Level 1

0 points

Possible Safari 4.0.3 issue

I just downloaded safari 4.0.3. Everything seemed fine, until I went to check my yahoo mail. There were three e-mail, one from Apple, barnesand noble and Toysrus. When I opened the apple nothing strange happened. Yet, when I opened the barnesandnoble e-mail the downloads box popped up with an entry showing Desktop 1-1. Well I clicked show in finder and when you click it, it just shows an empty textedit page. I immediately sent it to the trash bin and secured emptied the trash. I know clicking on it was pretty stupid, but back to the e-mails when I clicked back on the barnesandnoble e-mail a Desktop 2-1 popped up. The same thing for the toysrus e-mail, a Desktop 3-1 and 4-1 popped up. When you look in Finder under there are empty folders with the same titles Desktop 1-1, 2-1, 3-1, 4-1.

What the heck is going on? Is this some bug with Safari or was there some sort of malicious content hidden in those e-mails?

<Edited by Host>

MacBook, Mac OS X (10.4.11)

Posted on Aug 11, 2009 11:36 PM

98 replies

RaySkater

Level 3

744 points

Aug 18, 2009 10:03 AM in response to Talban

heh...

I am living without safari, putting up with firefox and turning javascript on and off as needed.

sounds like this is becoming quite the untidy mess, eh?

r

RaySkater

Level 3

744 points

Aug 18, 2009 10:10 AM in response to Island-artz

I am experiencing this with a site which is reputable, while I am reading that site's RSS feed.

hands aren't even ON the mouse or near a link and these downloads start coming by themselves.

r

gjanee

Level 1

0 points

Aug 18, 2009 4:34 PM in response to reaper058

I'm seeing this phenomenon on multiple sites, but to take one page in particular, http://www.slate.com/id/2225617/ . Every few seconds Safari creates empty files like /Users/Desktop-1-1 and empty directories like ~/Desktop-1. Safari stops doing this as soon as I close the page.

The fact that Safari is writing files in the filesystem outside its cache, let alone reading them, shows that something is possibly seriously broken with the JavaScript/Flash sandbox security model.

Turning off JavaScript is just not an option on today's Web.

Safari 4.0.3, Shockwave Flash plugin 10.0r32, Mac OS X 10.4.11, PowerPC G5.

Aug 18, 2009 9:03 PM in response to reaper058

Ditto. Mac Pro, Quad-Core Intel Xeon, running Tiger (10.4.11)
Started with auto creation of b.ashx files when performing actions (comments, add friends, etc.) on MySpace. Now building empty document folders when I access an RSS feed. Spent 1.5 hours with apple tech today dumping cache, safe-booting, ensuring issue was NOT user specific. May in fact be a Tiger/Safari 4.03 issue (my belief--tech was noncommittal). It started with Safari upgrade to 4.03 a couple of days ago. Apple is EXTREMELY reluctant to admit this is a result of the upgrade. I felt yesterday like I was the first one to reported this (that was the tech's story); there were a few threads only yesterday. I am hoping Apple comes up with an overall fix--not excited about the alternatives.

Aug 18, 2009 9:17 PM in response to reaper058

Same issue here
http://webmail.nyc.rr.com created uunauthorized downloads of empty "desktop" folders to both logged in user folder and users folder
Never happened until Safari 4.0.3 and recent security update

sbuff22

Level 1

0 points

Aug 18, 2009 10:45 PM in response to reaper058

Same thing. Unsolicited downloads titled "Desktop 1-1", "Desktop 2-1" etc. coming from various web sites starting last night after I downloaded Safari 4.03. Content is 0 MB. Using OS X 10.4.11. Coincidence? Not from the sounds of the other posts I have read.

Aug 19, 2009 5:39 AM in response to reaper058

I got the behavior with Safari 4.0.3, OS X 10.4.11 on G4 Dual, and had 3 desktop folders created in Users/username then also username/ folders. In trying to investigate the offending link via info seen in Get Info, the folder making site/code did the same automatically again when I directly visited " http://www.traffic.outbrain/network/rtime ". That URL is a truncation of the longish Get Info information seen from one of the Desktop folders created by the offending traffic monitor, etc from a USA Today story (this one was on Sanford's wife moving out of the gov. house). It is similar to other Get Info on the folders made, posted here.

This is a very disconcerting issue to see folders being created out of the blue, sans any permission from me, from reading some news web page.

Aug 19, 2009 5:41 AM in response to Artly There

Correction to link I supplied, correct is " http://traffic.outbrain.com/network/rtime "

TJRiver

Level 1

0 points

Aug 19, 2009 7:54 AM in response to Artly There

Alright. I own two Macs, both running Tiger, fully updated. I updated one Mac to Safari 4.0.3 and started having the hanging issues people are complaining of, while I held off updating the second Mac to Safari 4.0.3. No problems with the second Mac...... until I updated it to 4.0.3 yesterday, then the exact same problems occurred. The problems are primarily hanging on some websites that do not allow force quit, requiring a hard restart of the computer to clear. I ditched Windoze because of this kind of crap...

I am not a certified geek, but this sure seems to be shaping up as an incompatibility problem between Tiger and Safari 4.0.3. Disabling Javascript is not an acceptable solution with the web today, and Safari is open pretty much all of the time, so there has to be a fix folks.........

Aug 19, 2009 8:27 AM in response to Golden Shoes

what's click2flash?

Aug 19, 2009 8:41 AM in response to silhouette

It's a third-party extension that blocks Flash content from loading until you click on it. So while it's useful for that purpose, it won't solve the problem being posted in this thread. For that you should refer to my earlier post (on page 4) about downloading Hostal and using it to block a specific domain.

Aug 19, 2009 9:27 AM in response to RaySkater

I'm having the same problem and feel as you do. I don't like it no matter what it is!
I installed 10.4.11 and it still does it!
What's next???

Aug 19, 2009 9:31 AM in response to Songwraith

you are always ALWAYS "the first one to report this."

RaySkater

Level 3

744 points

Aug 19, 2009 9:33 AM in response to Don Sciorra1

for my part, I've shut off "enable javascript" on the apps which have this option.

I have stopped using Safari.

I am considering seriously a nuke n pave, and going back to the OS install and version of Safari I had prior to Safari 4.03.

I see the merit of what another poster said about javascript not being an option on today's internet, but...for me, it's also not an option to have my rig torpedoed by whatever this thing is or might be.

also, I hope that this issue can sprout some legs so that Apple can devote attention to a remedy.

that's all I got, friends!

r

sbuff22

Level 1

0 points

Aug 19, 2009 2:46 PM in response to RaySkater

That sounds like a good idea, RaySkater.

I found an older version of Safari (3.1.1) to install at
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/apple/application_updates/safari311.html
which is the Apple site. I'm not sure if I should install a version that old but I can't find anything more current. Anytime I try to download Safari 4.02, I am switched to downloading 4.03.

And what do I do to "uninstall" 4.03?

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Possible Safari 4.0.3 issue