On November 14, 2022, several publications reported that a strange bug was causing Apple's web browser Safari to crash on iPhones and iPads. Apparently, the bug prevented users from searching for specific words and characters. As mentioned in a report by 9To5mac, when users started typing some specific letters into the search bar in Safari, the app would crash immediately, stopping users from completing their search. Although we did not encounter the bug, it reportedly affected many iPhone and iPad users running on iOS 16.
A variety of letters and searches seemed to trigger the bug. For instance, typing "tar," "bes," and "wal" caused the web browser to crash. Several users took to the microblogging platform Twitter to report the bug. The report mentioned that the bug could be caused due to "some sort of text rendering bug affecting the suggested results that appear in Safari" when users start typing.
Further, it was discovered that it was a server-side error that was causing the web browser to crash upon typing certain letters. However, while writing this report on November 16, 2022, Apple seems to have fixed the bug.
As per an update added in the same report, Apple has added a server-side fix for the bug. This means that Safari users should not experience any app crashes while trying to search for anything. Since it was a server-side error, Apple did not have to release an exclusive iOS update overnight to fix it.
Nevertheless, bugs related to web browsers could be very frustrating as they don't allow users to access the information they need. In the coming days, Apple will also release iOS 16.2, the update that is supposed to unlock 5G for Indian iPhones.
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