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martin010 Author

Level 1

6 points

Safari spinning wheel Mac M1 Big Sur

I recently bought an Apple Silicon Macbook Pro (M1), and to my frustration it seems not to be so stable at all. Especially Safari freezes up at random times. I cannot restart it, nor access any menu's or websites, I just get a spinning wheel. Clearing cache manually and temp files doen't fix it. Restarting Safari will always result in a spinning wheel. I tried to leave it running for a while, but it just did not respond anymore, nor was it terminated by the system. Only a Force Quit helps.

The only way to get it back to work is to reboot the laptop every time. Then randomly after a day, or some days it starts all over again. I could not find any relation between websites visits, number of tabs open etc. Seems completely random.

Other browser seem to have no issues at all.

Any similar experiences or solutions?

MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 11.4

Posted on Jun 17, 2021 1:12 AM

Reply

Top-ranking reply

Level 10

83,952 points

Posted on Jun 17, 2021 3:06 AM

Force Quit Safari. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201276

Launch Safari holding the Shift key down

Additional steps to consider.

1. Startup in Safe Mode. https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/start-up-your-mac-in-safe-mode-mh21245/mac.

Quote:

It also does a basic check of your startup disk, similar to using First Aid in Disk Utility.

And it deletes some system caches, including font caches and

the kernel cache, which are automatically created again as needed.

2. Clear History

https://support.apple.com/guide/safari/clear-your-browsing-history-sfri47acf5d6/mac

Please read the article before clearing history,

this is like a low level resetting of Safari without affecting passwords and bookmarks.

3. If Safari doesn't open a webpage or isn’t working as expected

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204098

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3 replies

Top-ranking reply

Level 10

83,952 points

Jun 17, 2021 3:06 AM in response to martin010

Force Quit Safari. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201276

Launch Safari holding the Shift key down

Additional steps to consider.

1. Startup in Safe Mode. https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/start-up-your-mac-in-safe-mode-mh21245/mac.

Quote:

It also does a basic check of your startup disk, similar to using First Aid in Disk Utility.

And it deletes some system caches, including font caches and

the kernel cache, which are automatically created again as needed.

2. Clear History

https://support.apple.com/guide/safari/clear-your-browsing-history-sfri47acf5d6/mac

Please read the article before clearing history,

this is like a low level resetting of Safari without affecting passwords and bookmarks.

3. If Safari doesn't open a webpage or isn’t working as expected

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204098

Reply

martin010 Author

Level 1

6 points

Jun 17, 2021 3:24 AM in response to dominic23

Ok,

Launching safari with Shift down does not work, as mentioned, starting safari always results in a spinning wheel.

1.) I will try that

2.) Makes no difference, History, Safari Cache, shift-down, none of these options work

3.) Useless article, as I am not able to do anything in safari, also I do not have any extensions installed.

Thanks for the quick response

Reply

Level 10

83,952 points

Jun 17, 2021 4:01 AM in response to martin010

Please contact Apple.

Click inside the box to choose an option. contact Apple Support.

Reply

Safari spinning wheel Mac M1 Big Sur

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