How to fix Safari opening/closing issue on Ventura 13.6.6

So it's been 10-days now since I was advised by Apple Support that things would improve over time. We have babied our iMac letting it rest up as it chugs along with the Reads and Writes keeping an eye on the Activity Monitor. The "mds" and "mds worker" process' seem to have fulfilled their quota; not so data hungry in the activity column. We can pop into Safari open a few tabs, pretty responsive for the most part but still having occasional delays after clicking a random link and beach ball here and there. If I search Mail it works normally on the first or second search, a third search results in no response and, if I get persistent Mail crashes. I am still encountering the Mouse then Keyboard disconnected dialog boxes followed by Mouse and Keyboard connected dialog boxes. I haven't tried a Spotlight search yet but I'm quit certain when I do it will render an instant crash as it has been doing since the 13.6.6 OS update.

Quit frankly the situation has improved marginally but obviously not even close to an acceptable level. My iMac was running very, very well prior to the OS 13.6.6 update and I find it very hard to believe that my hardware has collapsed to this debilitating degree in the blink of an eye, to the point of requiring complete replacement. That being said I would say it's obvious the update is the cause. I'm very disappointed in Apple for not preventing an OS update install on a 2018 iMac with an inability to handle the demands of an advanced update that outpaces the hardware, it's just ridiculous. Now that this update has inflicted this incapasitating scenario on a perfectly running computer, Apple should also have the means available to undo it in a software update undo. Sad and disappointing days for me my friends, a dedicated Apple user since 1992. Anyone having a way to rectify this nightmare, please speak up.

Have you installed and run any "cleaning", "optimizing", "speed-up", anti-virus or VPN apps on your Mac?

Give this a try: boot into Safe Mode according to How to use safe mode on your Mac and test to see if the problem persists. Reboot normally and test again.

NOTE 1: Safe Mode boot can take up to 3 - 5 minutes as it's doing the following; 

• Verifies your startup disk and attempts to repair directory issues, if needed

• Loads only required kernel extensions (prevents 3rd party kernel/extensions from loading)

• Prevents Startup Items and Login Items from opening automatically

• Disables user-installed fonts 

• Deletes font caches, kernel cache, and other system cache files

NOTE 2: if you have a wireless keyboard with rechargeable batteries connect it with its charging cable before booting into Safe Mode. This makes it act as a wired keyboard as will insure a successful boot into Safe Mode.

geewoody wrote:

Following a system update 13.6.6 a followup update for Safari popped after the standard software update recheck, ran the Safari update and poof, Safari is freezing up within minutes of browsing, nothing but a spinning beachball. Force quit doesn’t promptly work, but eventually after waiting a minute or two the force quit window opens and I can force quit Safari. Reopening the browser again only returns to the same nonsense within minutes. This is also freezing up the computer overall. The bluetooth disconnect window opens for the mouse and the keyboard. No restarting the computer doesn’t help. Disc Utility/Disk First Aide doesn’t help, this is a solid update screwup. WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO MY MAC - NOT COOL - PLEASE FIX THIS FUBAR ASAP, I HAVE WORK TO DO!

THANKS, gee

From memory, there were reports that Apple did have some issues with the Standalone Safari update

It was somewhere around Jan or Feb 2024 and was around the time of Ventura 13.6.4 - not 100% sure though

It could be possible this issue maybe occurring once again with Ventura 13.6.6. and Safari 17.4.1

I can not Test as I am now on Sonoma 14.4.1 with Safari Version 17.4.1 (19618.1.15.11.14)

To be proactive , as Apple is not really going to see or read your above request

Start now and open an Apple Support Ticket as they are PAID  Apple Employees to deal will these types of issues . 

Or call 1 800 MyApple

Other locations call Centres 

 Contact Apple for support and service

Hi geewoody, unfortunatley I am having exactly the same problems on my 2017 4.2GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7,

done the OS Ventura 13.6.6 update now my computer is junk, I am way past disappointed.

