Safari 4.0.4 doesn't startup (XP)

If you're interested in doing some basic principles troubleshooting, we can try having a check in your Error logs to see if they cast any light on what is going on.

Can you recall the dates and times of recent Safari crashes? If not, generate a few, taking note of the time showing on the PC for each one.

Now right-click "My Computer" and select "Manage". Expand "Event viewer" and click the "Application" log.

Are there error or warning events showing up in there at the same time as the Safari crashes? If so, doubleclick on a few of them to bring up a small window showing further details.

What are the Source, Category, Event ID and Description for the different types (or single type) of Event you're getting associated with the Safari crashes?

webkit.dll, version 4.531.10.0,

Interesting ... either the version number of your webkit.dll shows up differently in your error logs than it does on the file itself (I don't have any Safari crashes of the relevant type to hand in order to check that), or that's an older version of Webkit.dll than you ought to have with a Safari 4.0.4 (I've got a version 5.31.21.8).

Let's doublecheck the "or" possibility.

Navigate to C:\Program Files\Common Files\Apple\Apple Application Support\

Inside that folder, find your Webkit.dll file. Right-click on the file, and select "Properties". What file version shows for you in the "Version" tab?

4.531.18.0

All righty. I don't think your Apple Application Support (AAS) updated properly (if at all) when you did your Safari 4.0.4 install. You should now have an AAS version 1.1.0 in place ... but I think you've probably still got an AAS version 1.0.1 on board. (Or at the very least, you've still got old-version AAS components lurking in your system.)

(Probably the easiest way to do check on an AAS version is to head into your Add or Remove Programs control panel, select "Apple Application Support", and click "Support information". It gives the AAS version number inside there.)

Moving forward: Let's first try something relatively simple. We'll uninstall Safari 4.0.4 and Apple Application Support, and then we'll clear away any leftover AAS program files. Then, fingers crossed, if we reinstall Safari 4.0.4, this time your proper version of AAS should install properly.

Some preliminaries:

Download and save a fresh copy of the Safari installer to your hard drive. (Don't run the install on line, and don't start the install just yet.)

http://www.apple.com/safari/download/

Quit QuickTime and/or iTunes if you have them open. (They both use AAS, and we don't want that potentially interfering with your AAS install.)

Uninstall phase:

Head into your "Add or Remove Programs" control panel.
Uninstall Safari.
Uninstall Apple Application Support.
(If you get an error message on either uninstall, stop proceedings and post back to let us know what the message says.)

Next, Navigate back to C:\Program files\Common files\Apple\, right-click on the Apple Application Support folder (if it still exists), and select delete.

(If you get an error message on the deletion, post back to let us know what that one says.)

If everything has proceeded smoothly so far ...

*Reinstall phase:*

Reboot the PC. Don't open any applications after the reboot. Now start the Safari reinstall by doubleclicking the SafariSetup.exe file you downloaded earlier.

If the reinstall seems to proceed smoothly, does your Safari 4.0.4 launch properly this time?

Fair enough question. The latest versions of QuickTime (7.6.4) and iTunes (9.0.2.25) only need an AAS 1.0.1 in order to run. They do run with AAS 1.1.0 in place. I'm doing that myself at the moment.

Could you talk us through what happened when you did the iTunes install? (Knowing what went wrong with that might cast some light on what went wrong with the Safari one.)

My sympathies about the QT Alternative thing ... I've been troubleshooting issues with that (and QT Lite and Codec packs and WinAVI converter, and ... and ...) after iTunes installs since the iTunes 5.0.0.35 days. Every time an iTunes upgrade requires a higher Quicktime version, we get another big pulse of fresh cases of those troubles showing up at Discussions.

Back to business.

a) On startup, I got a message from iTunes asking me to reinstall due to the absence of Apple Application Support, but I assume that now Safari has installed it, it should be fine.

Ahhhh ... okay. The iTunesHelper.exe background process runs on startup, so that probably noticed the missing AAS then and relayed word to you about it via iTunes. (Sorry, didn't think about that *at all*, let alone think to warn you about it.) Your iTunes and QuickTime should both be launching fine now with the fresh AAS in place.

b) I have no top sites button, nor an option to view my history is cover flow.

Hmmm. I've got a Top sites button ... but up until yesterday I hadn't been using Safari on my current PC, so I'm a bit out of touch with what the interface looked like on previous versions.

If it doesn't appear when you do any of "View > Show (Menu Bar ... Bookmarks Bar ... Status Bar ... Tool Bar ... Tabs Bar)", try going "View > Customise Tool Bar", and dragging the Top Sites button out of there.

With regard to the History thing, I pulled this out of the Safari Help:

+To see how Cover Flow works, open the bookmarks list by clicking the open-book icon at the left end of the Safari Bookmarks bar. In the Collections list, select History or a collection whose bookmarks you want to view. Use the horizontal scroll bar to flip through the webpage previews.+
+You can also use the scroll button on a mouse to flip through previews. If you have a trackpad configured to support trackpad gestures, you can swipe left and right.+

Hope that's of some help.

🙂 at any rate, glad you got things installed and running.

I have read all this and it sounds great, but my situation seems a bit different and doesn't work.

I have an XP computer, I have Safari 4.0.4, I have webkit.dll 5.31.21.8

Regarding the other information requested, I have Apple Application support 1.1.0.

