Update: Has Safari stopped crashing?
At times when I’m surfing the web on iPhone’s Safari browser, it crashes and takes me back to the home screen. Safari hasn’t crashed as frequently on my new replacement iPhone compared to my old one, but the fact that it has happened on both makes me wonder how widespread the problem is.
On my old iPhone I performed a restore through iTunes and the problem was minimized but not completely eliminated.
I was surprised to see the Safari browser crashing on my new phone starting about last week. There are certain scenarios when it’s most likely to happen:
- Safari crashes when I’ve got the iPod playing in the background while I’m browsing.
- Safari crashes when I’ve got 4 or more tabs open. Maybe the iPhone gets overloaded and that’s why it crashes, but it doesn’t happen while I’m using any app other than Safari.
- Safari crashes sometimes when I’m entering text into a text field.
It rarely happens when I’m browsing with one or two tabs open and the iPod is off.
I did a search on Google and found that iPhone’s Safari crashing problem is not all that uncommon. Ed Shull posted about it back in July and has received 66 replies, many from people who have experienced the same problem.
Phil Windley has a post on fixing Safari crashes by rebooting your iPhone — he says holding the home and power buttons down for 10 seconds does the trick. I tried this and Safari hasn’t crashed since then, but I think it’s still too soon to tell.
Update (Feb. 4): Safari continues to crash on me. Just now I was browsing (on a WiFi network) with two tabs open and listening to the iPod, and Safari crashed 3 times in 10 minutes. I came to update this post on my iPhone while still using the iPod app and Safari crashed another two times.
Now that I turned the iPod off it hasn’t crashed. It seems the problem is largely related to browsing while simultaneously using the iPhone’s iPod application.
Does Safari crash on your iPhone? Please share your experience in the comments.
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I think I found a solution for frequent safari crashes (at least it works for me). What started to do is to wait until safari loads the page completely before clicking any button or link or moving around the page. Forcing safari to quit and rebooting iPhone helps the issue as well.
Good luck…
just bought mine on Friday and safari crashes all the time with only 1 tab and no iPod music on. So annoying
Safari has got to be the worst, most unstable browser I have ever used. I’ve been an ardent Windows user for all my life and this is my first experience using Apple products. Let’s say, I’m not very impressed at all. I can guarantee a Safari crash within a minute of opening the browser, even with no other apps open. Just try surfing to a content rich site such as Facebook. Unfortunately, the cut down made-for-iPhone version of Facebook lacks alot of features only available in the full regular site.
I’ve had my 3g Iphone since beginning of september – its crashed 5 or 6 times a day soince then. Either it dumps out of safari into the main menu screen or more annoyingly, it freezes the screen and ipod music sticks like a scratched record and the only way out is a hard reset.
Its a shame because as a photographer in the music scene the iphone is everything I want and need (except blimmin copy and paste!) I’d just like it to work the way it should. I get really fed up of typing in a forum and losing everthing I’ve done.
Same issue, darn thing crashes all the time (9-10 times a day). Facebook, banking… you name it.
Just like appfzx I have felt like throwing it against the wall many a time.
I am also having this problem. I used to reduce the crashing when 1.1.4 by eliminating the auto-correct feature. In facebook regular site happens while loading the page. Apple… you should work on a fix… its about time
I’m not alone in experiencing Safari crashes it seems. Mine dies on me all the time, most frequently while loading “big” pages with lots of content, e.g. icanhascheezburger.com.
I think Tim S’s comment above showing Safari quitting due to low memory is very interesting, as that would certainly explain why it crashes for people when they have lots of tabs open, they’re typing and the dictionary is in memory or have the iPod playing.
I guess this means it’s up to Apple to fix this by slimming down Safari’s memory footprint so it doesn’t run out as quickly. It’s not like on Windows Mobile where you can close a few apps, the iPhone supposedly only has one program running at once so it should have plenty of memory available. Maybe some apps have memory leaks and that’s why rebooting helps?
