Safari problems since Sonoma upgrade

Cyreniac,

This is so very helpful. I called apple support and directed them to your comments. Using your comments as a guide, apple helped me troubleshoot the issue quickly and efficiently without Open Terminal. Instead, I was instructed to delete the LA court connect (LACC) app and then delete the "sudo rm -rf UDC_Virtual2ch.driver" audio file embedded in finder (as you outlined). Your analysis/research was a true time saver. Thank you. (and thank you to my very patient, wise, and kind apple tech support guy)

I spoke to an Apple Support Agent yesterday. I had just backed up using Time Machine. She viewed my MacBook Pro (Intel) screen and directed me to various Safari settings, finding nothing unusual. Honestly, she was not highly technical. She placed me on hold to speak to her manager and then suggested I erase my computer and restore it. I was hesitant but decided to try because a couple people in earlier responses here did say a complete erase/restore fixed their issue. After several hours of completing the erase/restore Safari is still broken and weird. On my laptop, it displays no images and acts like it has lost all HTML formatting. It’s blank white web pages with links in an unformatted list, and then some ultra large gif or png icons, for some odd reason. I need to tell Apple their advice and knowledge sucks and their suggestions did not help. They seemed to be completely unaware of this problem although I am not done with them yet.

[Edited by Moderator]

OMG thank you thank you thank you for this solution with LACC. My Mac has been completely hosed for months because of this issue and Apple Support could not figure it out. I finally created a new volume and installed MacOS from scratch to fix it. Then I needed LACC again and it broke the new volume instantly! At least now I knew the problem was related to LACC and was able to find your support article. Your remedy fixed the issue immediately and I am very grateful! Thank you once again!

this would imply that I would be dumb enough to actually put sonoma on one of my other macs. no way. you have become my worst nightmare ... microsoft from 20 years ago when they put out incomplete and unusable software. Sonoma is broken and should go back into the lab. Safari is completely useless. somewhere steve is turning over in his grave. just fix it now

Went to 14.1.1 l on November 10. Sad to say it actually got worse. Now re-booting every 5-10 minutes. iMac less than 2 years old with M1 chip. This is really reminding me of the Performa days. I really miss my Mac Plus of the 80s....

I use Safari without any plugins. But have started using groups etc in Sonoma (or whatever they are called).

Was so happy with intro of these groups etc, thinking finally no need for Chrome at all for work! But....

Its brutal. One particularly annoying issue is cursor selection into editable boxes etc is constantly missed; that is i need to click a at least two or three times to get the selection...and they it may suddenly on its own, just unselect.

Pages reload on their own all the time for no reason (almost as bad as safari in the latest iOS)

I've been slugging though, but really about ready to just give up and abandon Safari :(. Apple, do youself a favor; either build a proper alternative to Chrome, or get out of the browser business (thoughI hope you choose the former). This half hearted stuff just damages your brand.

I'd offer some more insight but I cant find any discernable pattern or replication steps ....it just doesn't reliably work.

yes.

it's definitely Safari.

brand new machine, with a brand new os, No plugins installed at all.

restarted in safe mode. same issues.

and then I made a new admin user. same issues.

I cannot believe safari passed any quality testing.

Alrighty . . . I dared myself and have just updated to Sonoma 14.2.1 today, I am hopeful.

I am on a Mac mini 3.6 GHz 4 Core i3 8GB 256 SSD workhorse.

Already mousing in Safari feels smoother. I have none of the fancy dancer features of Sonoma active just a bland mono colour background on (sad).

Daily, I am running 2 browsers (safari and chrome) with multiple tabs on the go in each, minimum of 10 in safari (I know <eye roll>) and 5 in chrome, both browsers supporting the same cloud based work software, 3 gmail accounts open, iMessage and 2 chat apps (WhatsApp and Slack). I have walked away for 5 minutes a couple of times, fiddled around doing other things and basically piddled away an hour to see if my biggest complaints would occur:

1) safari tabs go to sleep and not wake/crash

2) typing and scrolling in safari challenged

3) safari tabs dying after machine sleeps and is woken

So far so good, no typing stalls or weirdness, no black tabs, upon waking machine tabs survived. Means nothing until I am knee deep in job - will test drive for a few work days and see if there really has been improvement.

I started having Safari freezing issues after updating to Sonoma 14.2.1. I tried creating a brand new user and Safari experienced the same behavior under the new user's account. Also tried disabling all login items, and Safari is still freezing up (almost consistently on Google search result pages).

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.

Thank you Cyrenaic! We had installed LA Court Connect to remotely fight a red light camera ticket. Around that same time my newly purchased Mac Studio system inexplicably went straight to ****. Safari didn’t work, Music didn’t work, etc etc. Tried everything to no avail - then randomly came across your post after a Google Search of Sonoma 14.2.1 upgrade problems. How random and bizarre to see your post regarding LACC. That was not on my list of suspects. Your instructions were easy to follow and fixed the problem. An absolute godsend. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

edb007 I do not have LA Court Connect (TBH I really think that ought to be a separate thread--it may be connected to the safari issue but for most of us it's just the safari thing we need fixed) and it's been inoperable for over three months. I went up to 14.1.1 and gave up. It actually got worse. Not sunning any special apps. Just want to be able to use a browser (Safari) in a way that works and that is not possible and I want it fixed. Seriously. Enough. It's January. This awful update came out the end of September 2023. Time to trash it and come up with something that works. I'm just an average computer user. No fancy apps. And this does not work.

Moggie37,

hard agree.

my system was brand new. no software installed when Safari first started acting up.

tonight safari locked up loading Facebook. it stalled playback from Amazon prime, and crashed multiple tabs.

Facebook. it wiped out every process safari was running.

I have officially moved all of my streaming to Firefox - which is the only other browser I will tolerate. for me this is a disaster. Safari is totaled. it's dead.

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.

Follow my instructions here -> 255164746