Safari page loading becomes very slow upon installing Sequoia 15.3

ScottPanzer wrote:

I just installed Sequoia 15.3 this morning after being prompted, and all of a sudden Safari is terribly slow to load/reload pages.

I've quit & restarted Safari a couple of times, rebooted my laptop (macbook pro purchased within last month), and un-installed mcafee (followed by reboot). Still slow, basically seeming to hang for minutes at a time before a page loads (if it does at all).

Any suggestions or known issues with this OS update ?

Have you shut down and restarted your mac more than once since your "I just installed Sequoia 15.3" always recommended to sort issue and let the code settle in...one reboot is typically not enough.

try a different browser and compare your results— this would be telling

ref: If Safari isn't loading websites or quits on your ..mac.

Uninstall all third party apps that are Cleaners/Optimizers/VPN/Anti-Virus

all known to cause issues on the macOS

I think Luis has identified the essence of your problem. Migrating from a very old Mac all the APPLICATIONS and software to this new and state of the art Mac M4. It is clearly struggling with something installed from the distant past that is no longer compatible. The "cure" as Luis described is to migrate over from scratch only user accounts and files but no settings and no applications. I have done this myself many times and reinstalling the latest and compatible versions of applications does not take long at all.

Several red flags in your Etrecheck:

Adobe CS4 pieces still installed: that software stopped receiving support from Adobe in 2013, the software itself dates from 2009, 15 years ago! The Adobe servers for it were shut down many years ago, one cannot even activate it. I have no idea if this is interfering with your computer's operation, but having things like this with all the associated outdated Adobe extensions and background processes cannot be a good thing.

User Launch Agents:

[Other] com.adobe.ARM.***.plist (Not signed - installed 2011-07-04)

Executable: /Applications/Adobe Reader.app/Contents/MacOS/Updater/Adobe Reader Updater Helper.app/Contents/MacOS/Adobe Reader Updater Helper

Adobe launch agents installed in 2011 are almost certainly incompatible for Sequoia.

[Other] com.valvesoftware.steamclean.plist (Not signed - installed 2013-03-13)

Command: ~/Library/Application Support/Steam/SteamApps/steamclean Public

Many posts online from people having problems with Steam, you have something for it dated from 2013! Almost certainly no longer compatible with Sequoia.

User Internet Plug-ins:

WebEx64: 1.0 (? - installed 1970-08-16)

This WebEx stuff dates from 2012 or earlier (1970? Huh?) and is almost certainly incompatible with Sequoia. It's an Internet Plug-in so might be impacting Safari, not sure about that.

[Other] com.mcafee.McAfeeSafariHost.plist (Not signed - Not found!)

Executable: /Library/Application Support/McAfee/MSS/Applications/McAfeeSafariHost.app/Contents/MacOS/McAfeeSafariHost

This McAfee software is still embedded and note above a Safari connection is still there ... you are having trouble with Safari.

Given that your Mac is permeated with these problematic installations, I would suggest the following:

Make a good backup, two or more backups are actually recommended.

Follow What to do before you sell, give away, trade in, or recycle your Mac - Apple Support

Note that the above step will completely erase all content from your Mac.

Then, with Sequoia installed, migrate only accounts and files, no settings and no applications and no software, from the backup. Then reinstall only modern versions of only the software you currently use and need.

If you aren't comfortable doing this yourself, you can go to an Apple Authorized Service Provider and they can do it for you safely.

It is working here just fine.

As a test, try Firefox - I am not suggesting you switch browsers, only suggesting to see if a different browser shows the same problem or not.

Please run Etrecheck and post its full report here. Use the "additional text" button and paste the report into the text box.

ScottPanzer wrote:

Yes, rebooted multiple times, uninstalled McAfee as stated (no other AV or third party apps like you mentioned on my mac)

How did you uninstall McAfee? Using an uninstaller from McAfee is recommended.

Some uninstallers are not 100% effective. You can download Find Any File and use it to search through all folders including hidden ones for any file or folder with the string "McAfee" in its name or contents. Delete those remnants of this software.

You can also look in these folders for anything looking like it is related to McAfee and delete them:

/usr/local/

/Library/Application Support/

/Library/LaunchDaemons/

/Library/LaunchAgents/

A reboot may be required after such manual deletions.

Sometimes software creates problems after a MacOS update because that software has something that is not compatible with the newest MacOS (15.3). Usually that is the reason something stops working properly after a MacOS update. The "blame" is not really with Apple in those cases but rather with the software developer who receives advance copies of the new MacOS in advance of its roll out and should be making its software compatible so users like you are not unpleasantly surprised.

I am worried there is some piece or script associated with McAfee that is still somewhere on your Mac causing a problem. It's just an educated guess but I have read posts from others who have had a lot of trouble removing similar anti-virus tools because they embed their elements all over the Mac including directories that users normally cannot see or access easily.

Thank you for posting the report.

I see a very large number of kernel extensions, and also "Startup Items" - it seems that when setting up this mac you have migrated everything from a previous mac; this includes all these extensions, agents and daemons, some of which appear to be rather old.

Startup Items in macOS have been deprecated since I believe Yosemite, 10.10 about a decade ago...

At least one item by HP shows an instalation date from 2014.

There is also an "internet plugin" Webex 64 that seems to be missing a proper date, and is showing 1970 (the start of Unix "epoch").

The recommended procedure when migrating to a new mac like your excellent M4 Max is to migrate ONLY the user accounts, and nothing else. This guarantees that none of your content is lost, and all those old system modifications are left behind. Of course it also means to install your applications anew, but that is a good thing (get all of them up to date) and not nearly as painful as it used to be (think about installing Excel from 7 floppy disks... yes, I did that, and more than once 😎).

I strongly recommend that:

1) Make sure to have an up to date Time Machine backup

2) Erase all content and settings - System Settings->General->Transfer or Reset

3) When asked, import from the TM backup, but ONLY the users

4) Reinstall your applications, from the App Store or the respective sites.

Very slow working Sequoia after updating15.3. Any reason how to fix it? Or need downgrade to oldest version Sonoma. I’m confused, I need help.

Thank you for reporting the solution. Note that in System Settings->Network you should make sure that Ethernet is above Wifi, so that when connected it takes precedence.