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New mac book pro, Safari a zombie process on launch?

My previous Mac book died, and I purchased a new one last week.


I started the restore of my data, which, mistakenly, included the Library directory in my User directory.


Now Safari will not launch, it starts up as Process not responding according to Activity Monitor.


I've tried deleting the .plist files as suggested by similar, older posts about such events, and looked for Caches, Metadata, and plug-ins which might be at fault, but to no avail.


I'm running OS X 10.8.2 with Safari 6.0.2 according to info on it from the apps directory.


It of course opens fine for other users on the same Mac. I've tried copying over the Library/Safari directory from a working account contents into my directory. Still no joy.


I'm stumped on how to remedy this. Short of creating a new account and moving all my data to it, is there anything else I should try?


Thanks for your time.

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2), Safari

Posted on Feb 25, 2013 9:57 AM

Reply
16 replies

Feb 25, 2013 11:27 AM in response to 78Andrew

Please read this whole message before doing anything.

This procedure is a diagnostic test. It’s unlikely to solve your problem. Don’t be disappointed when you find that nothing has changed after you complete it.
The purpose of the test is to determine whether the problem is caused by third-party software that loads automatically at startup or login.


Disconnect all wired peripherals except those needed for the test, and remove all aftermarket expansion cards. Boot in safe mode* and log in to the account with the problem. The instructions provided by Apple are as follows:

  • Shut down your computer, wait 30 seconds, and then hold down the shift key while pressing the power button.
  • When you see the gray Apple logo, release the shift key.
  • If you are prompted to log in, type your password, and then hold down the shift key again as you click Log in.
*Note: If FileVault is enabled under OS X 10.7 or later, or if a firmware password is set, or if the boot volume is a software RAID, you can’t boot in safe mode.


Safe mode is much slower to boot and run than normal, and some things won’t work at all, including wireless networking on certain Macs. The next normal boot may also be somewhat slow.
The login screen appears even if you usually log in automatically. You must know your login password in order to log in. If you’ve forgotten the password, you will need to reset it before you begin.


Test while in safe mode. Same problem?


After testing, reboot as usual (i.e., not in safe mode) and verify that you still have the problem. Post the results of the test.

Feb 25, 2013 12:07 PM in response to 78Andrew

Problems such as yours are sometimes caused by files that should belong to you but are locked or have wrong permissions. This procedure will check for such files. It makes no changes and therefore will not, in itself, solve your problem.

First, empty the Trash.

Triple-click the line below to select it, then copy the selected text to the Clipboard (command-C):

find ~ $TMPDIR.. \( -flags +sappnd,schg,uappnd,uchg -o ! -user $UID -o ! -perm -600 -o -acl \) 2> /dev/null | wc -l

Launch the Terminal application in any of the following ways:

☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)

☞ In the Finder, select Go Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.

☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Terminal in the icon grid.

Paste into the Terminal window (command-V). The command may take a noticeable amount of time to run. Wait for a new line ending in a dollar sign (“$”) to appear.

The output of this command, on a line directly below what you entered, will be a number such as "41." Please post it in a reply.

Feb 25, 2013 12:26 PM in response to 78Andrew

You should be getting email notifications of posts to this thread. If not, mail the commands to yourself and retrieve them in Mail on the affected machine.

Back up all data.

This procedure will unlock all your user files (not system files) and reset their ownership and access-control lists to the default. If you've set special values for those attributes on any of your files, they will be reverted. In that case, either stop here, or be prepared to recreate the settings if necessary. Do so only after verifying that those settings didn't cause the problem. If none of this is meaningful to you, you don't need to worry about it.


Step 1

If you have more than one user account, and the one in question is not an administrator account, then temporarily promote it to administrator status in the Users & Groups preference pane. To do that, unlock the preference pane using the credentials of an administrator, check the box marked Allow user to administer this computer, then reboot. You can demote the problem account back to standard status when this step has been completed.