Same problem, and not just with Safari. Most apps would quit after a few minutes. Tried resetting which solved the problem but then spent an entire day re-building my faves and other settings…painful. Today I tried re-booting (hold down home and power buttons for approx 10 seconds) and that seems to have done the trick. Seems like it’s a memory leak problem to me. Guess I’ll just have to do that every couple of days. Not the end of the world but really annoying. ;-(
someone gave me a great tip.
Literally power off your iPhone every night.
I think by doing that it keeps things fresh and I’ve had far less crashes.
Tc
I don’t use the iPod ever and my safari still crashes on average once every three minutes. Esp when entering text or loading long pages.
Man, I’m pissed.
My safari just won’t stop crashing. There were times, I thought I’d throw the damn thing at the wall.
It always seems to happen while typing a text for me.
Which makes this even more annoying
I’ve only had my iPhone for a week, and I’ve had a stack of Safari crashes, mostly whilst browsing sites with a few photos on them. I had a look in the console log (you can access it through XCode with the iPhone SDK) and I found:
Sat Sep 27 11:48:04 unknown SpringBoard[22] : Memory level is urgent (9%). Asking Safari to quit.
Sat Sep 27 11:48:04 unknown SpringBoard[22] : Writing low memory report regarding com.apple.mobilesafari
Sat Sep 27 11:48:04 unknown MobileSafari[1561] : Safari got memory level urgent while active with one document, destroying plug-ins
Sat Sep 27 11:48:16 unknown ReportCrash[1563] : Saved crashreport to /Library/Logs/CrashReporter/MobileSafari-2008-09-27-114815.plist using uid: 0 gid: 0, synthetic_euid: 0 egid: 0
Sat Sep 27 11:48:17 unknown SpringBoard[22] : Application Safari got sufficiently warned but is still alive, killing it. Jetsam level: 9%
Sat Sep 27 11:48:17 unknown SpringBoard[22] : Writing low memory report regarding com.apple.mobilesafari
Sat Sep 27 11:48:17 unknown MobileSafari[1561] : Safari got memory level urgent while active with one document, destroying plug-ins
Sat Sep 27 11:48:19 unknown configd[21] : kernel memory event (96), free: 374, active: 610, inactive: 452, purgeable: 0, wired: 8462
Sat Sep 27 11:48:27 unknown ReportCrash[1564] : Saved crashreport to /Library/Logs/CrashReporter/MobileSafari-2008-09-27-114826.plist using uid: 0 gid: 0, synthetic_euid: 0 egid: 0
In other words, Safari runs out of memory and is killed by the OS. The only solution that I can think of is to stop using so many tabs…
Mine seems to do this as well.
Mostly when:
Several tabs are open in Safari
or
Running a Huge App.
My iPhone has been crashing quite regularly while trying to play “parking wars” on facebook, I have the iPod running all the time.
This one is running 2.1
I am entering this from my iPhone and crossing my fingers it doesn’t crash again.
What happens is the screen will blank and drop me out to the phone home screen – i.e. App icons.
I have just wasted several minutes on the apple store trying to purchase accessories but failing when safari kept crashing.
This device and the ‘native’ apps have evidently not been tested enough by Apple… And the US army are rolling these out? (according to Apple keynote PR)… Lord help us!!
Well im from middle europe and it crashes here too.
Yesterday it froze for 10 minutes… Reset was not working.
The phone is nice, but the quality is so poor…
My iPhone Safari crashes on me multiple times daily. It’s probably the worst browser I have ever used. At this point I would consider IE to be an upgrade from Safari.
Mine crashes, especially when using Mobsters on Myspace getting really annoying!!
My iPhone Safari is also completely useless when trying to enter a message. Anything over three sentences is a guaranteed crash Windows style – losing all of my hen-pecking and tempting me to throw this thing against a wall.
Whatever happened to that “It just works” slogan Apple used to bandy about?
If only Apple weren’t so completely Draconian and would permit Firefox on the iPhone. Something with more customization and less stability issues please.
Mine has always crashed. I was hoping the new update would tackle it but it hasnt!
