Given that it's a Mac are you sure it's not that the Internet itself may be broken?

Okay, baiting aside, are you able to try a wired Ethernet connection? We had a problem recently where one phone was bringing the whole network to a grinding halt because of poor WiFi behaviour.

Not the internet as his wife can access it fine...see the first paragraph.

Maybe I should have made my attempted joke clearer - Macs are perceived by the faithful as beyond fault, ergo any fault must lie externally.

 

[RogerS]

Given that it's a Mac are you sure it's not that the Internet itself may be broken?

Okay, baiting aside, are you able to try a wired Ethernet connection? We had a problem recently where one phone was bringing the whole network to a grinding halt because of poor WiFi behaviour.

Not the internet as his wife can access it fine...see the first paragraph.

Maybe I should have made my attempted joke clearer - Macs are perceived by the faithful as beyond fault, ergo any fault must lie externally.

:lol:

The comment made re the router could be valid if it were not for him being able to access the internet via Bootcamp/windows (which suggests that it is nothing at all to do with any of the more esoteric suggestions that EtV made :wink: ). Routers can behave strangely, 'tis true. I had one that would happily FTP a test file of 1k but ask it to FTP a larger file then it fell over in a heap. That took me ages to sort out and I took great satisfaction in 'resetting it' with a lump hammer. Also explains why I have a spare router all set-up with passwords etc and ready to go at a moment's notice.


No, I think the OP problem lies within Mavericks/Safari...there seems to be enough niggles out there to not make me want to upgrade!

 

[RossJarvis]

Hiya guys. Thanks for the help.

Still scratching my head here. I am now communicating out of OSX and Safari so it is now working, up to a point. It seems a little slow at accessing websites. It seems as if yesterday, after the first link up it could not get any other addresses. Unfortunately I am not too up on technology so a lot of what was said above has gone over my head. Any advice re computers needs to be in words of one syllable or less and directed as at a fool.

What seemed to make the difference was going into System preferences, then into Network and using Assist me, Assistant to set up a new location. As mentioned, the wifi and everything outside the Mac is working as best as it can, so the problem is definitely internal.

I would have to say that Macs do have some advantages over many other electronic devices but are not without their own faults and shortcomings. Apple's self belief in their own perfection is a bit scary, particularly when some of their customers seem to believe the same. Communicating with Apple and their support is just like communicating with the Stepford Wives.

Looking at the support communities it seems lots of people have had similar problems over the years, particularly recently when Mavericks came on-stream, so it doesn't seem a unique issue. I've tried a few of the fixes online, but until updating the location nothing worked. I think the issue also affected Mail and anything else requiring t'interweb so think it's more to do with whatever connects to the internet than Safari. I might try loading Firefox to see if that makes any difference.

 

[doorframe]

Given that it's a Mac are you sure it's not that the Internet itself may be broken?

Okay, baiting aside, are you able to try a wired Ethernet connection? We had a problem recently where one phone was bringing the whole network to a grinding halt because of poor WiFi behaviour.

Not the internet as his wife can access it fine...see the first paragraph.

Maybe I should have made my attempted joke clearer - Macs are perceived by the faithful as beyond fault, ergo any fault must lie externally.

I 'got' the joke no problem. But Roger's reply was even funnier.

 

[RossJarvis]

I spoke too soon, damned thing jammed up again.

As the machine is outside the free phone support period I was loathe to pay Apple to help, however I discovered a human on the other end of the line, not a Stepford Wife, and we "discovered" he could help out under a "software" issue (due to the Mavericks update) without paying.

I haven't the faintest idea what I've done, but pressing lots of buttons, restarting several-teen times, we've cleared everything which can be cleared, including caches I was unaware of, cleaned up the discs and it is now working again. Whatever the problem was seemed unusual and is still unknown. We'll see how long it lasts.

 

[KevM]

... I discovered a human on the other end of the line, not a Stepford Wife

Well he'll be 'disappeared' for attitude adjustment then. Well done on staying with it and getting it sorted, these problems can make it all too attractive to use the lump-hammer reset as developed by RogerS.

 

[Alex H]

Slightly OT....while Googling I came across this very interesting website. http://www.thesafemac.com/mmg/ In particular this comment leapt out at me.

At this time, there is no known Mac malware that is capable of infecting a Mac running Snow Leopard (Mac OS X 10.6) or later, with a system that is kept properly updated, and with all third-party software kept properly updated, and on which certain security settings are left at their default settings. Apple has done a remarkably good job lately of keeping the system secured. There have been a number of important improvements to the system over the years.

And here's the reason why

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_systems

Windows 7 47.52%
Windows XP 28.98%
Windows 8 10.49%
OS X 7.53%
Windows Vista 3.61%
Linux 1.73%

Sorry I just don't buy this 'market share' argument. The Apple OS being based on Unix is a much more inherently safe OS Market share is immaterial.

Let me see, if I want to be a complete silly person to computer users the world over and cause the maximum amount of pain, which OS would I choose to interfere with? The one with nearly 90% of the market share or the others?

 

[RogerS]

That is being rather simplistic because your argument implies that no-one is therefore going to try and hack the Mac. That is illogical.
Your argument also suggests that if the hackers put their mind to it then the Mac would have loads of malware. Again that is also illogical because if the Mac was that easy to crack then someone somewhere would have done it. Just imagine the kudos they would get among hacker circles.

But they don't because compared to Microsoft the Mac is too hard to crack.

 

[Racers]

Macs do get viruses, only a fool would consider then invulnerable.
We have virus scanners on all the Macs at work.

Pete