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Reggie Fowler · Mar 8, 2008, 09:02 AM

Right now, as we speak........go to ESPN: The Worldwide Leader In Sports

I've tried under two different login's on my computer and something on that website is freezing up Safari.

Are you getting the same result?

Mastrap · Mar 8, 2008, 09:06 AM

Yeah, same thing.

AppleGirl1990 · Mar 8, 2008, 09:20 AM

I'm seeing the same thin, espn locks up safari.

Oddly enough, in the last 24 hours....i've experienced difficulty loading several websites that i use to open easily. Something is going on here.

larrinski · Mar 8, 2008, 10:35 AM

Locks up Omniweb and Firefox 3 Beta 3 as well...Well done ESPN...

LeeG · Mar 8, 2008, 11:35 AM

Yup - freezes it right up.

AppleGirl1990 · Mar 8, 2008, 11:41 AM

What do you think could be causing this? I know nothing about 'code'

Colonel Panic · Mar 8, 2008, 11:52 AM

Weird. Freezes for me, as do a lot of other sites. Recent development.

Does this work for people:

Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 beta 1 - Reviews by PC Magazine

Freezes for me.

(please resist the jokes about this being a site about IE8)

Colonel Panic · Mar 8, 2008, 12:13 PM

both sites work now. dunno what changed.

DVDShows · Mar 8, 2008, 12:32 PM

It has nothing to do with Safari or ESPN.

It seems to be an OS/X issue.

I have tried a couple of websites (such as ESPN and Rogers.Yahoo.com) and they freeze on Safari, Opera and Firefox.

It seems to happen on sites where there is some sort of a LIVE Video Feed. Whether it be an ad or article or news story, that seems to be the point where it freezes.

Because of you notice on ESPN, some of the page loads, but the "Video" portions do not...seems like this all started with the Recent OS/X Update.

Either way, everyone should make sure the Report the issue to Apple when asked. Hopefully they will look into this and rectify it immediately.

Art Vandelay · Mar 8, 2008, 12:51 PM

I'm not having any problems with Safari 3.0.4 on 10.5.2 on ESPN.com or with any video on ESPN.com. I haven't had any problems with video from other sites either.

Chuckit · Mar 8, 2008, 01:39 PM

Like other people said, it's working fine for me now. If I were to venture a guess, I'd say it was probably a misbehaving Flash movie. That would explain why it happens in any browser, and Flash is not a particularly great piece of software anyway.

rickey939 · Mar 8, 2008, 03:44 PM

It's still freezing for me.

So is macminute.com....

Awesome!

AppleGirl1990 · Mar 8, 2008, 03:54 PM

As i mentioned in a prior post, ESPN and a few other sites weren't working properly this morning. What ever was wrong has been fixed. Thank god.

BUT, what do they have in common? One of the other sites was Break.com (the problem was specific to a picture gallery).

So why all of a sudden does these sites and others magically work.

Could it be an issue with a server that houses these sites? Cause within 10 minutes...all the sites started working again.

hmmmm.

Art Vandelay · Mar 8, 2008, 04:19 PM

More than likely it's a bad flash ad that's circulating around.

bmwk100 · Mar 8, 2008, 05:08 PM

ESPN, Sun-Sentinel and The Sporting News all are causing me to freeze up in Safari and Firefox.

rickey939 · Mar 8, 2008, 08:12 PM

Originally Posted by bmwk100

ESPN, Sun-Sentinel and The Sporting News all are causing me to freeze up in Safari and Firefox.

After reading what seemed like a 600-post thread on Apple.com about this issue, the fix is....<drum roll please>....a simple reboot.

Fixed my issues immediately.

Whodathunkit.®

turtle777 · Mar 8, 2008, 09:04 PM

No issues for me.

Even the reboot didn't fix the "no issues" problem.

What am I doing wrong ?

-t

imitchellg5 · Mar 8, 2008, 09:19 PM

It's all working for me, even though most sites like that kill my 867MHz G4. Long live PowerPC1!

bmwk100 · Mar 8, 2008, 10:36 PM

Reboot did not work for me.

rickey939 · Mar 9, 2008, 12:07 AM

Originally Posted by bmwk100

Reboot did not work for me.

