Often when I'm using Safari on my iPhone, when I go to the bottom and press the tabs button, the app stops responding and it acts like there are no elements on the screen, and I cannot navigate or do anything. When I go to the home screen and re-open Safari, it still acts like there are no items and is unresponsive. When I re-open Safari a second time, the app restarts and works again. When I press the tabs button after this restart it works, but it often triggers this crash the second time I do it. I am always using a Braille display if that matters, with an iPhone 16E running iOS 26.3. Has anyone else experienced this or found a solution?
Comments
Too Many Tabs?
I have experienced this issue a handful of times on iOS 26, and the only common factor I noticed with each instance was that I had 5+ tabs open. Unfortunately the only workarounds I've found are to either restart the app or keep open tabs to a minimum whenever possible. Interested to see if anyone else has insights.
Number of tabs
Yes, I too believe it’s down to how many tabs are open. On my iPhone Air, I seem to be able to get to about 12 tabs before I hit this issue.
I’m not even sure it’s related to VoiceOver, as the screen appears to visually freeze too.
Dave
Closing tabs/clearing history
For what it's worth to you, you can do a single finger triple tap on the Tabs button in the bottom right of Safari when it's open, and then choose the close all tabs option that pops up in the dialogue. Alternatively, if you go to Settings, Apps, Safari, you can clear your history, which gives you an option of closing all tabs as well.
This second option might help alleviate whatever it is that's causing Safari to crash on you when the Tabs dialogue is displayed.
HTH.
Same issue here
I keep very few tabs open... 6 at the most... and am constantly having the same problem mentioned in this post. I always have to force close Safari in the app switcher. The problem went away for a while but is back with a vengance.
Frustrating issue
I also experience this bug with just a few tabs open. It's rather anoying. It was strongly present in 26, went away for a few updates and is indeed back with a vengeance. I've confirmed with a sighted person that at least on my end, they can see and interact with safari like normal, despite VoiceOver not being able to.
Can confirm
Same here one tab or 10 tabs, screen is black! Audibly speaking! Moreover what's up with auto fill? I'm getting nothing via voiceover in Safari and other applications the system is broken captain!
AutoFill
For AutoFill, make sure the on-screen keyboard appears. If you have a Bluetooth keyboard connected, you can turn it off, find the AutoFill items above the keyboard, select one, then turn the external keyboard back on. If you are using a Braille display, dots 1 4 6 chord shows the on-screen keyboard, although sometimes you have to press it twice.
Switched to Brave
This bug, along with Safari constantly rearranging and deleting tabs is what made me finally give up on it and change browsers. My phone seems to work better without Safari running in general. And no, this was not a Voiceover issue, it happens whether you have it on or off. I don't know if they fixed it or not because now I only use Safari to read one website and download stuff (since Brave can be weird about that).