Is Your Mac Freezing? Safari Might Be The Cause

A lot of users are complaining about Safari, saying it’s causing freezing issues. By freezing, it is meant that your Mac is completely unresponsive.

It seems that Safari causes the entire macOS system to lock up.

You may be experiencing some of  the following symptoms:

• Scrolling a webpage in Safari causes your mac to freeze
• Keyboard does not work
• Forcibly rebooting your Mac is the only way to fix

We know that crashes and freezes in macOS are extremely rare however you may still find that your Mac has become unresponsive, and you may get very frustrated when your Mac isn’t doing what you expect.

Fix 1:

1. Force quit the unresponsive apps, e.g., Safari
2. Apple menu > Force Quit
3. Or press press Option-Command (⌘)-Esc
4. Then select the unresponsive apps and select quit.

Fix 2:

1. Close Safari
2. Open the Terminal app (Applications > Utilities > Terminal)
3. Enter the following command: defaults write com.apple.Safari IncludeInternalDebugMenu 1
4. Then hit return
5. Now relaunch Safari
6. You will see the Debug menu in Safari’s menubar
7. Click Debug
8. Select Drawing/Compositing Flags
9. Choose “Disable Canvas Accelerated Drawing” and “Disable Full Page Accelerated Drawing”.
10. Now check to see if your problem is fixed.

Fix 3:

1. Restart your computer in Safe mode. Here is how:
2. Turn off your Mac
3. Now turn on your Mac
4. Press and hold the Shift key the instant  when you hear the startup chime.
5. Release the keys when you see the Apple logo.
6. If Safe Boot resolves this issue, restart the Mac normally.

See also: Mac Stuck On “Setting up your Mac”, Fix

Notes:

1-You can now, if you want, disable Safari’s debug menu by entering the following command in the Terminal app:

defaults write com.apple.Safari IncludeInternalDebugMenu 0

You will have to relaunch Safari.

2-It seems that especially macOS Sierra users are facing this problem.