Some say you need to clear the Safari cache and reboot.

Again, a simple reboot did the trick for me.

AppleGirl1990 · Mar 9, 2008, 12:11 AM

Keep in mind that it wasn't just espn that was crashing. many sites stopped working properly for a short 8 hour period. But all are now working fine.

Either 10 different unrelated websites (which all worked fine previously) had sudden error and then fixes at the same time OR and here is my conspiracy theory.....

Apple somehow has behind the scenes access to our computers and did something behind the scenes that forced all our Safari's to crash. and then quickly removed what ever it is that they were doing.

you tell me.

turtle777 · Mar 9, 2008, 12:16 AM

Originally Posted by AppleGirl1990

Apple somehow has behind the scenes access to our computers and did something behind the scenes that forced all our Safari's to crash. and then quickly removed what ever it is that they were doing.

you tell me.

Yes, that's it.

You win 3 free posts at 'NN.

-t

frankthetank966 · Mar 9, 2008, 01:34 PM

Still happening to me. youtube, espn....

C.A.T.S. CEO · Mar 9, 2008, 01:50 PM

Works for me in Safari 3.0.4/OS X 10.5.2.

frankthetank966 · Mar 9, 2008, 08:28 PM

I am still having trouble. This has to be one of the most annoying Mac issues to date!

TETENAL · Mar 9, 2008, 08:33 PM

When your web browser hangs, select it in Activity Monitor and click the Sample button in the toolbar. Post the results.

Chuckit · Mar 9, 2008, 08:54 PM

Originally Posted by frankthetank966

I am still having trouble. This has to be one of the most annoying Mac issues to date!

Is your Flash up to date?

Nanman · Mar 9, 2008, 09:23 PM

Still having the same problem --ESPN, Fark, Newsday.com, and a number of other sites. Have not tried shutting down and rebooting, but will give that a shot.

voicebox · Mar 10, 2008, 04:22 AM

It works OK for me - I am running Safari 3.04 and OS X 10.5.2

AppleGirl1990 · Mar 10, 2008, 08:07 AM

Nanman, what could cause ESPN, Fark, Newsday.com, and a number of other sites (totally unrelated sites) to all of a sudden stop working?

Nobody has given serious thought to my conspiracy theory.

I just don't get how unrelated websites could at the same time have the same symptoms for thousands of Apple users and then fix itself without software updates or anything new happening. Again....hmmmmmm!

analogika · Mar 10, 2008, 08:20 AM

Originally Posted by AppleGirl1990

Apple somehow has behind the scenes access to our computers

Please step away from the internet, ma'am, and unlock the door.

analogika · Mar 10, 2008, 08:25 AM

Originally Posted by AppleGirl1990

Nobody has given serious thought to my conspiracy theory.

That should tell you something.

Tomacorno · Mar 10, 2008, 11:09 AM

I had the same problem Saturday, Firefox and Safari. I thought it was a Roadrunner problem because even email was pokey. Did anyone try getting on the tubes with Windows during that time? I think that Echelon is bogging down my browsers.

Tomacorno · Mar 10, 2008, 11:10 AM

So, I am giving semi-serious thought to Applegirl's theory. I just think it is bigger than Apple!

Chuckit · Mar 10, 2008, 11:13 AM

Originally Posted by AppleGirl1990

Nanman, what could cause ESPN, Fark, Newsday.com, and a number of other sites (totally unrelated sites) to all of a sudden stop working?

Nobody has given serious thought to my conspiracy theory.

I just don't get how unrelated websites could at the same time have the same symptoms for thousands of Apple users and then fix itself without software updates or anything new happening. Again....hmmmmmm!

What on earth could cause several sites that use Flash to all stop working? I just can't find any common thread between a bunch of sites that all have Flash plastered across the front page.

They don't look unrelated to me. Get thee to a Flash-blocker.