My Source: crypt 32
Category: none
Error
Event ID: 8.

Also, to help figure this out, I get the following error messages when I go onto the Event Viewer Application log:

"The feature you're trying to use is on a network resource that's unavailable.

Failed auto update retrieval of third-party root list sequence number from: <http://www.download.windowsupdate.com/msdownload/update/v3/static/trustedr/en/ authrootseq.txt> with error: This network connection does not exist.

Or slightly different:

Failed auto update retrieval of third-party root list sequence number from: <http://www.download.windowsupdate.com/msdownload/update/v3/static/trustedr/en/ authrootseq.txt> with error: 501 (HTTP Response Status)


For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

When I click on this site, it appears to be an MSN site and doesn't relate to the specific problems above.

Furthermore, when I click on the Safari program icon each time, I get:

Safari can’t open the page “ http://www.apple.com/startpage/”. The error is: “There was a problem communicating with the web proxy server (HTTP).” (CFURLErrorDomain:306) Please choose Help > Report Bugs to Apple, note the error number, and describe what you did before you saw this message.


I sent the query to Apple with the info directly above and got no response.

Following your instructions to Roois b13, I downloaded another version of Safari and saved it, then uninstalled the Safari and Application support stuff. Everything was deleted, except the 2nd download.

BTW, when I went into Add/Programs to discover the version of my application support, it suggested "Repair." When I clicked on that, it said it couldn't find it (showing a temp file below). I did a search for appleappicationsupport.msi, found the installing file and then clicked on that. It said it was installed, and I got the following message in the "Manage" box in the Control Panel.

The ATWPKT2 service was successfully sent a start control.

However, I still cannot get past the first page of Safari, which gives the error message I cited above, and thus it won't browse to any websites.

Is this hopeless? I have no clue what to do except to stay with Firefox, even though the latest version keeps crashing. Other forums indicate that my problem is not unique, which is why I thought I'd try Safari. But it appears to be an elusive task.

I must say that with all the excitement about how Apple is so much better than PCs, I am not enjoying this process. Unless this is a sadistic process to put PC users through in order to get them to go out and get a Mac (though I have written an article on Windows 7 and the new PCs that support them, and that is not pretty either).

If you have any thoughts, I'd sure appreciate it.

Many, many thanks for reading this.

Michael

*Replying to Mikethewriter*

BTW, when I went into Add/Programs to discover the version of my application support, it suggested "Repair." When I clicked on that, it said it couldn't find it (showing a temp file below). I did a search for appleappicationsupport.msi, found the installing file and then clicked on that. It said it was installed, and I got the following message in the "Manage" box in the Control Panel.

Crikey, Mike ... okay, that usually indicates that you've got a damaged .msi file rather than a "missing" one. That would be consistent with one of the messages you're getting in the event logs too:

The feature you're trying to use is on a network resource that's unavailable.

So, we'll have to swap out your Apple Application Support using other means than your Add/Remove Programs.

Download and install the Windows Installer CleanUp utility from Microsoft:

[Description of the Windows Installer CleanUp Utility|http://support.microsoft.com/kb/290301]

Now run the utility ("Start > All programs > Windows Install Clean Up"). In the list of programs that appears in CleanUp, select any *Apple Application Support* entries and click "Remove". Quit out of CleanUp.

Now, we'll manually remove the leftover Apple Application Support program files.

Navigate into C:\Program Files\Common Files\Apple\. Right-click on the *Apple Application Support* folder and select "Delete".

Restart the PC and now *uninstall and reinstall Safari.* That should also reinstall Apple Application Support.

Does Safari start launching properly now?

Thanks, but I've tried it three times, every which way, installing, uninstalling and nothing works.

Then, I got the thought that perhaps my anti-virus program Webroot Internet Security Essentials 2010 was causing the problem.

I tried another download, Google Chrome, and that doesn't open either.

I have gone into the Windows Firewall area and put Safari and Google Chrome as exceptions and done the same on the Webroot software, and nothing helps.

I'm going to bed now, but tomorrow I will try to download a non-browser program just to see if I can't get anything to work, because my anti-virus program is blocking everything (even though when I get messages as to whether I want to block something, I click "allow."

It is maddening, and I'm afraid that I am troubling you further by asking for your guidance.

Thanks again.

Michael

*Replying to Mikethewriter*

It is maddening, and I'm afraid that I am troubling you further by asking for your guidance.

🙂 Don't worry Michael. These things are maddening, but with the information we've currently got to play with I think we've got a pretty-decent chance of making progress with your one.

I think you've been unlucky enough to have been hit by at least two things at the same time. Your Apple Application Support (and associated AppleApplicationSupport.msi) was broken. But:

(a) Those *crypt32 8* events are suggesting that there's also trouble with the Root Certificates in your XP, and ...

(b) This seems significant:

I tried another download, Google Chrome, and that doesn't open either.

There is a class of startup problems out there where pretty-much every browser on a given user account on a PC won't start or launch properly *except for Firefox.*

When you have the time, can you check something for me? If you currently have it installed, can you check to see if your *Internet Explorer* is also having trouble starting or displaying web pages?

I'm trying to work out here if you've got something akin to FrusteratedUser's issue in this thread:

http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=10596497#10596497

(The stuff about Firewalls in the early parts of that thread are probably not relevant. We didn't really start making progress until we realised that every browser apart from Firefox was having trouble in his user account.)