safari hangs: Old-style plist parser: missing semicolon in dictionary on line 3. Parsing will be abandoned. Break on _CFPropertyListMissingSemicolon to debug.

Safari is hanging when opening YouTube and other pages. The Console shows the following error:


CFPropertyListCreateFromXMLData(): Old-style plist parser: missing semicolon in dictionary on line 3. Parsing will be abandoned. Break on _CFPropertyListMissingSemicolon to debug.


Does anyone know which file this is referring to and where it can be found? The error seems to say that a semicolon can be inserted (probably at the end of line 3) to cure the problem.


Thanks,


Glen

Mac Pro, OS X Mavericks (10.9.5)

Posted on Feb 13, 2015 9:46 AM

Reply
3 replies

Jun 6, 2015 10:27 PM in response to berkelelychuanist

I am having the same issue and when Safari Hangs, that is the message in console, repeated about 5 times with the same time stamp. I wish someone would share an answer about this. It's so annoying. Has only been happening since the last Safari update about 3 weeks ago or whenever that was.


Oh and I'm on Mountain Lion 10.8.5 and this only happens in Safari. I type something like in Gmail and it hangs and doesn't catch up for about 20 seconds. Or when I'm scrolling or navigating. It's super frustrating.

Jun 7, 2015 9:26 AM in response to BulaRae

Try a restart.


Do a backup, using either Time Machine or a cloning program, to ensure files/data can be recovered. Two backups are better than one.


Try setting up another admin user account to see if the same problem continues. If Back-to-My Mac is selected in System Preferences, the Guest account will not work. The intent is to see if it is specific to one account or a system wide problem. This account can be deleted later.


Isolating an issue by using another user account


If the problem is still there, try booting into the Safe Mode using your normal account. Disconnect all peripherals except those needed for the test. Shut down the computer and then power it back up after waiting 10 seconds. Immediately after hearing the startup chime, hold down the shift key and continue to hold it until the gray Apple icon and a progress bar appear. The boot up is significantly slower than normal. This will reset some caches, forces a directory check, and disables all startup and login items, among other things. When you reboot normally, the initial reboot may be slower than normal. If the system operates normally, there may be 3rd party applications which are causing a problem. Try deleting/disabling the third party applications after a restart by using the application un-installer. For each disable/delete, you will need to restart if you don't do them all at once.


Safe Mode

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safari hangs: Old-style plist parser: missing semicolon in dictionary on line 3. Parsing will be abandoned. Break on _CFPropertyListMissingSemicolon to debug.

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