Mail and Safari hang on quit, plus other symptoms

Question

Level 1

119 points

Mail and Safari hang on quit, plus other symptoms

So, this has been going on since updating my mid-2012 MBP (non-retina) from 10.8.5 to 10.9, including new versions of Mail and Safari. My sole email account in Mail is my iCloud account, using a .me domain. When I first boot up, everything is fine. I open mail, it's gets messages, I can send messages as well, and the app can be quit normally. Same with Safari, works ok, can be quit normally. Then, after a few minutes up system uptime, there are 3 symptoms, and I think they're all related to one underlying problem, maybe having to do with the local iCloud settings/account stuff:

1. Opening Mail doesn't result in a crash, and the activity window immediately shows activity as usual, but none of that activity completes, starting with "opening mailbox". Mail can be operated during this time, menus accessed, but nothing can be sent or received of course. Going to Mail's prefs works ok, until I go to the Accounts tab, then the whole app hangs. Trying to quit Mail fails, resulting in a hang as well, and only force-quitting gets out of the hang.

2. Safari launches ok, and browses ok as well, hangs on quit, same as Mail.

3. Opening System Prefs works ok, and opening all pref panes works ok except for iCloud and Internet Accounts. Attempting to open either of those results in the System Prefs app hanging, requiring a force quit.

Relaunching Mail or Safari or System Prefs will give the same results over and over, until I reboot from scratch and things work normally for a very short period of time again.

Extra details: When Mail or Safari hang on quit, the Activity Monitor doesn't show excessive CPU usage from them. However, when the System Prefs app hangs, the Activity Monitor shows around 99% CPU usage by the Systems Prefs app.

No idea what to do about any of this. Anyone have any ideas? The hardest part of posting here is to come up with a subject line that'll be found by people searching for similar issues!

MacBook Pro (15-inch Mid 2012), OS X Mavericks (10.9), 8GB RAM + 750GB HD

Posted on Oct 26, 2013 1:44 AM

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Answer 1

loeribas

Level 1

18 points

Oct 26, 2013 1:04 PM in response to JonYo

I have exactly the same problems since I upgraded to 10.9. The only difference is that I have the problem on an iMac 27" end 2009.

I also own a MacBook Air, but I don't have these problems there.

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Answer 2

JonYo Author

Level 1

119 points

Oct 26, 2013 1:20 PM in response to loeribas

I was trying to think of what's changed in 10.9, and what do the mail, safari and icloud stuff have in common. I thought about the new icloud keychain sync. So, I rebooted, opened icloud in the system prefs, turned off keychain (chose the "keep my stuff on the computer" option rather than deleting keychain stuff), and I've been running without a hang in mail, safari or system prefs for several hours now. That may have been it, can't be sure yet though. Considering that icloud keychain sync is a new thing that I was doing fine without before 10.9, I'm fine with just leaving it off for now, and then re-testing when Apple comes out with a 10.9.1 update.

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Answer 3

Oct 26, 2013 1:30 PM in response to JonYo

I have the exact same problem. Your theory is intriguing. I erased the keychain icloud keychain from my mac and resynced. Maybe that will fix the problem.

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Answer 4

Oct 26, 2013 1:57 PM in response to JonYo

Hey guys, I'm having a similar problem.

Since I updated to 10.9, everytime I open Apple Mail and try to view an mail message, Apple Mail crashes.

Have you got any response or feedback on this?
Is there any way to reinstall Apple Mail on Maverick?

Thanks for sharing

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Answer 5

JonYo Author

Level 1

119 points

Oct 26, 2013 2:50 PM in response to Matt Mahon

Matt - What exactly did you erase? A certain file in the user library folder? Or a certain keychain in the Keychain Access utility?

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Answer 6

JonYo Author

Level 1

119 points

Oct 26, 2013 2:51 PM in response to bennassar

You could try turning off keychain icloud sync like I did, but to be honest, it sounds like you're having a different sort of Mail-app-specific issue from mine.

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Answer 7

Oct 26, 2013 4:24 PM in response to JonYo

Well I did try a safe boot and nothing happened.

