Safari quits on launch

[Thomas S. England]

I've had to abandon my daily browser, Safari, because it now quits 1-2 second after launching.

I've repaired permissions, thrown out preferences, I have no Input addons, I've installed the beta Safari--it quit too--and uninstalled it.

Not sure what to try next.

This is using Tiger OS 10.4.11 on an Intel iMac.

This seems to have begun when I switched DSL providers from EarthLink to AT&T (Don't get me started on what a fiasco that has proven to be).

Meanwhile, I've switched to Firefox, see my related thread...

[krissel]

Things to try:

Trash the following...

HD > Users > Your Account > Library > Caches > Safari.

~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Safari.plist

If those don't do the trick then dump the whole ~/Library/Safari folder (but take out the bookmarks.plist and save it somewhere first)

Check the Safari.crash.log to see what is really happening.

Sometimes fonts can be the reason. Open Font Book and check for any duplicates or possibly any new fonts that may have been added by the change to the new ISP. You can also validate fonts within the app.

Download and resinstall Safari again.

Here is some advice from Apple:

QUOTE

If possible, try connecting your Mac to the Internet via a different ISP. If the issue occurs only when you are connected to a specific ISP, contact that ISP for further assistance.

For various reasons, your ISP may cache Internet connections to minimize traffic outside of their own network.  This cache can be compressed then decompressed with some alterations when the packets are delivered to your Mac. Tolerance of this may vary by web browser--third-party web browsers may respond differently than Safari.

Good luck with that.


Create new user and see if it still crashes.

If any of these do work, once Safari is open, go to Safari menu and select Reset Safari to help clear things up.

[Thomas S. England]

[quote name='krissel' date='May 16 2009, 09:32 AM' post='162513']
Things to try:


Download and resinstall Safari again.


Is Safari available as a standalone download?  I've seen suggestions that one can use the Combo Updater for 10.4.11 to have Safari re-installed, but I'm wary of a system-wide fix for one application.

[kimmer]

Not sure which version you want:

Download Safari 4 (BETA):
http://www.apple.com/safari/download/

Safari 3.2.3 downloads for both 10.4 and 10.5:
http://support.apple.com/downloads/#internet

[Thomas S. England]

deleted caches & preferences once again.

reinstalled a fresh download.

Still crashes every time...

[krissel]

What did the Safari crash log say?

Did you try a new user?

Check your fonts?   First remove duplicates using Font Book.

Then do this:

Remove the font folders from the following locations to your desktop.

Font locations in Mac OS X:

An application's own Fonts folder. Some applications have their own private font folders. These are located either inside the application's folder, or in the Application Support folder in the common Library folder. Office stores it's fonts here: /Applications/Microsoft Office 2004/Office/Fonts/. Office 2008 changed it's font location to /Library/Fonts/Microsoft folder.

/Users/<your username>/Library/Fonts. This is the fonts folder in your personal Library folder.

/Library/Fonts. This is the system-wide font Library.

/Network/Library/Fonts. This location only appears if you're running a Mac OS X Server.

/System Folder/Fonts. This is the fonts folder for the Classic environment. If you're running applications in both Classic and Mac OS X this is the place to put your fonts. This way, both Classic and Mac OS X applications can use them. Classic applications can't see fonts in any of the other font folders above.

DO NOT REMOVE THESE (you should get a warning if you try):

/System/Library/Fonts. All fonts used by Mac OS X system software are placed here.


Once you have removed the fonts, try Safari again.  If it does launch you will have to go through a slow process of putting back the fonts in groups to find out which is the culprit.

[Thomas S. England]

Success!

Doing more poking around in my Library folder, I found TopSites.plist, LastSession.plist and History.plist.

Deleted all three, so I'm not sure which was the offender, but Safari now stays open for me.

Thanks for all the worthwhile suggestions while I struggled!

[krissel]

From post #2:  

QUOTE

If those don't do the trick then dump the whole ~/Library/Safari folder (but take out the bookmarks.plist and save it somewhere first)

That would have taken care of those plists.  

[Thomas S. England]

QUOTE(krissel @ May 22 2009, 03:32 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

From post #2:  

QUOTE

If those don't do the trick then dump the whole ~/Library/Safari folder (but take out the bookmarks.plist and save it somewhere first)

That would have taken care of those plists.  

You're so right, I was too focussed on looking in the Preferences folder.