Following a system update 13.6.6 a followup update for Safari popped after the standard software update recheck, ran the Safari update and poof, Safari is freezing up within minutes of browsing, nothing but a spinning beachball. Force quit doesn’t promptly work, but eventually after waiting a minute or two the force quit window opens and I can force quit Safari. Reopening the browser again only returns to the same nonsense within minutes. This is also freezing up the computer overall. The bluetooth disconnect window opens for the mouse and the keyboard. No restarting the computer doesn’t help. Disc Utility/Disk First Aide doesn’t help, this is a solid update screwup. WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO MY MAC - NOT COOL - PLEASE FIX THIS FUBAR ASAP, I HAVE WORK TO DO!

THANKS, gee

Thanks, I took your advice and contact Apple Support by phone. I spoke to a specialist in the morning today, after some testing and exploring the options he had me reinstall Ventura 13.6.6 through the Recovery process, it took an hour and a half. When completed unfortunately, the sluggish-freezing problem remained unchanged. I spoke to another specialist at noon today with my current case number, we went through the recovery reboot proccess again but this time we went through the Disk Utility/ First Aide by the book on all sections of the startup disk. No errors where discovered and not corrections where required. He then asked me to open the Activity Monitor, he said you can easily do that using the Spotlight search, okay. When I opened Spotlight it immediately froze and quit, he was intrigued. I opened Activity Monitor by way of Desktop/Go/Utilities/Activity Monitor, he focused in on a few things. On the Disk tab there is a "Heart Beat" type live Graph at the bottom of the page, lots of Blue and Red spiking activity in the Reads and Writes rows. He also observed that the "mdworker" and the "mds" process' were gulping a lot of gigabytes of Read and Write activity. What does that mean, how is that relevant were my questions. He explained that this is a normal collection of meta-data for the newly re-installed operating system, which is required for the Spotlight feature when quickly returning answers to a search criteria input. He went on to explain that my 2017 vintage Fusion Hard Drive, (a traditional Hard Disk drive and Solid-State Drive combination), is currently hard at work processing this meta-data collection in the traditional HD, so in-turn basic software functions that I'm trying to perform are in a battle with the monsterous data collection. Newer SSD HD computers do not have any issues with the massive meta-data collection process' a necessary process with the newer high performance operating systems like Sonoma. So, going forward for me he said I should keep an eye on the activity monitor for a few days, things should gradually return to normal in a short amount of time, a few days or so, if not to call back.

So okay, I guess. Stay tuned, I'll update this post if resolved or not.

Thank you for contacting the Apple Support Personal and the detailed Trouble Shooting details.

Sadly, the Fusion Drive by its' very nature, was good for inexpensive additional Storage at one time.

Mechanical / Spinner drives coupled with a SSD Drive will be less speedy than the All SSD drives and thusly the poor performance in newer and newest versions of macOS like Ventura.

There are possible alternative if one wants to explore this further and to extend the useful like of the computer.

Doing so would greatly increase the overall performance

It would involve and External Enclosure and a good SSD to matchup with the enclosure

Then, Install Ventura onto the External Drive and set the external drive as the computer Startup Drive

Effectively, running the computer form the External SSD drive

Should one what to explore these options, a good starting point would be www.owc.com

They may even have specific Enclosures and SSD drive specifically designed to matchup with your specific model / age of computer

Hi Geewoody, I hope you have solved your issue. I have fixed mine which was no easy task! After trying multiple things that failed I saved all of my files to an external drive which took a long time as I could transfer about 20GB at a time before my computer would freeze, over 2TB saved. My bad for not having previous back ups, Lesson learned! I then wiped my drive and tried to install the original OS Sierra which failed and I thought this is the end as I got the ? mark on restart. Then I reinstalled Ventura 13.6.6 and to my surprise everything is working fine again, I have transferred all of my files back and had quite the clean out. My computer has run faultless for 2 weeks now. Yes I have backed up with Time Machine. I hope this helps.

Well finally a conclusion, after fooling around with this problem for months the computer stopped working, no more restarting with a key combination, reinstalling the OS, disk utilities/disk repair, and every other possible life saving procedure is no longer an option. RIP to my 7-year old iMac. Sad but as they say in the computer world it was old and feeble, my new 24-inch, 2023 iMac with an 512GB SSD Drive should last a few years. Aaaah, what are gonna do?

Since the user has already reached certain conclusions.

There really is not much more to offer outside of what has already been suggested