My Safari 5.1.1 is crashing when I open Safari, and then go to Safari->Preferences->Privacy. The mere act of clicking on "Privacy" causes Safari to crash.
I have repaired permissions; reset Safari; reinstalled Safari. All to no avail. All software updated, running Leopard 10.6.8. Any ideas gratefully accepted.
iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.8), 2.8 GHz C2Duo 4GB RAM. MB325LL/A
Create a new admin user account, log into it, and see if the problem persists.
BTW, 10.6.8 is Snow Leopard, not Leopard.
27" i7 iMac 10.6.8 , Mac OS X (10.7.2), G4 450 MP 1.5 GB RAM w/(10.5.8/10.4.11/9.2.2)
OK. Created a new user account. Logged into it. Problem does NOT persist. That is, in this new admin account I can run Safari and go Safari->Preferences->Privacy and see a normal Privacy Pane with no crash.
What does that imply about my problem in my original account?
Thanks.
Since the issue is specific to your original user account, you can proceed in two ways. One is to log into your new account, make a list of the preference files (plists) located in /username/Library/Preferences/, including any in the ByHost subfolder, log back into the original account, move everything on that other account's list from the original account's Preferences folder into a newly created folder on the Desktop, log out and back in, and see if the problem goes away. If so, you can copy the ones in the Desktop folder (one at time) back into /Preferences/, restart, and see if the problem returns. If so, you've identified the corrupt/conflicting one. Continue with all of them until isolating the bad ones. That'll save you the trouble of resetting preferences.
The second way is much more detailed and I'll not burden you with the steps unless the above doesn't fix the issue.
I made a list of plists in my new admin account. There were 29 in /Preferences and an additional 4 in /Preferences/ByHost. I removed these plist files. I then rebooted. Opened Safari. Safari still more or less works, just like it has recently. However, Safari still crashes when I try to open Safari->Preferences->Privacy.
When I log out of my main acct and log back in to the new admin account, everything still works OK.
I moved all the old plists back into /Preferences
Any idea wha is going on?
Further data. I got into this problem because I could no longer use the Bank of America secure website (where I have an account), otherwise I wouldn't be messing around. I can't find any other websites that won't work with my Safari. Has BofA somehow put something on my machine which is messing with "Privacy"? More data. My wife has her own iMac. It works fine with the BofA website.
??
Clarification: AFAICT, there's no Privacy preference in Safari, only Security. I don't deal w/BofA, so can't help with that issue. Now, were you able to access all of Safari's preferences w/o crashing in the new account? If so, you might try the second procedure:
While logged into the newly created admin account, backup the bad account's folder, delete the bad account, selecting the save data option (which stores the data in /Users/Deleted Users/ as a disk image), recreate the bad account using the same username/password combo, log out and back into the recreated original account. If the problem's solved, open the saved data dmg file in /Users/Deleted Users/, open the /Library/Preferences/ folder from the saved data, open the current /Users/restored account/Library/Preferences/ folder, and slowly copy plist files from the saved data folder to the current one that don't exist in it. Log out and back in to ensure there's no conflict and things still work correctly. Resolving conflicts or identifying corrupt plist files is a laborious process. Good luck.
Let me clarify. In Safari, if you click on "Preferences" you get this window:
The options are thus: General, Appearance, Bookmarks, Tabs, RSS, Autofill, Security, Privacy, Extensions, and Advanced. When I click on "Privacy", Safari crashes.
In the newly created account (which you suggested), when I click on "Privacy", the Privacy options appear, as it should.
In my original account, removing plists and rebooting did not change the outcome.
Ah! Must be a Safair 5.1+ thingy. I'm running 5.0.5 on Snow Leopard because I don't like or need the new version which has many issues, so missed that. Anyway, since you moved the set of plist files from the original account, relaunched Safari, and still had the issue, there's something else conflicting in that account. That's why I posted the second method.
Thanks for your interest in this problem. If I ever get to the bottom of it, I'll let you know.
Bill
Thought you might be a trifle interested. It appears that I have fixed my problem by resetting Safari (which I tried before) and then ommediately emptying the cache. What exactly that does, I don't know, but it deletes all the accumulated cookies I have. I don't understand why that would have anything to do with ability to view my securoty preferences, but, there you have it.
Again, thanks for your interest in my problem
Thanks for the feedback. When you click on Safari->Reset Safari, you get a listing of all the things that does.😉
Cheers
Thanks for pointing me to it - Safari showed exactly the same behaviour here - now it works perfect again..
Thanks again !
Safari crashing