Its very frustrating when you are typing a messege, you’ve nearly completed it and the browser crashes!!
Mine crashes a lot on Facebook and even the official Apple forum!!
Someone said to empty Safari’s cache (Settings>Safari>Clear Cache) on a regular basis. Will this help?
Tc
My Safari crashes every time i use it with out fail and never whilst using the ipod function, its the only app i really use on it as the email part sucks and will only give me my emails from 1 year ago and nothing newer! Push doesnt work either!
The iphone from my experience is just as bad if not worse than my old windows mobiles!
Well you can search but there arent any answers for Crashes on Safari.
Keeps crashing on mine too. I don’t ever have more than 3 pages open. Just crashed for me now, so I’m now searching around for answers.
it’s the java most likely. Java is very intense on system resources so dirty java code would over load the mini browser. I find I crash went I enter a java heavy site driven by a database if they could just alocate more systememory to it when needed like OSX does then I don’t think it would crash with heavy or frequent use
I recently upgraded the firmware and the regularity of safari crashes is not very comforting. I can see this crash when I have three tabs open, browsing on wifi, and the site in question: apple.com apps page.
Yes safari crashes almost everytime i use it. Only tried it with wifi so far. Tried the hard reset and tried the iTunes restore. Still the same. Any solutions?
Yes it does happen. The iPhone 3G is my first Apple product. I’ve always used PCs and WM. I love the design and overall functionality of the iPhone, but I’m really dissapointed about its stability. I went through three updates already and the applications continue crashing. Safari is not the exception. Sometimes it crashes at random, sometimes you can repro the crash by going to the same site. Regarding complete freeze, I’ve got just one since I got the phone three weeks ago.
I would have expected more stability considering the lack of features in the individual applications.
My phone has actually been consistently crashing for about 3 months now, i’ve learned to live with it and hope that Apple will come out with some type of fix for this…basically I post alot on a sports message board and every time i get on the site and begin posting it would freeze up and go back to the home screen. Now it used to just do this when i would attempt to type on the website, but recently it has been doing it when i simply just want to view sites. I performed a restore on it last month but it doesnt seem to help, this is extremely dissapointing as this is probably the best phone on the markert right now and no one is even close to challenging it.
Here’s to Apple finding a solution to this headache….
Just to throw my experience in here:
I noticed earlier today that when my iPhone 3G was switching between Edge and 3G, safari would reliably crash.
Perhaps you folks on wifi are having a similar issue, just with it for some reason switching between wifi and OTA.
Hi,
I have had iPhone since March 2008.
But recently the Safari started crashing.
Yesterday it crashed 4 times during my usage for 30 min.It costs losts of data as when it comes alive again its fresh with memory.So all the information that you were visiting or say writing vanishes.
My Safari crashes all the time, but only when i am on myspace! I dont know why!
I am the proud owner of the iphone (16g) and I’m also experiencing safari crashes. Im only using wifi and the problem occurs mostly on data intensive webpages, but sometimes also on smaller pages.. First i thougt unlocking and jailbreaking the device with ziphone could have something to do with it but after seeing so many experiencing the problem i doubt that now – my guess is that the defect is caused by a memory leak..
I am also a new iphone user. I bought it last thursday (5/22/08). And I am also experiencing the crashes on the safari browser. I only have that open no email no music just the one page and it crashes on me often. Also it has crashed on my while watching movies. I wonder if it is an error in the conversion I did from the dvds to mp4? But on the browser I do feel it happens more on content rich pages. I am on wifi at home and at work its the edge and same thing. One page is what it takes for me… should I exchange it?
I am a new Iphone user, I bought mine last march and it seems that safari is the only thing thats annoys me. It keeps on going back to the home page of the website I am browsing. I tried copying the settings of my Ipod touch which really works fine with safari but still I get this problem. Any suggestion aside from rebooting
yes just ryte now in about 4 minutes it crashed 3 tymes .
