Safari appears to be crashing for some when creating searches in the address bar

By Rich Edmonds
last updated

There appears to be an issue plaguing select iPhone and Mac owners, which results in Safari crashing when attempting to search for entered text using the address bar. Reports have been published by those rocking iOS and OS X hardware who have been able to reproduce the crash. Luckily, there appears to be an easy temporary fix if you happen to be among those affected.

There's quite the Reddit thread currently covering the issue. iOS developer Steven Troughton-Smith has shared on Twitter that the issue appears to be related to the search suggestion feature in Safari.

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It was only two days ago when we looked at a JavaScript code that caused the Safari web browser to crash, but this was easily avoidable. Unfortunately, this new problem is believed to be related to a feature within the browser itself, as opposed to executed code on a webpage.

If you are having trouble, you could try disabling search suggestions to prevent the browser from falling flat on its face. This can be achieved by heading into Settings > Safari. It's not currently known as to what is the cause or why this issue only affects some users. We've been unable to experience safari crashing on our own hardware, but we'd be interested to hear if anyone has experienced problems in the comments.

Via: Reddit, The Verge

Rich Edmonds
Rich Edmonds
23 Comments
  • Had the problem on 3 Macs almost all at the same time. Searched on Twitter and some guy from the netherlands had the solution to disable the safari suggestions. Now all works fine again.
  • Had it on iPad Air 2, and iPad mini retina. Have not checked my MacBook, or Mac mini. The turning off search suggestions worked. Other have said use private browsing in Safari also works. My iPhone 6s did not have the issue, but I checked, and search suggestions was already off. Not sure when I did that. Sent from the iMore App
  • Just started crashing today - not just for searches: as soon as you touch the address field Safari crashes. Iphone 5, 8.4
  • I hid Safari in a bloatware file long ago. This just validates my decision.
  • My iPhone 6S, iPad Pro and the wife's iPhone 6S all experienced this, starting this morning. It was fine yesterday. I temporarily turned off the suggestions in settings and it's fine now. I'll leave it off until tomorrow and see if it's working normally then. :-) Sent from the iMore App
  • I just turned off Search Suggestions and hope it works. Safari has been crashing on me when coming in with a link from Reeder for a while now and it's been incredibly irritating, sometimes hanging my Mac. I'm hoping this works. Thanks.
  • It's weird. Have this problem on two of the family iOS devices we have. Haven't tried the others yet. Sent from the iMore App
  • Yep got this problem. Cant search on my ipad mini
  • I though I was the only one, at least we should see a fix or response from apple . Sent from the iMore App
  • No issues on my iPhone 6S on 9.2.1. Search Suggestions are enabled. I'm assuming it's working because of the cache.
  • I've had this (or a similar) problem for a few months on MacOS. I found a thread on it on the Apple forums where I posted a "yes it affects me too message" last month and then switched to using Chrome. It looks like that thread has got very active in the last few days due to this new issue: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7268997 I'm hoping that this new problem is closely related (or even the same issue) because maybe Apple will now fix it!
  • Looks like they have now fixed it but it may take a while for everyone to see the fix: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-35420573 It sounds different to the bug in the Apple forums thread, but hopefully this publicity makes Apple look at that issue as well.
  • It's crashing on my air 2 and MacBook Air but still working on my iPhone 6S plus and iPad mini 3. Sent from the iMore App
  • Crashing on my iPad Air but not my 6. Started out of the blue. Simply touching the address bar does it. As other have said, turn off suggestions or alternatively using private tabs fixes for now Sent from the iMore App
  • Yeah, had this on my iPod Touch this morning, but all ok again now. Sent from the iMore App
  • My iPhone 6 plus started doing this last night. Its some kind of glitch in the software. Recommended fix per apple care was to go into safari settings. Click the clear browser data tab. Then do the reset from that screen using the power and home button until you see the apple logo. I followed the steps and the phone is working fine now. Hope this helps.
  • This started happening to me late last night on my iPhone 6S. Tap the Search field, crash. Every time. It had never happened before. So, I grab my iPad and the exact same thing. Tap the Search field, crash. Every time. It had never happened before and now it's doing it on both my iPad and iPhone? Grabbed my wife's iPhone and iPad. They're working fine. Tried a hard reboot on both my devices. Nope. I fixed it on both devices by trying the very next thing. Settings>General>Safari>Clear History and Website Data. I did it on the phone, fixed. iPad still bonked. Did it on the iPad, fixed. Because it started happening simultaneously on both of my devices, it sure seems like an iCloud issue.
  • Safari is a mess on iOS. Not only does it crash, it won't load some pages which leaves you staring at a blank white page. Sometimes you get nothing. It just stays on the same page you were on. Very frustrating and for some reason it takes forever to load Amazon. Have to hit the refresh button to get it to work.
  • Had the problem yesterday on iPhone 6s just resetting all safari stuff solved it
  • I've had this on my 6s Plus the other day. Didn't think much about it and just went to Bing's website. Can't replicate it on my iPad Pro or Mac. Clearing the history and website data fixed it for me.
  • Got the problem on one iPad mini but not the other. Turned off search suggestion & it fixed it
  • I had the problem on my iPad 4 a few days ago. Tapping in the search/URL bar immediately caused Safari to crash. I noticed that PRivate browsing mode did not have the issue, leading me to conclude that it was something to do with browser search history or Apple search suggestions. I fixed it by clearing browser history and cookies. Definitely a bug in safari.
  • Safari just disappeared this morning! Apps that say there's an update in the App. Store won't update either! What gives?! Thought Apple was better than this- I really don't want to clear everything if it means losing everything I've saved over the past several months either.i just realised that all these previous comments are from 3weeks ago! This just happened to me today!