Safari problems since Sonoma upgrade

Safari is a disaster since Sonoma. Writing this with Firefox - no problems. I have no added extensions or ad blockers on Safari. Been a Mac user for thirty-five years. Do not recall ever having an issue with a system upgrade. I am using a M1 MacBook Pro.

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.

You know there's a major problem with Sonoma and Safari, and you're lying to Mac users with your response. I expect more from Apple. This sort of stonewalling makes it seem as if you're turning into yet another monstrous tech company with no concern for your customers, only for how things look. Get over yourselves.

safari if anything has gotten worse for me.

There aren't any plugins, there's nothing left to blame, but Safari itself.

the app routinely fails to load web pages. But the loading doesn't just fail. It stalls the entire app. locks up the entire OS. crashes any video that is playing. reloading pages doesn't have any effect. the only fix is to force quit Safari and relaunch it.

we are talking about basic functionality here, that Safari cannot do.

this needs to be fixed.

Apple needs to fix it.

I'm having exactly the same problem. It seems to somehow affect the entire OS as well, I have pauses when typing etc unless I quit Safari first.

Chrome works perfectly. This sucks, I would like to use Safari but it's totally impossible atm in Sonoma.

I also have 1Blocker enabled, as well as 1Password. I have tried disabling all the 1Blocker and 1Password extensions but it makes no difference.

k_Faith,

I can attest that with a completely different machine than dave909, with a completely reformatted drive, completely brand new OS install, completely new user account with nothing installed...

Safari is unusable.

it routinely locks up. and it locks up Other apps when it does. Safari is sucking down on a ridiculous amount of system resources, and producing nothing at all. No web pages, no feedback no responses at all to mouse input.

Something is dreadfully wrong with Safari

Apple should stop blaming us, our Internet, etc. admit there is an issue and fix it. A mess akin to dealing with Microsoft

Sonoma 14.0 and 14.1 get bricked when adding the application "LA Court Connect". I called tech support for Los Angeles Superior Court and was informed that they were aware the LA Court Connect new download was not working with Sonoma but unaware it rendered Safari useless when installed. I have several hours into resolving this issue including a trip to the apple store. It was only upon reverting back to a backup that did not have LA Court Connect installed (Safari worked perfect) and then reinstalling LACC, that I discovered the issue. Hope this helps somebody avoid the grief I went through. Their may be other add on additions that disrupt Safari also. Use caution and backup before adding.

After scouring the web for possible things on my iPad to get things to work since my MacBook Air wouldn’t connect trying one after another , I went through the WiFi configuration and renewed I think it was the DHCP and restarted Safari and it’s worked fine ever since. Since doing that, I’ve not had any more connection issues. That was the only thing that wasn’t working that I noticed. If there’s anything else I’ve not encountered it. Maybe I got lucky? IDK...but HEY it worked for me!

Moggie37 wrote:

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??? 

You replied to the person who started the topic. It seems they should get to decide what their topic is about. And, threads always have a certain amount of drift. It's considered bad form and largely against customer norms to tell people not to post in a thread.

First make sure you uninstall LA Court Connect by moving the app into the trash.

In Terminal, just type the commands you see in this pic. When it asks for a password just put in your Mac login password.

Afterwords, reboot your mac.

May not be Safari but additions to it. For example, I updated to 14.0 Sonoma then added LA Court Connect app to Safari. Safari went nuts but I did not know the reason. I took my computer to the Apple Genius Bar and they could not figure it out. I finally reinstalled everything from a 10/1/2023 backup and everything worked fine. I had a remote court appearance scheduled so I reinstalled LA Court Connect to my computer and Safari again went nuts and would not load. When I called Tech Support for LA Court Connect they stated: "LA Court Connect does not work with Sonoma". "Not work" is an understatement, it corrupts your entire system. I requested they (Los Angeles Court System) put a warning on the download. Unknown if they did.

Thanks! I reported the problem to tech support for L.A. Court Connect. a few days after Apple release 14.0 and asked that they put a warning notice on the download site. Thanks for the update, hopefully it may save someone a lot of time, anguish and trip to the Genius bar (who could not figure out the problem). Unfortunately, (like I did) most people will not search until after their mac goes nuts from the download (usually about a hour before the court appearence).

Worse their home page claims it is now compatible with v14.1 while their quick reference guide says it isn't.

I installed the software on 11/12/2023 - as far as I can tell they haven't changed the pkg since that date.

Either way, as you said, no one would normally go beyond the email sent to them to download (which contains no statement either way about v14.x).

I did the same with LACC. After it messed up Safari on my 2 year old Mac I tested it by installing it on a new Macbook. Same issues developed with Safari. Even after I uninstalled the Safari problems persist. What was your fix?