Disclaimer: I am running macOS 12.6.9 Monterey. Your mileage may vary.
Disclaimer #2: I do not claim this to be a permanent fix, but it is definitely a nice work-around to a long existing issue with Safari.
Disclaimer #3: This really has saved me from defenestrating my old MacBook Pro.
Note: My edit is at the bottom of the original post. I left the original in tact for posterity. 😎
Hello everyone!,
Today I was messing around with my VO utility settings because I feel there must be something that we end users can do to get away from the infamous "Safari Not Responding" bug of doom. I began by looking over each category and playing around with different ideas, while stress testing Safari by opening several tabs/windows (see: A metric s**t-ton) linking to various sites, including AppleVis, Netflix, YouTube, Blind Mice Mart, AudioVault, Amazon, Audible, Yahoo, and a few random bookmarks I have related to programming.
As you can imagine, I had a "wonderful" time (see: God awful) dealing with Safari freezing up again, and again, and again, and., well you get the idea. 😅
However, I kept at it, until I came up with the following changes to my VO settings. I would swear to you all I have a much, much better time navigating the inter webs with Safari since making these changes, though I will admit they will take a little "getting used to".
The following changes I have listed below. The category and sub category will proceed a bulleted list. I really hope these suggestions work out for you all, as they are for me. Again, I am on Monterey, so Ventura and Sonoma may be a completely different beast.
Note I have only listed my final changes, these are not every setting within the VO utility.
1. Go to Verbosity > Text, and make the following changes:
• When text attributes change: Do Nothing
• When encountering a misspelled word: Do Nothing
• When encountering a link/attachment: Play Tone
• Read numbers as: Words
• When reading a capital letter: Speak Cap
• When deleting text: Play Tone
• Append phonetic pronunciation to single characters: unchecked
2. Go to Web > General, and change the following:
• Disable EVERYTHING!
3. Go to Sound, and change the following:
• Mute Sound Effects: Checked
• Enable audio ducking: unchecked
• Enable positional audio: unchecked
4. Reboot your Mac.
Once you are rebooted and back on your Desktop, open Safari and visit some web pages! If your machine works anything like mine, you will have shortened the "Not Responding" bug from whatever it was before (for you) to practically non-existent. 😎
***Update***
After further stress-testing my machine, I have come to the conclusion that you really only "need" steps 2 & 3. That makes this a much simpler process, and I swear this really works. Again I do not swear it completely removes the "Safari Not Responding" bug, but it makes it such an insignificant issue that you will likely not be bothered by it.
Comments
Oh Jolly Joe! It does work!
Admittedly, I felt rather skeptical at first when reading the post. I know, sorry @Brian, for the no doubt very gruesome while you must've felt with this incredibly meticulous experiment. I would not have had the patience and courage to have done something even close to this.
Anyway, regardless, I gave it a full committed "go!". And oh boy! Believe it or not, it does work! Really blew me away, to say the least.
However, there are some settings I did not stick to as it would be a deal breaker for me. After experiencing the more or less magical transformation, I went to reverse these following settings. But most importantly, the incredible results remain even after these reversal.
• When encountering a misspelled word: I chose to play sound;
• When reading a capital letter: I chose play tone;
• When deleting text: I chose change pitch. This tone is far too harsh to my ears;
• While a webpage loads: I originally had "Play tone", but switched to do nothing as you suggested;
• For the sound section: I didn't mute the effects, nor did I disable positional audio.
I'm using a Mac Pro running M2 Pro chip. I'm not quite sure if this has any significant relevance to my overwhelmingly positive results, especially with regards to the reversal I made.
So please guys! Export your Voice Over settings in case you need to restore them afterwards, and give this solution a go. At least it was incredibly worthwhile for my case.
@Jimmy
Hey, I am happy someone was willing to give it a try. Personally I am tired of reading the plethora of posts complaining about Safari being broken. Also, I have personally reset my VO settings and now only follow steps 2 & 3 of my original list above. Basically muting sounds in VO and Safari.
On the old Intel Macs at least, it is a serious game changer. If one can live without the sound effects. 😃
Go work for Apple accessibility today Brian! 🤣
Yes, please go work for them right from today @Brian. They'd be a fool if they wouldn't hire you, (if they weren't already haha).
I mean, seriously, despite without disabling sound effects, the difference is significant enough to be a game changer for my end here. I've now done with all my studies, otherwise I could've stress tested it far better with the very quirky and clunky academic webpages and databases.
I will definitely report this incredible finding to Apple Accessibility. Just to make them aware.
Again, thanks so so so much Brian for making my day today, and many days to follow ahead.
/ sent from a gloomy, overcast and rainy but cozy sofa in London 😁.
That..
Sounds like a nightmare! 😱
Interesting!
I'm using a 2013 MacBook Air running Big Sur 11.7.10 and Safari 16.6. Following steps 2 and 3 does indeed seem to make the problem significantly less irritating, though it doesn't eliminate it altogether. I still notice VO being really sluggish on some webpages and the busy busy messages still persist, but they only seem to last for 2 or 3 seconds now instead of up to a minute. I'll report this to Apple, and maybe, just maybe this will help and finally allow them to fix the problem, though I'm not holding my breath.