Error --> com.apple.Safari.History quit unexpectedly.

Zac_Paton: Do you have any evidence that fixes the problem? If you look back through earlier posts you will see that this was probably the first thing that most people tried and it didn't have any effect at all.

The problem appears to be an OS one, and the best guess I have seen is that the update a few weeks ago caused the problem by not cleaning up properly after itself, which probably caused some old system files related to Spotlight functionality to be left in place rather than be replaced by the new ones. This may mean that when certain system code attempts to access the correct API calls in the new versions of the files/libraries they are just not there, or not at the right place.

Deleting the Safari history will not have any effect on that problem.

Deleting Safari History definitely does not solve the problem. I don't even use Safari! It doesn't matter if you have History or no History, use Safari or not, use El Capitan or Sierra. It still fails.

Well, I found a solution that SOLVED the problem on my machine running El Capitan 10.11.6. I hope it helps.

What I noticed is that this annoying problem started along with Safari 10.0.2 and I was told it was not possible to downgrade Safari. BUT I reinstalled El Capitan again over the current installation, keeping all data intact.

I followed the procedures to reinstall which is:

1) Get your backup done

2) Restart your machine and press Command + R during boot.

3) As soon as you get the options to restore from your recovery partition, call Disk Manager and check your OS HDD/SSD verify and to restore permissions.

4) After that, if successful, go to the option and (re)install El Capitain over installed version.

It took about 40 minutes on my Mac Pro 2010 on SSD.

RESULT? Safari came back to version 9.1.2 AND SPOTLIGHT AND POPUP ERROR MESSAGE DISAPPEARED, VANISHED!! VOILÁ!!

Why Safari rolled back to 9.1.2? NO IDEA! But that happened and makes me believe that Safari 10.0.2 is the problem AND it is back again on my App Store asking to be updated! NO WAY. I will skip this Version of Safari or wait a real bug fix.

I hope it helps someone. Feedback appreciated!

Cheers from Brazil!!

Danbarat.

You need not speculate. If you read this thread, you would know that this issue was caused by the 10.0.2 upgrade. Reported repeatedly.

Apple specifically states to not uninstall and regress Safari versions. Unclear what else happens under the hood.

I gave you a very simple, albeit not elegant work around. If you want to do that, using Spotlight takes 1 extra click and typing 2 extra characters.

Steve,

I called Apple support and I was told to either upgrade to Sierra or re-install El Capitan. I did the second option where I found the good side-effect of downgrading Safari. Apple said it was not possible at all. Re-installation was supposed to fix any error in the OS only. Thing is: my Mac stopped crashing the spotlight and Safari. The workaround you suggested didn't work to me. So, whatever is under the hood, it seems to be working fine now. As per Safari 10.0.2, I will skip the version and use other browser meanwhile.

In anyway, that was just my experience. Tks for your fb.

1. Are you certain that solved the Spotlight crash (caused by 10.0.2 update)?

2. Have you used your machine sufficiently and expansively so that you know 10.0.3 does not cause other incompatibilities or failures?

Definitely resolved the crashing issue that I was experiencing, which was simply trying to start Microsoft Excel by searching for it in Spotlight.

It also seems to have resolved crashing when searching for documents as well.

I can't comment on how well it performs in any other way as I/we haven't had enough time to test it out. But so far, so good. 🙂

OSX El Capitan 10.11.6. 13" MacBookPro, Early 2015, 3.1Gz Intel Core i7, 16GB.

As a couple others have posted, the Safari 10.0.3 update also seems to have cleared the issue for me. I haven't done exhaustive testing, but executing various "Command-Spacebar" Spotlight queries or other actions (i.e. searching within Keychain Access) that had been routinely giving me the crashed process dialog haven't re-occurred in the same situations.

I am gradually getting tired of Apple's incompetence...

There appear to be two other threads related to this same issue but no resolution. From my own experience, it has nothing to do with iTunes, but probably Spotlight. In my case it began after the latest Safari (10.0.2) and El Capitan Security (10.11.6) updates.

Clearing Safari history, caches, etc had no effect, and neither did adding my drives to Spotlight's Privacy list ( to clear indexing of those drive ). Nor did deselecting the Spotlight options related to Safari, Bing, etc

I also tried to disable Spotlight searching per How To Turn OFF And ON Spotlight In Mac OS X El Capitan, but the message still appears after a ⌘-Space shortcut.

For reference, the other threads are: Solution to new repeated com.apple.Safari.History Crash On iTunes 12.5 Launch After Reboot 10.11.6? and Spotlight - Safari History quitting

Does this error occur for other users? More specifically, if you create a "clean" user, can you reproduce the error. In my case, the other user did not experience the problem, which might indicate something in my personal ~library or keychain.

It happens now every time.

Appears that you are part of a conspiracy of many .... Apple denies the existence of this issue. Also that there was a recent update that causes this issue. Appears to you and me and others, well, we installed a July update. Really! Also appears that their 100,000 employees 1. do not have internet access to do an ordinary Google search; 2. are not using Apple machines with your and my O.S.; 3. if they are, they did not get the same Safari and Security updates we did; 4. if they did, it was in July and caused no problems for them.

Invested 3 hours with senior techs. to hear deflections.

You see, it is MY machine and MY profile. Not their failure.

Perhaps you also can write about this in the pres..

Appears that you are part of a conspiracy of many .... Apple denies the existence of this issue. Also that there was a recent update that causes this issue. Appears to you and me and others, well, we installed a July update. Really! Also appears that their 100,000 employees 1. do not have internet access to do an ordinary Google search; 2. are not using Apple machines with your and my O.S.; 3. if they are, they did not get the same Safari and Security updates we did; 4. if they did, it was in July and caused no problems for them.

Invested 3 hours with senior techs. to hear deflections.

You see, it is MY machine and MY profile. Not their failure.

Perhaps you also can write about this in the pres..

It seems you ain't the only one. After upgrading safari, i keep getting the "com.apple.Safari.History quit unexpectedly".

I guess there must be others having this issue as well. Hope Apple will short this out as soon as possible. I hope....