Triple-click the following line to select it. Copy the selected text to the Clipboard (command-C):

{ sudo chflags -R nouchg,nouappnd ~ $TMPDIR.. ; sudo chown -Rh $UID:staff ~ $_ ; sudo chmod -R u+rwX ~ $_ ; chmod -R -N ~ $_ ; } 2> /dev/null

Paste into the Terminal window (command-V). You'll be prompted for your login password, which won't be displayed when you type it. You may get a one-time warning not to screw up. If you don’t have a login password, you’ll need to set one before you can run the command. If you see a message that your username "is not in the sudoers file," then you're not logged in as an administrator.


The command will take a noticeable amount of time to run. Wait for a new line ending in a dollar sign (“$”) to appear, then quit Terminal.

Step 2 (optional)


The first step should give you usable permissions in your home folder. This step will restore special attributes set by OS X on some user folders to protect them from unintended deletion or renaming. You can skip this step if you don't consider that protection to be necessary.

Boot into Recovery by holding down the key combination command-R at startup. Release the keys when you see a gray screen with a spinning dial.

When the OS X Utilities screen appears, select

Utilities Terminal

from the menu bar. A Terminal window will open.

In the Terminal window, type this:

res


Press the tab key. The partial command you typed will automatically be completed to this:

resetpassword


Press return. A Reset Password window will open. You’re not going to reset a password.

Select your boot volume ("Macintosh HD," unless you gave it a different name) if not already selected.

Select your username from the menu labeled Select the user account if not already selected.

Under Reset Home Directory Permissions and ACLs, click the Reset button.

Select

Restart

from the menu bar.

Feb 25, 2013 1:57 PM in response to Linc Davis

379582 0 drwxr-xr-x 35 78andrew staff 1190 Feb 24 14:44 /Users/78andrew

433617 0 drwxr-xr-x 2 78andrew staff 68 Feb 15 2009 /Users/78andrew/.Trash/junk

408261 0 drwxr-xr-x 2 78andrew staff 68 Feb 15 2009 /Users/78andrew/DataDisk/document

408275 0 drwxr-xr-x 2 78andrew staff 68 Feb 15 2009 /Users/78andrew/DataDisk/gcc

408380 0 drwxr-xr-x 2 78andrew staff 68 Feb 15 2009 /Users/78andrew/DataDisk/iPhoto Library/2006/01/25

408388 0 drwxr-xr-x 2 78andrew staff 68 Feb 15 2009 /Users/78andrew/DataDisk/iPhoto Library/2006/01/30

408407 0 drwxr-xr-x 2 78andrew staff 68 Feb 15 2009 /Users/78andrew/DataDisk/iPhoto Library/2006/02/24

408418 0 drwxr-xr-x 2 78andrew staff 68 Feb 15 2009 /Users/78andrew/DataDisk/iPhoto Library/Albums/Album-1

408472 0 drwxr-xr-x 2 78andrew staff 68 Feb 15 2009 /Users/78andrew/DataDisk/Java/StockMarket/MRJApplication.app/Contents/Resources /Java

408501 0 drwxr-xr-x 2 78andrew staff 68 Feb 15 2009 /Users/78andrew/DataDisk/Library

408558 0 drwxr-xr-x 2 78andrew staff 68 Feb 15 2009 /Users/78andrew/DataDisk/Movies/Comedy/imp

408631 0 drwxr-xr-x 2 78andrew staff 68 Feb 15 2009 /Users/78andrew/DataDisk/Presentations/Victoria Feb 2009

408635 0 drwxr-xr-x 2 78andrew staff 68 Feb 15 2009 /Users/78andrew/DataDisk/Presentations/Victoria May 2009/CGI.ppt_media

408638 0 drwxr-xr-x 2 78andrew staff 68 Feb 15 2009 /Users/78andrew/DataDisk/Presentations/Victoria May 2009/Cloth

408640 0 drwxr-xr-x 2 78andrew staff 68 Feb 15 2009 /Users/78andrew/DataDisk/Presentations/Victoria May 2009/Fracture

408656 0 drwxr-xr-x 2 78andrew staff 68 Feb 15 2009 /Users/78andrew/DataDisk/Renderer/Render/release

379692 0 drwx------ 10 78andrew staff 340 Feb 24 11:57 /Users/78andrew/Desktop

408789 0 drwxr-xr-x 2 78andrew staff 68 Feb 15 2009 /Users/78andrew/Desktop/Untitled CD.fpbf

