Safari opens with old tabs on start up

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Level 1

8 points

Safari opens with old tabs on start up

Safari keeps opening with old tabs from about 3 weeks ago rather than my home page. On start up safari is showing as open and there is a folder in the right hand part of the dock. This has the old tabs in it and safari opens with these and not my home page. I've seen other threads which advise to ensure preferences are set correctly etc but none of this has worked. All settings are for my home page to open and not previous windows. What confuses me is why these particular old tabs are opening. Any ideas how to get rid of them and for safari to start opening with my home page again. Thanks.

Posted on Feb 26, 2012 9:09 AM

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Answer 1

Feb 26, 2012 9:37 AM in response to eddiethered

Using Lion?

Hold down the shift key as you launch Safari.

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Answer 2

eddiethered Author

Level 1

8 points

Feb 26, 2012 9:38 AM in response to QuickTimeKirk

Thanks, but s safari has already opened this just brings up the 2 old tabs.

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Answer 3

HACKINT0SH

Level 5

5,804 points

Feb 26, 2012 1:10 PM in response to eddiethered

When you restart your computer, un-tick the box that comes up and asks if you want to restore windows...

Let us know if that works.

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Answer 4

eddiethered Author

Level 1

8 points

Feb 26, 2012 1:22 PM in response to HACKINT0SH

Sorry, I always do that. What I can't work out is why safari opens on start up - it shows as open in the dock (it doesn't actually show on the screen which just displays the desktop) and as I said, the page shows in the dock on the right. Safari is not set to open on log in. Confused. Thanks for the suggestion.

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Answer 5

bbfc

Level 3

854 points

Feb 26, 2012 1:34 PM in response to eddiethered

You need to make sure you quit safari, not just click on the X. CMD-Q will quit an application.

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Answer 6

HACKINT0SH

Level 5

5,804 points

Feb 26, 2012 4:56 PM in response to eddiethered

Remove it from your Login Items.

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Answer 7

eddiethered Author

Level 1

8 points

Feb 27, 2012 12:09 AM in response to HACKINT0SH

In reply to bbfc and Hackintosh - I don't have safari in my log in items and I have used cmd w and cmd q to quit windows and the safari app. But these **** old tabs and safari keep appearing on start up. It's almost that's there's a second safari app with just these tabs on it. If I close safari once started up and then open with the shift key it goes to my normal home page. After surfing if I then restart what is interesting is that when safari opens with the old tabs it shows none of my recent history from the last usage! Any more ideas?

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Answer 8

HACKINT0SH

Level 5

5,804 points

Feb 27, 2012 12:56 AM in response to eddiethered

Can you go into your preferences folder, which is in your home library folder. I want you to drag the com.apple.safari.plist file to the desktop (while Safari is closed). Then re-open Safari, and let me know if the situation still continues.

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Answer 9

eddiethered Author

Level 1

8 points

Feb 27, 2012 11:46 AM in response to HACKINT0SH

Hackintosh - sorry for the delay, been at work. There is no such file in the Library preferences folder! Also, in my home folder there is no library. I found the library/preferences under the Macintosh HD folder. I tried to use finder for the com.apple.safari.plist file but couldn't find it.

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Answer 10

eddiethered Author

Level 1

8 points

Feb 27, 2012 12:06 PM in response to eddiethered

Hackintosh - Update Now find library which appaently Lion hides. Did as you suggested. The situation continues - the old tabs opened when safari opened.

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Answer 11

HACKINT0SH

Level 5

5,804 points

Feb 27, 2012 10:23 PM in response to eddiethered

Hmm!

Now I am very interested in what the **** is going on there.

On start up safari is showing as open and there is a folder in the right hand part of the dock. This has the old tabs in it and safari opens with these and not my home page.

Alright, so let me see here. That folder that is on the DOCK, do you mean near the Trash can? Did you inadvertently drag that to the dock to make a short-cut?

Could you remove that from the Dock by draging it off and making it disapear in a cloud of smoke?

It seems somehow, you set a folder (of 3 links) to open up on start-up, if I can picture this correctly.

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Answer 12

eddiethered Author

Level 1

8 points

Feb 28, 2012 12:10 AM in response to HACKINT0SH

Hackintosh - sorry. Not that either. Yes, it sits next to the trash can. I've tried to drag it out of the dock and also put in the trash can. Neither work. It just jumps back into the dock.

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Answer 13

eddiethered Author

Level 1

8 points

Feb 28, 2012 10:48 AM in response to eddiethered

Hackintosh - PS If I close safari on start up then the plist instruction then takes me to apple.safari and the top list page when I open safari. How can I get safari to not open with these **** old tabs on start up. All settings say none of this should happen!

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Answer 14

Apr 14, 2012 12:10 PM in response to eddiethered

I have been experiencing the exact same issue as eddiethered for the past 2 weeks, I'm having 4 old browser tabs open everytime I launch Safari. This is not an issue of a settings configuration, it is an issue of a bad .plist or cache from what I can tell. Like eddiethered, I have ensured the following:

My default homepage is about:blank, so upon Safari launch nothing other than a blank page should appear.
It is not an issue of restarting the OS and having "Reopen windows when logging back in" checked off, when I restart I ALWAYS uncheck that - but in the past week the same apps seem to relaunch automatically when they shouldn't.
This is not an issue of previously closing vs quitting the Safari browser, I Command-Q all my apps when I am finished with them. Even when I hard-quit Safari, the old 4 browser tabs/websites reappear.
This is not a issue of Login Items as I don't have a single application listed as a Login Item for my Username.

I've also noticed other apps having issues (iChat, Chrome). As of now Firefox is the only browser that is launching without any issues. Yes an OS reinstall could be an option but that is a substantial amount of effort I don't want to invest. Due to the other apps having issues this may be an issue at the OS level and not Safari.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

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Answer 15

Apr 14, 2012 12:14 PM in response to Johnnyhair

To add to my previous post, I am running OS v10.7.3 on a 2009 MacBook Pro with ample memory and free hardisk storage space.

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