This forum is loaded very slow due to an incorrect CSS file, can someone fix it?

It has happenned for about a month, I don't remember exactly. It takes about 30 seconds to open any page. I looked into Chrome's network inspection and found it caused by an incorrect CSS link below. So every page load is waiting for this non-existent CSS file timeout before fully display.

Except this issue I can still use this forum normally so assuming it's not my network connection/location issue.

Can someone fix it?

Problem link: https://sf-saas.cdn-apple.com/latest/colors/default.css

They have the same problem on the Apple Support Community. Maybe Apple should test from outside the internal network.

So, there are (at least :-) two issues in play here:

  • Failing to load that default.css file.

  • Very slow load times.

I’m able to reproduce the first but not the second. I’ve filed my own bug about what I can reproduce (r. 148817654). I’ll have more to say about bugs in a sec.

It takes about 30 seconds to open any page.

That 30 seconds sounds like a DNS timeout. A DNS failure makes sense because the host is not on the public Internet:

% dns-sd -Q sf-saas.cdn-apple.com A IN
DATE: ---Tue 08 Apr 2025---
13:13:38.823  ...STARTING...
Timestamp     A/R  Flags     IF  Name                   Type   Class  Rdata
13:13:38.825  Add  40000002   0  sf-saas.cdn-apple.com. Addr   IN     0.0.0.0    No Such Record
^C
% dns-sd -Q sf-saas.cdn-apple.com AAAA IN
DATE: ---Tue 08 Apr 2025---
13:15:24.124  ...STARTING...
Timestamp     A/R  Flags     IF  Name                   Type   Class  Rdata
13:15:24.148  Add  2          0  sf-saas.cdn-apple.com. AAAA   IN     0.0.0.0    No Such Record
^C

However, a 30 second delay suggests that something else is afoot in your environment. The resolution should fail quickly, and indeed it does on my Mac, in just 2 ms.

You’re using a third-party browser which, IIUC, does its own DNS resolution, so that leaves a wide scope for non-standard [1] behaviour. However, I see the host tool fail quickly as well, and it also does its own resolution:

% time host -t A sf-saas.cdn-apple.com
Host sf-saas.cdn-apple.com not found: 3(NXDOMAIN)
host -t A sf-saas.cdn-apple.com  0.01s user 0.01s system 69% cpu 0.026 total
% time host -t AAAA sf-saas.cdn-apple.com
Host sf-saas.cdn-apple.com not found: 3(NXDOMAIN)
host -t AAAA sf-saas.cdn-apple.com  0.01s user 0.01s system 68% cpu 0.025 total

So it’s not that simple (-:

In summary:

  • There’s no need to file a bug about the default.css file issue. My bug should be sufficient.

  • It’s not clear as to why your client is hitting this 30 second delay.

  • I recommend that you retest with Safari.

  • If it has the same problem, it’s worth filing a bug about that. We might be able to change our resolver to work better in your environment.

    If you do file a bug, please post the bug number, just for the record.

  • If Safari doesn’t have the problem, a) that’s a great workaround, and b) you should raise this via the support channel for your browser.

Share and Enjoy

Quinn “The Eskimo!” @ Developer Technical Support @ Apple
let myEmail = "eskimo" + "1" + "@" + "apple.com"

[1] By which I mean not the same as all the other programs on your Mac.

Accepted Answer

Safari is as slow as Chrome, and as I said I use Chrome for everything and it also works well with this forum too so it's surely DNS, or Apple network issue or something else which I don't know.

I suspect it's DNS issue since I experienced same issue in the past with a few other websites (web pages reference to a wrong JS, CSS file). Of course the root cause is a developer carelessly added an incorrect CSS/JS link.

Thank you for your response.

Safari is as slow as Chrome

Cool. Well, not cool, but you know what I mean (-: The fact that you can reproduce this in Safari makes the escalation path clear: You should file a bug against Safari itself. Please post your bug number, just for the record.

IMPORTANT As this is likely to involve the underlying networking stack, I recommend that you follow the Network Diagnostics for macOS instruction on our Bug Reporting > Profiles and Logs page. That’ll give our network engineers the best shot at working out what’s gone wrong.

Share and Enjoy

Quinn “The Eskimo!” @ Developer Technical Support @ Apple
let myEmail = "eskimo" + "1" + "@" + "apple.com"

This forum is loaded very slow due to an incorrect CSS file, can someone fix it?
 
 
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