Safari stopped working overnight

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Level 1

4 points

Safari stopped working overnight

My iMac is running 10.15.7 (Catalina) and Safari is 15.3. When I went to bed a couple of nights ago it was working fine. I left maybe 8 or so windows up and running. When I got up the next morning, it was no longer working. If I tried to load a new page, it would only load partially. I was getting the spinning beach ball all the time. Some up and running web pages would at least limp along. And it could not deal with clicking on links.

I switched to Firefox that I had installed and it works fine. So I know it's not the networking or mouse. I was able to clear the history from Safari (it stayed up long enough for me to do that), but it didn't help. When I have to force quit it, it says it is non-responsive.

Is there anything I can do restore Safari back to life? I was able to export my bookmarks so I have those. I do have Time Machine available but I have never needed to use it. Since Firefox (and Chrome for that matter) are functional, it has to be something specific to Safari. Thanks.

iMac Line (2012 and Later)

Posted on Mar 15, 2022 1:56 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Keisha_Keisha

Community Specialist

Mar 16, 2022 10:27 AM in response to bruce_fc

Hi bruce_fc,

Thanks for using Apple Support Communities. We understand that you're having some issues with Safari on your Mac. Have you tried restarting your device since noticing this behavior? Please also take a look at the l ink below and let us know if this helps.

If Safari on Mac doesn't open a webpage or isn’t working as expected

Regards.

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Answer 2

Rob_H1

Community Specialist

Mar 16, 2022 12:40 PM in response to bruce_fc

Thank you for the reply bruce_fc!

Is your Mac updated to the latest version available for it? This can also update Safari. Look here:

Update macOS on Mac

If the issue persists, see if this occurs in safe mode to help further isolate the issue:

Start up your Mac in safe mode

Keep us posted!

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Answer 3

Shannon_DN

Community Specialist

Mar 16, 2022 3:24 PM in response to bruce_fc

Got it.

You mentioned you updated Safari, did you update macOS as well? You can find out how to do that here: Update macOS on Mac - Apple Support

Completing a full macOS update can help resolve many behavioral problems.

Kindest regards.

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Answer 4

nathan430

Community Specialist

Mar 18, 2022 8:11 AM in response to bruce_fc

bruce_fc,

Reinstalling macOS should not cause any sort of data loss. We do always recommend a backup to be safe but it would not be expected for you to lose any data during the macOS recovery process. This process installs a clean copy of macOS on your system without deleting any of the data you created. It's not a full erase and reinstall, but rather just a fresh copy of the operating system itself.

With regard to Time Machine, you would be presented with a list of available backups and could then choose which date to restore. This article has more info: Restore your Mac from a backup

Cheers.

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Answer 5

bruce_fc Author

Level 1

4 points

Mar 19, 2022 8:54 AM in response to nathan430

I have some follow up questions.

If I get the recovery OS from the network (assuming that some version of Catalina is available), what version will it be? Is it the original Catalina, or a newer updated version? I am not interested in updating to a new MacOS. When I had to update to Catalina, the change from iTunes to Music was a disaster for me and I did not like that at all. But that is another story.
The lack of response to my last first question would indicate that no such tool exists. Is that the case that there is no tool to report on the validity of installed software?

In the meantime I am using Firefox but it's not my preference.

Thanks.

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Answer 6

bruce_fc Author

Level 1

4 points

Mar 16, 2022 11:26 AM in response to Keisha_Keisha

Thank you! I went through the document and when I turned off the Webex extension, Safari started working again. Some time ago I had to sign into a meeting that was Webex-based so I had to add that. Until that morning it hadn't caused me other problems. But I have deleted it completely and I think things are back to normal.

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Answer 7

bruce_fc Author

Level 1

4 points

Mar 16, 2022 12:31 PM in response to Jeff_888

Well I spoke too soon. After I removed Webex I was able to go to my home page, and I could scroll up and down and click links and they all worked fine. When I tried to open a second window, it immediately locked up. I cannot even Force Quit Safari at that point. I could not Restart my iMac because Safari refused to be Force Quit. My only option is to hold the power button down until my iMac shuts off and cycle power. I am thinking that perhaps I need to try the Time Machine option and recover the Safari executable from before the problem started. Sorry for the premature proclamation of success.

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Answer 8

bruce_fc Author

Level 1

4 points

Mar 16, 2022 3:07 PM in response to Rob_H1

Thank you all for the help. I first went to Software Update and lo and behold, there was a new Safari sitting there, version 15.4. So I downloaded it with problem. I tried running it, and it was bad as normal. Same problems as before.

So then I proceeded on to boot into safe mode. The first time I wasn't pressing down on the Shift key soon enough, so I repeated that and was successful. I saw the red Safe Boot banner on the top of the screen. I then tried to bring up Safari. I saw all the same problems as before--spinning beach ball, pages only partially load, cannot follow links on pages. My home page of Yahoo looks OK, but the progress bar only makes it about halfway across. When I clicked on a bookmark to access my gmail account, it made it only about a quarter across before it stopped. In Safe Mode, I was able to use the red button at the top of the window to close it, which was not possible before. I then went to Safari -> Quit, but that did not work. It got a spinning beach ball. I could bring up the Force Quit window where Safari was again flagged as non-responsive, and after a while was able to kill it.

So I still have issues with Safari having disabled and removed the Webex extension, updating to the next version, and running it in Safe Mode. I am still open to ideas and suggestions for potential fixes. When I was googling this problem at first, there were a lot of suggestions to get into a terminal window and run certain commands. As a former Unix engineer, that made me a little nervous to be running commands with sudo. Plus most of them were pretty old and perhaps not applicable nowadays.

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Answer 9

bruce_fc Author

Level 1

4 points

Mar 18, 2022 7:58 AM in response to WinsC1

A few questions on MacOS recovery:

1 - When I worked on HP-UX for HP/HPE for many years, there was a command called swverify which would examine the Installed Products Database (IPD) and compare it to what was on the disk(s). This could only be applied to static files, not volatile which was the term used for dynamic and/or configurable files. It would report on files that were missing or had the wrong checksum, permissions, ownership, etc. Is there anything like that in MacOS?

2 - How reliable is this process? It would be catastrophic of course to end up with an unbootable iMac.

3 - What happens to all the updates I've installed for MacOS, security, Safari, device support (I forget what they're called) etc? Will (some of) those have to be reinstalled?

4 - If I go the Time Machine route, am I able to chose from when the recovery is pulled? Obviously I would want to chose something before Safari went bad.

Thanks.

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