A reader has written that whenever he attempts to visit a website with Safari, “I have to hit reload at least once, it never will load on the first try. It didn’t used to do this, it just started doing it out of the blue a few weeks ago! Can you help me?”
As it happens, it turns out that following the most recent security update for OS X, a lot of users are having this same problem. So I would guess that this is the problem you are having (assuming that you have in fact applied the latest security update, and if you haven’t, you really should!) Nobody seems to be sure what the problem actually is, but I do know how to fix it!
Here is what you need to do:
Open up your system preferences, and click on “Network”.
Next, go to your TCP/IP settings, and look at the box which says “DNS Servers”.
There should be at least one IP address there. What you need to do is add a second (or, if there are none listed there, add two).
DNS servers are kind of like the switchboard operators of the Internet. When you type a website address, the DNS server translates that into the IP address associated with that website. For some reason, since the OS X security updated, Safari sometimes (often, it seems) gags on the DNS lookup, but so long as there is at least one secondary DNS server listed (so at least two total) it seems fine.
If you don’t know what DNS servers you should be using, you should ask your Internet service provider, or whomever maintains the server through which you gain your Internet access.
I was having this same problem myself and, knock on wood, I haven’t had it even once since adding the second DNS server.
Many thanks to my friend Craig for his assistance with this!