Help! Safari suddenly opened hundreds of old tabs!

Question

Level 1

25 points

Help! Safari suddenly opened hundreds of old tabs!

I'm running Safari 7.0.3 on my MBP in clamshell mode with a Thunderbolt Display. While using the Royal Mail website (in the UK) I suddenly started getting messages about unable to do this or that, then realised that the machine had opened hundreds of tabs, some very old from years ago (hence the error messages). I can't see how many have opened because the list goes off the bottom of the screen when I hold down the arrows.

I tried re-booting Safari, then re- booting the MBP but to no avail. The fans are naturally working flat our and my CPU is working at about 99%!

Is this a virus? What do I do? My tech support son is on a long-haul flight and I'm panicking ....

Any ideas anyone?

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X Mavericks (10.9), Thunderbolt Display

Posted on Apr 14, 2014 7:43 AM

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Answer 1

leroydouglas

Level 10

199,434 points

Apr 14, 2014 7:56 AM in response to Chris Wayman

Close the Safari window and open a new window (no tabs.)

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Answer 2

Chris Wayman Author

Level 1

25 points

Apr 14, 2014 8:10 AM in response to leroydouglas

Thanks for that, but I can't close the window - beach ball problem, tabs still opening. Am typing this on my iPad. Another son is trying to help now, but not having much luck so far. I was trying to close all the tabs manually but they keep on coming!

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Answer 3

BobRz

Level 5

6,138 points

Apr 14, 2014 8:17 AM in response to Chris Wayman

Quit Safari and hold down the Shift key when you reopen it.

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Answer 4

BobRz

Level 5

6,138 points

Apr 14, 2014 8:18 AM in response to Chris Wayman

Click the Apple icon, then Force Quit. Choose Safari and force quit it. Reopen while holding down the shift key.

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Answer 5

leroydouglas

Level 10

199,434 points

Apr 14, 2014 8:32 AM in response to Chris Wayman

command option esc will open the force quit window. From there you can force quit Safari.

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Answer 6

Chris Wayman Author

Level 1

25 points

Apr 14, 2014 8:34 AM in response to leroydouglas

Thanks, folks. My son has managed to sort it for me.

He said that 1,183 tabs had opened!

I've no idea why, but he managed to quit all tabs once they'd finally finished loading. He's re-opened Safari and all appears to be working OK now, but I couldn't see any answers to my question on my MBP for about ten minutes, I could only see my question. So thank you all for your efforts. Not sure what the problem was but it's now sorted. Phew!

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Answer 7

J.W.G

Level 1

0 points

Jun 2, 2014 6:44 AM in response to Chris Wayman

Hi Chris, I'm having a similar problem. Please could you ask your son what he did. I've tried everything, from force quitting to emptying and deleting the cache, but whenever I reopen safari, all these old tabs (hundreds and hundreds) just keep opening. Any help would be great!

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Answer 8

Chris Wayman Author

Level 1

25 points

Jun 2, 2014 9:55 AM in response to J.W.G

Hi J.W.G.

I spoke to my son, who said that he hit Alt/Cmd/W to close all tabs. Whatever I did to cause the problem, my Safari Preferences were set to re-open all last used tabs, so the problem was repeating itself. Does that make sense to you? Hope this helps.

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Answer 9

J.W.G

Level 1

0 points

Jun 2, 2014 9:58 AM in response to Chris Wayman

Hey Chris,

Thanks for the reply, and yeah that all makes sense but unfortunately I'd already tried all that. Am having to reinstall my OS now, so let's see...

Thanks anyway, really appreciate your help.

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Answer 10

Sep 24, 2015 7:48 PM in response to J.W.G

A friend of mine wrote down the name of a PC site. When I went there I got a pop-up fake message which cannot be dismissed. See screen shot. Force quitting Safari and reopening it with the shift key down does not solve this. Preferences are unavailable.

How to open Safari with no tabs, but preserve history, stored passwords, etc. Think there's a command line workaround.

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Answer 11

Sep 24, 2015 8:14 PM in response to MacPcConsultant

Example: http://seanscus.blogspot.com/2012/08/completely-reset-safari.html

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Answer 12

Eric Root

Level 10

685,257 points

Sep 25, 2015 6:57 AM in response to MacPcConsultant

Safari -Tech support scam pop-ups

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