379583 0 drwx------ 50 78andrew staff 1700 Feb 23 21:15 /Users/78andrew/Documents

408794 0 drwxr-xr-x 2 78andrew staff 68 Feb 15 2009 /Users/78andrew/Documents/0910

408796 0 drwxr-xr-x 2 78andrew staff 68 Feb 15 2009 /Users/78andrew/Documents/2007taxes_files

408798 0 drwxr-xr-x 2 78andrew staff 68 Feb 15 2009 /Users/78andrew/Documents/2008 Taxes

408801 0 drwxr-xr-x 2 78andrew staff 68 Feb 15 2009 /Users/78andrew/Documents/2010 Taxes

408803 0 drwxr-xr-x 2 78andrew staff 68 Feb 15 2009 /Users/78andrew/Documents/2010.2011

408807 0 drwxr-xr-x 2 78andrew staff 68 Feb 15 2009 /Users/78andrew/Documents/hockey

408839 0 drwxr-xr-x 2 78andrew staff 68 Feb 15 2009 /Users/78andrew/Documents/Microsoft User Data/Entourage Temp

408854 0 drwxr-xr-x 2 78andrew staff 68 Feb 15 2009 /Users/78andrew/Documents/docs/f2

408956 0 drwxr-xr-x 2 78andrew staff 68 Feb 15 2009 /Users/78andrew/Documents/HKKN0809Invoice_files

408960 0 drwxr-xr-x 2 78andrew staff 68 Feb 15 2009 /Users/78andrew/Documents/TAXES/2007 Taxes

408966 0 drwxr-xr-x 2 78andrew staff 68 Feb 15 2009 /Users/78andrew/Documents/TAXES/2009 Taxes

408971 0 drwxr-xr-x 2 78andrew staff 68 Feb 15 2009 /Users/78andrew/Documents/TAXES/2011 Taxes

408975 0 drwxr-xr-x 2 78andrew staff 68 Feb 15 2009 /Users/78andrew/Documents/TAXES/2012 Taxes

408998 0 drwxr-xr-x 2 78andrew staff 68 Feb 15 2009 /Users/78andrew/Documents/THP Taxes 2007

409000 0 drwxr-xr-x 2 78andrew staff 68 Feb 15 2009 /Users/78andrew/Documents/THP Taxes2006

409002 0 drwxr-xr-x 2 78andrew staff 68 Feb 15 2009 /Users/78andrew/Documents/Yahoo! Conversations

379585 0 drwx------ 110 78andrew staff 3740 Feb 25 13:46 /Users/78andrew/Downloads

409007 0 drwxr-xr-x 2 78andrew staff 68 Feb 15 2009 /Users/78andrew/Downloads/10.2.6.85.5878.pdf.download

409012 0 drwxr-xr-x 2 78andrew staff 68 Feb 15 2009 /Users/78andrew/Downloads/attach.download

409014 0 drwxr-xr-x 2 78andrew staff 68 Feb 15 2009 /Users/78andrew/Downloads/2011-FinancialSummary.pdf.download

409016 0 drwxr-xr-x 2 78andrew staff 68 Feb 15 2009 /Users/78andrew/Downloads/2012-FinancialSummary.pdf.download

409030 0 drwxr-xr-x 2 78andrew staff 68 Feb 15 2009 /Users/78andrew/Downloads/AW2000.jpg.download

409032 0 drwxr-xr-x 2 78andrew staff 68 Feb 15 2009 /Users/78andrew/Downloads/season demo.mp3.download

409037 0 drwxr-xr-x 2 78andrew staff 68 Feb 15 2009 /Users/78andrew/Downloads/apache-tomcat-6.0.20

409150 0 drwx------ 2 78andrew staff 68 Jun 6 2010 /Users/78andrew/Downloads/attachments_2009_10_02

409152 0 drwx------ 2 78andrew staff 68 Jun 6 2010 /Users/78andrew/Downloads/attachments_2009_10_24

409154 0 drwx------ 2 78andrew staff 68 Jun 6 2010 /Users/78andrew/Downloads/attachments_2009_11_09

409156 0 drwx------ 2 78andrew staff 68 Jun 6 2010 /Users/78andrew/Downloads/attachments_2010_03_08

409158 0 drwx------ 2 78andrew staff 68 Jun 6 2010 /Users/78andrew/Downloads/Attachments_2011_08_25

409160 0 drwx------ 2 78andrew staff 68 Jun 6 2010 /Users/78andrew/Downloads/Attachments_2011_09_9

409162 0 drwx------ 2 78andrew staff 68 Jun 6 2010 /Users/78andrew/Downloads/Attachments_2011_09_9-1

Feb 25, 2013 2:36 PM in response to 78Andrew

Read this whole message before doing anything.