Also something I saw in the Apple Crash Report was the following:

Application Specific Information:

*** Terminating app due to uncaught exception 'NSInvalidArgumentException', reason: '*** -redComponent not valid for the NSColor NSCalibratedWhiteColorSpace 0.4 1; need to first convert colorspace.'

abort() called

terminating with uncaught exception of type NSException

Isn't that wierd.
apple mail crashing because of COLOR CALIBRATION PROBLEM???

If anybody find something about it I would appreciate, because nowadays (with so many emai accounts) it's a nightmare not to have the Apple Mail running.

Thanks

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Answer 8

Oct 26, 2013 7:28 PM in response to JonYo

Hi everybody,

I finally found a solution that worked for me:

Launch Terminal (Utilities Folder, in the Finder type: com+shift+u):

OPen Terminal and enter this phrase (copy and paste):

defaults delete com.apple.mail ColorQuoterColorList

Hit enter. Close Terminal. Now try mail.

Workaround posted by "gikku" in another thread.

I hope it works for everybody else to.

Thanks "gikku".

U made my day ;-)

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Answer 9

JonYo Author

Level 1

119 points

Oct 26, 2013 7:55 PM in response to JonYo

Well, the problem started happening again, exact same symptoms, and I've still got Keychain unchecked in the icloud prefpane. Hmm, this is really a pain in the *** problem.

I suspect that the solution noted by bennassar is for a different sort of issue entirely, but I'll give it a try, probably can't hurt.

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Answer 10

devnul

Level 1

0 points

Oct 28, 2013 8:07 AM in response to JonYo

This is iCloud related. Once the system gets into this "condition," I can't start Safari (it never gets as far as drawing its window), and the same for System Preferences panes. I used Activity Monitor to take a sample, and got a stack trace - Safari is deep in an iCloud framework. Only rebooting clears the problem. I don't know specifically which application triggers it, if any. I'm trying deleting my iCloud accounts in Mail (via the iCloud pane in System Preferences) tonight.

Also once I get into this "condition," Calendar and Note syncing hangs as well. I wouldn't be surprised if the Address Book did, too, but I haven't specifically observed it.

Added comment about Calendar and Notes

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Answer 11

Oct 28, 2013 2:31 PM in response to devnul

That's exactly what has been going on with my Safari, Calendar, Aperture and iCloud. For me, it was when trying to quit Safari or Aperture. They would just freeze up but the rest of the system worked. A force quit (cmd+alt+esc) would quit the apps and they would work again when opening them up. If I tried to acess the iCloud settings in System Preferences while one of these apps froze up, the preferences would also freeze. Same with Calendar. Looking at the Activity Monitor, I found the process "iCloud photos" in red with the added "(not responding)". So I also believe the whole thing has to do with iCloud.

I haven't had it freeze up on me for a while but the problem is still present. What I did to try and remedy it, was to uninstall Flash, Air, Silverlight and all extensions and unneccessary Internet Plug-Ins from various folders, as well as deleting e plethora of plist-files from various Safari folders. Of course the ol' repair disk permissions and reboots in between.

I'm on a 27", late 2009 iMac with 2,8 GHz Core i7. 16GB RAM.

Friends of mine with other mac models have had no problems at all.

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Answer 12

Oct 30, 2013 10:22 AM in response to devnul

I followed the steps in this link and it resolved my freezing issue with, safari, mail, and icloud preferences.:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5393961?answerId=23233820022#23233820022

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Answer 13

JonYo Author

Level 1

119 points

Oct 30, 2013 2:45 PM in response to Matt Mahon

I tried all of that just now after a manual backup just to be safe, turned back on icloud keychain sync as well (so now all icloud services are checked), and we'll see how it goes.

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Answer 14

Oct 31, 2013 9:29 AM in response to Matt Mahon

I just tried these steps, and I'm still seeing mail hanging. 😟

I see this Mail error in the console:

10/31/13 10:52:49.433 AM Mail[1716]: [WEB BUNDLE] Could not execute script: TypeError: 'undefined' is not a function (evaluating 'e.getBoundingClientRect()')

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Answer 15

JonYo Author

Level 1

119 points

Oct 31, 2013 3:46 PM in response to JonYo

Nope, still having the same issue every so often. Blah. I suspect this is going to take an Apple update to really fix properly. I hope Apple's QA people are aware of the issue and can reproduce it in their testing.

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