Safari no longer works

Question

Level 1

9 points

Safari no longer works

I can launch Safari but it only opens blank pages with URLs of the last 3 web pages I had open, last night. All menus items, except folder types, are grayed out, including preferences, bookmarks , reset Safari etc. The only way to quit Safari is a force quit. When restarting, I always get the same blank three pages. I can move the pages around but the 'stoplight' buttons are grayed out.

My network is fine. My email, the app store and software update are OK and connecting. I'me sure, It's only Safari that is malfunctioning. I'm using my iPad to post this.

I tried many of the solutions posted here but none have worked.

Unfortunately, I never installed Firefox or any other browsers and I won't be able to until I get Safari back.

I'm using the newer Mac mini (2011?) with Lion 10.7.2. Yes, I've restarted my Mac several times.

I rarely post here buy when I saw others with the same problem, I thought my observations would help.

I installed the latest Flash upgrade yesterday... Coincidence?

Mac Mini, Mac user since SE Apple user since IIplus

Posted on Feb 6, 2012 8:30 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Best reply

Carolyn Samit

Level 10

165,615 points

Feb 7, 2012 3:36 AM in response to teddyA

I tried many of the solutions posted here but none have worked.

Hi Teddy..

Unless you tell us specifically what you've tried that didn't work, we have no way of knowing whether or not our suggestions will help. Doubtfull this is related to Flash.

Try troubleshooting the Safari .plist file (preferences)

Go to ~/Library/Preferences

Move the com.apple.Safari.plist file from the Preferences folder to the Desktop.

Quit, relaunch Safari to test.

If that helped, move the .plist file to the Trash, If not, just move it back to the Preferences folder.

If that didn't work, go to ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.Safari/Cache.db. Move the Cache.db file to the Trash. Quit then relaunch Safari to test.

If that didn't help, go to the Safari menu bar click Safari > Reset Safari. Select the top 5 boxes, click Reset. Try Safari.

If that didn't help, go to Safari > Preferences then select the Security tab. Deslect: Enable plug-ins. Quit then relaunch Safari to test. If that helped then you you need to troubleshoot Safari: Unsupported third-party add-ons may cause Safari to unexpectedly quit or have performance issues

If that didn't help, try disabling the Lion "resume" feature. Open System Prerferences > General. Deselect: Restore windows when quitting and re-opening apps.

If nothing above helped, try Safari in another user account. If you see the same issues there, then the startup disk may need repairing. You need to use Lion Recovery for that. If necessary, you can use Lion Recovery to reinstall Safari.

~ (Tilde) character represents the Home folder.

For Lion: To find the Home folder in OS X Lion, open the Finder, hold the Option key, and choose Go > Library

edited by: cs

Reply

Answer 2

teddyA Author

Level 1

9 points

Feb 7, 2012 2:43 PM in response to Carolyn Samit

Carolyn,

My Safari is back! I'm replying to you on my Mac instead of my iPad, thanks to you.

The "many of the solutions posted here" that failed to fix my problem were the ones involving deleting library files etc. I tried all of those but nothing worked. I couldn't try anything having to do with the Safari menu preferences selection, or any other, because the menu selections were all "grayed" out.

However, your suggestion of disabling "Restore windows when quitting and re-opening pages" jumped out at me. Partly because I have been annoyed at all my previous windows coming back everytime I launched Safari. I knew there was a preference setting for this but hadn't gotten around to turning it off. I'm not that big a fan of my computer doing my thinking for me at that level but, that's another story... After trying this, it didn't seem to work. Then, I discovered that the red close button was staying on for about 20 seconds after launching Safari. Previously, the blank pages were coming up dead with no "stop light" buttons active. I was able to close one window just before Safari froze then force quit and launch then close another window. I did this all three times, for all three "dead" windows, then Safari came back to life!

This leads me to imagine a few things, not the least of which is that Flash is the culprit. But, for now, I'm in good shape, thanks to you!

Thank You!, Thank You!, Thank You!!

Teddy

Reply