Apple Vision Pro is now available in the U.S.

Safari problems since Sonoma upgrade

Safari is unusable after waking since the Sonoma upgrade. As soon as I click on the browser the Beachball appears, mostly not spinning. This persists for a while then the normal Cursor appears. So I click again and the beachball appears again. Sometimes it settles down and sometimes I have to right click the Dock icon, which reads "Application not responding" and I have to Force Quit.

Context as follows: 2 tabs on YouTube open when the machine's lid is closed. It's returning these YouTube tabs to their proper state that seems to cause the issues. This has not happened on any previous version of macOS.

MBPro M1

Safari has 1Blocker and Adblock installed - this also hasn't been a problem before.

Posted on Sep 29, 2023 12:48 AM

Reply
Question marked as Best reply

Posted on Nov 20, 2023 8:18 AM


On this subject of LA Court Connect - I was helping my attorney father install this terrible software on his MacBook Air M2 running 14.1 (now 14.1.1).


1) The pkg installer ultimately just halts with a black screen.


2) It causes cascading problems in macOS including making browsing in Safari unusable, constant beach ball freezes, and removing sound capability completely from the OS.


3) Uninstalling the app does not remedy the problems - as it leaves behind a buggy driver.


4) The email he received from LA County had no warning about any incompatibility with macOS Sonoma.


I was about to reinstall the entire OS - but decided to do some sleuthing on this software.


After analyzing the innards of the pkg - I realized the devs are wrapping the use of an open source audio loopback driver called blackhole.


If you remove the software's added audio driver, everything returns to normal.


To do this, do the following:


  1. Open Terminal
  2. cd /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/HAL
  3. sudo rm -rf UDC_Virtual2ch.driver
  4. Restart macOS


It's an absolute travesty that this software is still available for download, that there is no check against the OS for compatibility, there are no remediation instructions, and clearly was not even smoke tested against Sonoma.


Also the fact that it can even cause this kind of destruction classifies it in my eyes as malware.

105 replies

Nov 17, 2023 9:59 PM in response to Mark Sedgwick

WARNING & Update--I just caught it in time. My iPad (newish, about a year old) was just about to auto-install from 16.7.2 to 17.1.1 (I had it set to auto-install) and I switched off the installation so I will stay at 16.7.2. I don't know if the 17.1.1 would have been as bad on it but not a chance I was willing to take as my new iMac is basically not functional at all and won't be until Apple finally fixes this mess. If you have an iPad check it and circumvent the install...until we know differently. Without the iPad I would be without any device that worked since I have no cellphone. Now When is Apple going to fix the OS that is that is on my iMac (17.1.1.)? Seems a little ridiculous that I have this huge expensive computer on my desk that I can't use...

Dec 11, 2023 6:04 PM in response to Edward Devlin1

Has anyone heard anything about any upgrades to fix the Safari issues? It's been over a month and a half. I upgraded all the way to 14.1.1. I am not upgrading to Sonoma 14.2 until I hear from someone that these issues are addressed. 14.1.1 was actually worse. 

Why is Apple not addressing these issues? My iMac (les than 2 years old) has been basically unusable for over a month. I honestly don't know what to do next. Calls to Apple are endless and frustrating--I keep getting put on hold and passed around for hours and still no answers.

Dec 22, 2023 8:03 AM in response to daveh909

Apple solved my Safari problem in Sonoma today. I do have a few suspect add-ons in my system, particularly Windscribe VPN, Little Snitch and Control D apps, so there is some question about where some specific resources were being affected in my OS. Ultimately though, throwing out a few files in some buried system folders helped my situation.

First, backup your Safari bookmarks if you don’t have one, then Quit Safari. Next, use Go to Folder (Go menu at Finder level), then type:

~/Library/Containers/Safari/Data/Library/Preferences/

and then hit Enter. Now, move these files to trash from that directory:

com.apple.safari.plist

com.apple.SafariBookmarksSyncAgent.plist

Now run Safari and see if that solved your issue. Mine is solved, let me know if this helped anyone or if I can answer any questions!

Dec 24, 2023 9:05 AM in response to daveh909

Safari a disaster for me - I'm setting up a Conference Registration website. First I could not login to my web developer site. Then after a further upgrade to sonoma I could login in to developer site BUT could not use development tools correctly eg links to google forms not work.

Now panicking I'll be able to set up Conference Registration correctly.

I've got most things going using OPERA.

What an Apple shambles - how can a company of this size issue an important new OS release with such poorly tested software on such a huge community of users.

No sign of a correction release as far as I can see.

Can anybody eg Apple tell me how to get out of this mess.

Dec 25, 2023 1:23 AM in response to daveh909

I’m exhausted by this. 

The first notice here is September. Soon these problems will be three months ongoing. Have updated twice but not again after 17.1.1 because it actually got worse. I have lost hope that Apple will fix this. My iMac is less than two years old, cost 4K on a fixed  low income (I saved up for years) and I have full AppleCare. I can’t get through to anyone who has even a basic knowledge of the problem and even though I have talked with the “highest level” of rep they have zero fixes for this. I have spent hours and hours on the phone, on hold mostly, and still no help. 

This is truthfully the worst apple experience in the 35 plus years I’ve been a customer. My Mac Plus worked better than this.

 Something new goes wrong every day. Today YouTube suddenly won’t work(adblockers long disabled and it works fine on my iPad which Thank God I did not update). . Pages won’t load, screen freezes. It’s a never ending nightmare. Trying to use my iMac is tortuous. I can’t recall ever being this angry or frustrated with apple before. When on earth are they going to admit that the problem exists and fix the update? I genuinely don’t understand.

Is this ever going to be fixed or did I spend 4K for a computer that is basically broken by a flawed update?

Now I can’t post here. I keep getting timed out.

Dec 27, 2023 3:34 PM in response to arman4711

Sorry that LA Court Connect is so hosed, but it should have it's own thread.


This isn't a thread about LA Court connect. It's about how Safari is broken on Sonoma.


FYI I do have several systems where Safari works fine und 14.1.2. These are Intel.


ALL of the Apple silicon systems I support are HOSED re Safari. Telling users to install Chrome.

Jan 9, 2024 7:56 PM in response to daveh909

This isn't a thread about LA Court connect. It's about how Safari is broken on Sonoma." Yes! thank you and could people please start a separate thread for the LA Court Connect what ever that is??? 


This thread was started because we were having problems with Safari after the OS update. 


Could we please get back to that and could those of you having problems with whatever LA Court connect is please start a thread about that? 


I understand you're having a problem but it's off topic. 


Jan 10, 2024 7:15 AM in response to daveh909

I too experienced the same frustrations with Safari after installing Sonoma - enough that I changed to Firefox, which seemed unaffected by the new OS. Safari would stall or not work at all. Recently (a couple of weeks ago), I opened Safari to see if the problems had been addressed. Note that I installed all the Sonoma updates. Apparently the latest update worked. I have returned to Safari and do not see any issues, other than it is noticeably faster than Firefox and the online edition of the Houston Chronicle works seamlessly - unlike Firefox.


Note that I did not have any extensions installed or removed any apps. I am too terrified to try the terminal. At any rate, all seems well now. Safari works without any problem. I do not understand why.


I use a M1 MacBook Pro.


Safari problems since Sonoma upgrade

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple ID.