Stop Safari hanging when selecting the address bar or opening a new tab

gistfile1.txt

This shit has been bugging me for too long, so I went on a hunt and found a workaround. 

The Symptoms are as follows: 
  * Clicking the address bar results in a 1-4 second delay
  * Opening links in new tabs results in a 1-4 second delay
  * +T results in a 1-4 second delay
  * `PressAndHold[<pid>]: IMKServer Stall detected` is present in `/var/log/system.log` at the time of the hang. 
  
It appears to be to do with the PressAndHold helper - the thing that shows an IOS style selection of accents when you hold a key down.
The fix may have some unwanted effects, I haven't really noticed any. 

  1. Reboot into system restore mode (+R immediately after boot)
  2. Navigate to Utilities > Terminal
  3. Enter the command `csrutil disable` 
  4. Reboot
  5. Open Terminal
  6. `defaults write -g ApplePressAndHoldEnabled -bool false && launchctl remove $(launchctl list | grep -oE 'com.apple.PressAndHold.+$')`
  7. `sudo chmod 000 /System/Library/Input\ Methods/PressAndHold.app/Contents/MacOS/PressAndHold` 
  8. Reboot
  
  You can choose reboot back into restore mode and issue `csrutil enable` again to re-enable rootless mode.
  However, if you're constantly hacking around with bits of the OS like me, then you can leave it disabled. 
  
  Hope this helps.. 

Forked from https://gist.github.com/squeeb/5a9dd082cae1b2d753a0 to fix a typo.

Thanks a lot!

OMG, I was looking for the solution for 2 years. Did not think about looking into system.log... Thank you so much!

I've been having this problem for A LONG time as well. Tried pretty much everything else. This was the only thing that worked. THANK YOU!

[EDIT]

While this solves the problem, it actually disables a feature essential to me: the ability to press and hold on a key to show special characters.
Besides that I haven't found anything else that it interferes with.
I guess I'll have to deal with the lag until Apple decides to fix this. =/

This fixed the issue for me! Crazy that Apple have ignored this for years.