All browsers are crashing as of April 12, 2024

Question

All browsers are crashing as of April 12, 2024

Something changed on my MacBook Pro (MBP) seemingly on April 12, 2024 that is causing all my browsers to crash right after opening or after loading a site. Safari, Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and Tor all crash. Not sure what is going on and now looking for some help. What shared resource would effect all browsers under a user's account?

I don't currently have any anti virus software installed.

I've tried booting into safe mode and same results. It does not occur under other user accounts on the same computer so I'm inclined to believe it has something to do with my user Library account.

Any suggestions?

Thankfully I have VMWare Fusion installed with Windows 11 so I can start that up and use browsers under Windows. Not a good look for Apple when Windows browsers run on a Mac but not any Mac native browsers.

Is it possible to restore my Library directory from a TimeMachine backup. I have one from just before that April 12 date.

MacBook Pro 16″, macOS 14.5

Posted on Apr 19, 2024 6:31 AM

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Answer 1

John Galt

Level 10

141,228 points

Apr 19, 2024 10:30 AM in response to Sleestak-Prime

Is it possible to restore my Library directory from a TimeMachine backup. I have one from just before that April 12 date.

Yes but that would prove difficult as you might need to restore a copy of ~/Library ("Keep Both") followed by methodically identifying and replacing any problematic files.

Why not just restore the entire Mac: Recover all your files from a Time Machine backup - Apple Support

If you are morbidly curious consider downloading EtreCheck from your VM and copying the app so that you can run it on macOS.

https://etrecheck.com/en/index.html

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Answer 2

John Galt

Level 10

141,228 points

Apr 19, 2024 11:36 AM in response to Sleestak-Prime

Sleestak-Prime wrote:

Guess I was thinking that just restoring the ~/Library directory would be faster than the full restore.

It will be, and your reasoning is sound.

If I restore the ~/Library dir from before the issue occurred, do you think that might resolve my issue?

Yes, I think so. Especially since the other / temporary User Account does not exhibit the problem. It should not create additional problems.

What I'm trying to avoid is this long, drawn-out problem: *Unable to open safari at all* - Apple Community. It ended well but it was a nightmare to fix — and it only affected Safari. Whatever is wrong with your Mac is affecting all browsers.

By the way one of the troubleshooting steps we tried was to drag the entire ~/Library folder onto the Desktop and log out / in again. That might be worth pursuing. The contents of that ~/Library folder on the Desktop won't be altered and you can always drag it back into place again. This is one of those "morbidly curious" techniques that may interest you.

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Answer 3

John Galt

Level 10

141,228 points

Apr 19, 2024 12:01 PM in response to Sleestak-Prime

The only thing they have in common is that processes using shared libraries are crashing, a lot, but we don't know why.

Apple Support might have you reinstall macOS, which doesn't usually fix anything, but it might be justified in this case.

How to reinstall macOS - Apple Support

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Answer 4

Apr 19, 2024 10:44 AM in response to John Galt

Guess I was thinking that just restoring the ~/Library directory would be faster than the full restore. And figured the problem has to be in the ~/Library directory since the other user account does not have the same problem.

I guess I am morbidly curious. So getting ready to run EtreCheck.

If I restore the ~/Library dir from before the issue occurred, do you think that might resolve my issue?

By problematic files, do you mean the one(s) causing my current browser crashing issues, or do you think restoring the ~/Library dir from an earlier time will cause additional issues?

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Answer 5

Apr 19, 2024 11:41 AM in response to Sleestak-Prime

Looks to me like a lot of crashes involving "libsystem_c.dylib: abort() called".

Any idea what this is and what to do about it causing apps to crash?

Diagnostics Information (past 60 days):

2024-04-19 18:18:15 /Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/ProxiedDevice-Bridge/Retired/corespeechd-2024-04-16-182631.ips - Crash (52 times)

First occurrence: 2024-04-16 18:26:31

2024-04-19 14:26:02 axassetsd - Crash (242 times)

First occurrence: 2024-04-19 14:23:31

Executable: /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/AXAssetLoader.framework/Support/axassetsd

Details: