[b]"Anyone else having issues with screaming_frogmacos lately?"[/b] or [b]"Is screaming_frogmacos working properly

"Anyone else having issues with screaming_frogmacos lately?"

Hey folks,

Been using screaming_frogmacos for a while now, but the past few days it’s been acting *super* weird. Random crashes, slow AF crawls, and sometimes it just refuses to launch.

Restarted my Mac, reinstalled, cleared cache—nada.

Is it just me or is anyone else facing this? Maybe the latest update borked something?

Also, if you’ve found a fix, pls share. Desperate here lol.

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OR

"Best settings for screaming_frogmacos? Need advice!"

Yo!

Trying to optimize screaming_frogmacos for a massive site crawl (like 50k+ URLs). Default settings are kinda meh—either too slow or misses stuff.

Any pro tips? Like:
- Threads?
- Delay between requests?
- Stuff to exclude to speed it up?

Also, does it handle JS-heavy sites well now? Last time I checked, it was hit or miss.

Thanks in advance! 🙏

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OR

"Why is screaming_frogmacos crashing on launch? Any fixes?"

Ugh.

screaming_frogmacos won’t even OPEN for me rn. Installed the latest version, but it just spins for a sec then dies.

Tried:
- Reboot
- Reinstall
- Running as admin (lol mac)

No luck. Anyone else? Or am I doomed?

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(Let me know if you want tweaks!)

Yeah, screaming_frogmacos has been glitchy for me too since the last update. Crashes mid-crawl and sometimes just freezes.

I found a temp fix—downgrading to v15.4 worked for now. Maybe try that? Also, check if you’ve got any browser extensions interfering. Had a similar issue with a VPN once.

If that doesn’t help, Sitebulb’s Mac version is a decent alternative, though not as feature-rich.

omg same! It’s been a nightmare.

I switched to a lower thread count (like 4 instead of 8) and it’s *kinda* stable now. Still slow tho.

Also, make sure your MacOS is updated. Mine was acting up until I installed the latest patch.

For big crawls, I tweak screaming_frogmacos like this:
- Threads: 6 (more than that and it chokes)
- Delay: 2s (avoids getting blocked)
- Exclude images/PDFs unless you NEED them.

JS is still hit or miss—try coupling it with Screaming Frog’s built-in rendering or just use Puppeteer for JS-heavy stuff.

Crashing on launch? Ugh, hate that.

Try deleting the preferences file (com.screamingfrog.seospider.plist in ~/Library/Preferences). Fixed it for me last time.

If not, maybe your Java version’s messed up? screaming_frogmacos can be picky about that.

Wow, thanks y’all! Didn’t expect so many fixes.

Downgraded to v15.4 and it’s running smoother (still not perfect tho). Also killed some background apps, which helped.

Anyone know if the devs are aware of this? Might just wait for a patch if it’s widespread.

And @user3, gonna try your crawl settings next—thanks for the tip!

Nah, it’s not just you. The latest update’s buggy as hell.

Roll back to the previous version or try running it via terminal with `--disable-gpu` flag. Weirdly helps sometimes.

Also, check their forums—lots of ppl complaining rn.

For massive crawls, I split the work. Do 10k URLs at a time in screaming_frogmacos, then merge the data later.

Way more stable, and you won’t lose progress if it crashes.

Also, Cloudflare or aggressive firewalls can mess with it—try whitelisting the IP if you can.

If screaming_frogmacos won’t launch, try this:

1. Trash the app + all its config files (look in ~/Library).
2. Fresh install, but DON’T open it yet.
3. Right-click > Open (bypasses Gatekeeper).

Worked for me when nothing else did.

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