Bob Stewart · Mar 10, 2008, 04:29 PM

It must be something with Flash Player and 10.5.2. My computer is affected and it runs 10.5.2 and having disabled Flash Plug-in 9.0.115 (along with other plug-ins), ESPN will load, though without any movies. Strangely, my wife is running 10.5.2 on an Intel Mini and has plug-in 9.0.115, too, and hers works fine. I did notice that among my plug-ins, now disabled, is one called Flash Player Enabler. She doesn't have that on her machine. Maybe that's the culprit? Also my G4 laptop, running 10.4 (no upgrade to anything past the Tiger install disc) loads the site, too. It's not just ESPN, either.

-Bob

DCJ001 · Mar 10, 2008, 06:10 PM

No problems here.

turtle777 · Mar 10, 2008, 07:00 PM

Originally Posted by Tomacorno

So, I am giving semi-serious thought to Applegirl's theory. I just think it is bigger than Apple!

Bigger than a melon ? Or pumpkin ?

I don't think so.

-t

Bob Stewart · Mar 10, 2008, 08:40 PM

After all I've tried today, I rebooted (I know I've done it several times during this stuff) and all the problems went away. Even with Firefox. I hate to believe that computers are ruled by magic, but I have no other explanation right now.

mkerr64 · Mar 10, 2008, 09:36 PM

no problems here

poocat · Mar 10, 2008, 10:03 PM

This seems fixed to me, but according to other reports, this was a problem with newest Quicktime update and Flash. That's why it happened across browsers. Don't know what changed though.

Strange.

AppleGirl1990 · Mar 11, 2008, 12:15 AM

Chuckit, are you saying that the flash content on over 20 sites were all miscoded at the same exact time and then fixed at the same exact time?

is that your logic? that's your theory?

oh, and to blow your theory out of the water, safari (on the day in question) was locking up when viewing some .jpg's on break.com. Nothing to do with flash.

Art Vandelay · Mar 11, 2008, 12:57 AM

Originally Posted by AppleGirl1990

Chuckit, are you saying that the flash content on over 20 sites were all miscoded at the same exact time and then fixed at the same exact time?

is that your logic? that's your theory?

oh, and to blow your theory out of the water, safari (on the day in question) was locking up when viewing some .jpg's on break.com. Nothing to do with flash.

All those sites have flash ads, including break.com. There probably was a particular flash ad that was causing a problem. Flash ads aren't unique to any one site either. I often see the same ads across multiple sites. Flash ads are often on a rotation too. They'll be displayed during a certain time range and then they're gone, replaced by a different rotation set.

That's a drastically better theory than yours. Apple would be crucified if they had stealth access to our Macs. That isn't something that can be hidden.

turtle777 · Mar 11, 2008, 12:59 AM

Originally Posted by AppleGirl1990

Chuckit, are you saying that the flash content on over 20 sites were all miscoded at the same exact time and then fixed at the same exact time?

is that your logic? that's your theory?

oh, and to blow your theory out of the water, safari (on the day in question) was locking up when viewing some .jpg's on break.com. Nothing to do with flash.

Your paranoia can be helped.

Get Little Snitch, it will monitor all your network traffic.
You can even allow and disallow access to individual websites and domains.

-t

AppleGirl1990 · Mar 11, 2008, 10:41 AM

i'm not doubting that it was 'bad flash' that locked up our computers.
but what i find hard to believe is that all these sites fixed their problems at the same time.

something like this should have taken days/weeks to fix based on the number of sites that would have had to a) realize that bad flash was on their site and b)remove bad flash media from their sites

but the fact that this all occured and was solved within 10 hours among tons of sites, makes me believe there is something else at play here.

Chuckit · Mar 11, 2008, 10:49 AM

Most likely, some commonly used Flash ad service either got a batch of bad ads or had a hiccup in their server. Most sites don't sell their own ads — they contract out to other companies. So a lot of sites will share ad providers.

analogika · Mar 11, 2008, 11:12 AM

The back-door conspiracy theory is so much more entertaining, though...coming soon to a silver screen near you.