And it seems lik wen it listening 2 the iPod it crashes more same with more tabs and
SMS . Mine crashes A LOT witch is really irratating
since I power cycled my device and updated to 1.4. My browser no longer crashes and my phone has been very stable. I would recommend a power cycle if u see the problem frequently that seemed to fix my problem even before the 1.4 update. I have the 16g model with quite a bit of music and video I also browse on it very often on both wifi and edge
how to power cycle cos I am new to this.
mine crashes as well. i havent used the ipod feature yet. i will be just surfing the web and it crashes.
Ive had my iPhone since the start of December, and experience crashes on a fairly regular basis.
Majority of times it crashes on more data heavy pages; lots of graphics, long forum posts, that sort of thing. Other times it just crashes for no perceivable reason whatsoever.
It has the occassional tendency to load pages and fail to activate hyperlinking too, which is annoying.
I get a full iPhone freeze once every two weeks or so too, and on about ten occassions had the touch system either slow almost to a halt, or freeze entirely.
Annoying.
That’s highly disappointing, but not surprising.
Every Mac I’ve ever used crashed, and I’ve never bought into that hype.
For the record, my WM6 smartphone never crashes. WM5 did sometimes, but never WM6.
How ironic that it’s more stable than the iPhone!
Glad I read this before I actually bought an iPhone.
I am seeing the same issue it happens on edge when there is more then 2 windows open and seems to happen more frequently on wifi wPA encrypted not sure if the encryption matters. The safari crash I see does not require any other apps running however I do have 10 IMAP email accounts that check for email every 15 minutes in the background that may also have something to do with it. I just power cycled my device hopefully that helps I will make sure I do it once a day like the apple customer cafe advised one of the previous posters. I’ll keep this updated if I keep seeing it.
3day old iPhone, it crashes a few times a day. One tab, no music and only on wifi. I hope it gets fixed, as I love this little phone. ( last phone was an xda )
Tom, that’s a serious problem if it crashes the majority of times. Have you tried restoring your iPhone through iTunes? If you have and that doesn’t solve the problem, why not take it into the Apple Store? I’d assume the warranty would cover that, especially if it crashes more times than it doesn’t.
My iPhone crashes while I’m listening to music, on it’s own.
Then, listening to music and browsing Safari, crash.
Listening to music and typing SMS messages, crash.
It’s not all the time, but the majority.
My safari crashes all the time. If its anything more than a news site, and oftentimes when entering text. Most of the time when entering text. The rate seems to have increased since the new patch came out. (the one released within the same time as the air) anyone else?
I think there’s only so much this little device can handle. Which is a little dissappointing considering the commercials are all about multitasking.
I have had this problem with my phone as well. Whether on edge or wifi network it still crashes. I have had it crash while having only 1 page open while the ipod was running and it crashes. So multiple pages crashes it as well. I have actually had it crash on my just while loading a webpage as well. Now I don’t really care too much for the crashes because now I have another issue with my phone. It has to do with the silencing switch. I turn it to silent but the phone shows up on screen that it went silent then comes back to sound enabled and keeps doing it for about 5 times by itself. sometimes I switch the sound on but it goes into silent mode. Has anyone experienced this? sorry to Chris for bringing up another question in your topic.
I had the same problem, but I called Apple and they said all I needed to do was turn my iPhone off every once and a while. The problem stopped immediately .
i havent had any of these problems with my phone. i musta god lucky and got the only one that works. i actually use my phone so much and the internet. it has tto kover my life, im more connected with the people around me.
Doug, that’s interesting that it happens most often at your workplace. I wonder if the wireless network could have anything to do with it. Come to think of it, I haven’t bothered to notice whether I’ve been on WiFi or EDGE when Safari crashes.
I get the occasional Safari crash, but more often (more than once a week), I get a complete iPhone freeze-up. I haven’t figured out exactly what is going on, but it happens most often at work, which makes me think it may have something to do with the wireless.
Yes, my iPhone’s Safari browser crashes a couple times a week and goes straight back to the home screen. It doesn’t seem to happen for any particular reason. I will pay more attention to it now. I think it happens when I have 4 or more tabs open, but not always.