Web Pages Don't Load Properly

[Bruce Whittington]

Quite regularly when I open a web site, it does not load properly, with garbled fonts, and geometric patterns where images should be. As one example, this happens when loading Tyee stories from their email newsletter. I have found that occasionally they will finally load if I go elsewhere and come back. Other times I have tried refreshing the page, or closing the tab and reloading it from the email but that does not work. However, if I close the tab, open a new tab, and load the web site I was just trying to load from my history (not from the email link), it loads properly. This seems like a Mac/Safari issue. It also happens with at least one forum I visit daily from my favourites bar, so not through an email link. Can anyone shed any light on this?

 

[DaveWT]

I don't have a solution and haven't ever seen such an issue with my Mac/Safari (right up to my present Ventura 13.3.1). It might help someone else provide a clue if you provide more detail on what version of macOS (and therefore Safari). If you have another user account on your Mac, does the same thing happen when logged into the other user account? And if you have another browser (besides Safari) does it ever happen with that browser? Also do you have a lot of extensions loaded into Safari and if so, can you try turning them off for awhile to see if one of them is causing some interaction?

 

[Bruce Whittington]

I'm using Catalina on a 2013 27" iMac, all as up to date as it can be. I only have one user account, and no other browser, and as far as I know I have not added any extensions (getting over my depth here). I don't use any cloud storage. I have not tried this with a hard wired connection rather than wifi. I do have a newish MacBook Air and I can't recall if it has happened there but will watch for it. Here is a screen shot of one example, I think from the Times-Colonist web site:

 

[DaveWT]

Catalina isn't that far back that I would expect it to fail this badly. If you run into this and just refresh the page, does it happen again or does that fix it?

 

[Bruce Whittington]

Thanks for following this Dave--it's not a crucial issue but it is a nuisance. Refreshing the page does not work, nor does closing the tab and re-clicking the link from the email newsletter. But as I said, if I close the tab and open a new tab, I can click on the item in my history (i.e. the one that wouldn't open a minute ago) and it opens okay.

 

[Bruce Whittington]

In this new installment in this story, this morning I opened an email in Apple Mail. It blinked open normally, then instantly went to the screen below. Up until now, this has only happened in Safari, but Safari was not open. It's beyond my ken, but maybe the email was written in html or something? I switched to another email, which opened properly, then back to this one, which again displayed a bizarre screen. I'm baffled. (I'm having difficulties uploading an image too, especially a .png screenshot, which I have been able to do previously).

 

[chas_m]

Try downloading a different browser (**NOT** Chrome) and visit the problematic website(s) in that. I’d suggest DuckDuckGo or Firefox as options. Let us know if they load correctly (I’m betting they will).

If they do, then chances are pretty high that your Safari cache has gotten corrupted.

Try this: go to one of the problematic websites in Safari. Hold down the SHIFT key while you click on the “refresh” button in the address bar (to the right of the website’s address. That forces a cache-clearing of that specific page.

If that fixes the problem for that page, it would be worth clearing the cache for Safari generally. To do this, you‘ll need to enable the Develop(er) menu, which is normally hidden. Here’s where you’d find that control on a Mac:



Once that’s enabled, you’ll see “Develop” in the menu bar for Safari, just choose “empty caches” and that should resolve the issue.

PS. 2013 was 10 years ago, and if that is the latest OS version you can update that machine to, it is time to get a new or at least newer Mac. Catalina is no longer receiving security updates, which means you are at a much-increased risk of malware and security compromises.

 

[Bruce Whittington]

Thanks Chas - I do clear the caches fairly regularly. I will try the things you suggest. But could a browser issue be having this effect when it appears (as today) in an email, and Safari was not open?

 

[chas_m]

When email is trying to display HTML-formatted emails, it uses WebKit — the engine of Safari.