Safari 15.6.1 unusable on MacBook Pro with macOS Catalina

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Level 1

24 points

Safari 15.6.1 unusable on MacBook Pro with macOS Catalina

Safari has been largely unusable on Mac OS 15.6.1 Catalina. I'm having to switch to Chrome on my mid 2012 15" MacBook Pro. Images don't load, especially on shopping sites. Pages don't load completely and sometimes not at all. I could go on.

It's sad because my MB has 16gb ram, 2 solid state drives (replaced the optical drive), and a decent graphics processor. In other words, a lot of life and power left (just not much battery). I use for big MainStage concerts, Photoshop, website work, writing, Final Cut and Logic, and now AI stuff. Runs them great. But Safari has hit the mat.

Anyone else seeing this and/or have a solution other than the usual clear caches, etc? Or switching to Chrome/Opera/Brave?

[Edited by Moderator]

Original Title: Mac OS Safari 15.6.1 Now Unusable on Catalina

MacBook Pro 15″

Posted on Sep 14, 2025 07:55 PM

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Answer 1

Mac Jim ID

Level 9

54,128 points

Sep 14, 2025 08:39 PM in response to iPhoneImages

It appears you have your Mac OS version incorrect as 15.6.1 is Sequoia and not Catalina as shown in your screen shot.

If you have already removed Extensions from Safari that may be causing a conflict, I would suspect a networking issue or third party process that is running on startup causing the conflict with Safari. Some common ones are VPN's, Cleaners (such as CleanMyMac), or Antivirus software. If none of those are installed on your computer, then you can try posting the free EtreCheck report using the Additional Text option when posting. There is no personal information provided in the report and along with processes running on startup, it will show what processes are using the most Networking resources.

How to use the Add Text Feature When Post… - Apple Community

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Answer 2

iPhoneImages Author

Level 1

24 points

Sep 14, 2025 09:12 PM in response to Mac Jim ID

If you notice the headline, it was Safari 15.6.1. I'm referring to that in the body.

Are you running Catalina on an older MBP with Safari 15.6.1 too? So you don't have that experience? It runs fine on your older machine?

No extensions, no VPN running, no cleaners.

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