Back up all data.


Quit Safari if it’s running. Then select


Force Quit…

from the menu bar. A small window will open with a list of running applications. Safari may appear in that list, even though you quit it. If so, select it and press return. Close the window.


Step 1


In the Finder, press the key combination shift-command-A to open the Applications folder. Select the Safari icon in that folder and press the key combination command-I to open the Info window. There’s a checkbox in the Info window labeled Open in 32-bit mode. Uncheck it, if checked. Close the Info window and the Applications folder.


If Adobe Flash Player is installed, select

 ▹ System Preferences ▹ Flash Player Advanced

and click Delete All. Close the preference pane.


Hold down the option key and select

Go Library

from the Finder menu bar. Delete the following items from the Library folder (some may not exist):


  • Caches/com.apple.Safari
  • Caches/com.apple.WebKit.PluginProcess
  • Caches/Metadata/Safari
  • Preferences/com.apple.WebKit.PluginHost.plist
  • Preferences/com.apple.WebKit.PluginProcess.plist
  • Saved Application State/com.apple.Safari.savedState


Leave the Library folder open. Try Safari again. If it works now, stop here. Close the Library folder. If you still have problems, continue.


Step 2

Triple-click anywhere in the line below to select it:


rm -fr $TMPDIR../C/com.apple.Safari


Copy the selected text to the Clipboard (command-C).

Quit Safari again. Launch the Terminal application in any of the following ways:


☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)


☞ In the Finder, select Go Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.


☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Terminal in the icon grid.


Paste into the Terminal window (command-V). Wait for a new line ending in a dollar sign (“$”) to appear, then quit Terminal. Launch Safari and test.


Step 3


If Safari still doesn’t work right, quit, go back to the Finder and move the following items from the open Library folder to the Desktop (some may not exist):


  • Cookies/Cookies.binarycookies
  • Internet Plug-Ins
  • Preferences/com.apple.Safari.LSSharedFileList.plist
  • Preferences/com.apple.Safari.plist
  • Preferences/com.apple.Safari.RSS.plist
  • Preferences/com.apple.WebFoundation.plist
  • PubSub/Database
  • Safari


(Note: you are not moving the Safari application. You’re moving a folder named “Safari.”)


Try again. This time Safari should perform normally, but your settings and bookmarks will be lost. The default set of bookmarks will be restored. Delete them all.


If the issue is still not resolved, quit Safari again and put all the items you moved to the Desktop back where they were, overwriting the newer ones that may have been created in their place. You don’t need to replace the files you deleted in step 1. Stop here and post again.


If Safari is now working normally (apart from the lost settings), look inside the “Safari” folder on the Desktop for a file named “Bookmarks.plist”. Select

File Import Bookmarks

from the Safari menu bar. Import from that file. Recreate the rest of your Safari settings. You can then delete the items you moved to the Desktop.


Note: This step will remove your Safari Extensions, if any, and their settings. If you choose to restore them, do so one at a time, testing after each step to make sure you haven’t restored the problem.


If you don’t like the results of step 3, you can undo it completely by quitting Safari and restoring the items you moved or deleted in that step from your backup, overwriting any that were created in their place.

Feb 25, 2013 4:28 PM in response to Linc Davis

Step 3 resolved the issue.


Out of curiosity, I put each item back one by one, relaunching each time. The culprit was an empty directory called "lock" in the Library/Safari directory with permissions:


drwxrx-rx-x+


Adding/Removing it made the difference between hang on launch vs launch.


Is the file used to prevent a safari race condition? Seems poor behavior to not have a time-out or some better response to this situation.


Regardless, I'm running again. Thanks for your help!

New mac book pro, Safari a zombie process on launch?

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