How can I stop Safari from opening windows on startup?

Question

Level 1

8 points

How can I stop Safari from opening windows on startup?

I am running 10.10.5 on a Mac mini with 16GB. I recently added a You Tube extension. Now Safari refuses to work because it goes into the spinning ball while trying to open windows that were open in the previous session. I'd like to clear the files responsible for this action so I can get Safari to launch without trying to go to eight or nine other pages. I've snooped around in my user library but found nothing that made sense to me.

Mac mini (Late 2012), OS X Yosemite (10.10.5)

Posted on Dec 16, 2017 5:43 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Best reply

dominic23

Level 10

83,904 points

Dec 17, 2017 6:22 AM in response to bnsonger47

Quit all applications.

Hold the “Option” key down, click the “Go” menu in the Finder menu bar ,and then choose Library from the dropdown.

Scroll down to Safari folder and click it to open.

Scroll down and open the Extensions folder

Find the extension.

Here I am moving AdBlock extension.

Right click on the extension and choose “Move to Trash”.

Close the Finder window.

Restart your Mac and test.

Reply

Answer 2

Eric Root

Level 10

684,015 points

Dec 17, 2017 7:10 AM in response to bnsonger47

Try Safari/Preferences/General/Safari opens with - set it to A new window.

If that doesn't work, Safari/Preferences/Advanced - enable the Develop menu, then go there and Empty Caches. Quit/reopen Safari and test. Then try Safari/History/Show History and delete all history items. Quit/reopen Safari and test. You can also try try Safari/Clear History…. The down side is it clears all cookies. Doing this may cause some sites to no longer recognize your computer as one that has visited the web site. Go to Finder and select your user/home folder. With that Finder window as the front window, either select Finder/View/Show View options or go command - J. When the View options opens, check ’Show Library Folder’. That should make your user library folder visible in your user/home folder. Select Library/Caches/com.apple.Safari/Cache.db and move it to the trash.

Go to Safari Preferences/Extensions and turn all extensions off. Test. If okay, turn the extensions on one by one until you figure out what extension is causing the problem.

Safari Corruption See post by Linc Davis

If that doesn't work, try running this program in your normal user account , then copy and paste the output in a reply. The program was created by etresoft, a frequent contributor. Please use copy and paste as screen shots can be hard to read. On the screen with Options, please open Options and check the bottom 2 boxes before running. Click “Share Report” button in the toolbar, select “Copy Report” and then paste into a reply. This will show what is running on your computer. No personal information is shown.

Etrecheck – System Information

Reply

Answer 3

bnsonger47 Author

Level 1

8 points

Dec 17, 2017 5:36 AM in response to dominic23

No. Issue not resolved.

Immediately upon trying to launch Safari, the spinning beach ball starts. Trying to force quit will give me the option to choose an unresponsive Safari after about 15 seconds. I've even left the computer for 90 minutes and returned to the same thing going on.

Of course I've done the standard things with Disk Utilities. No help.

I am baffled.

Reply

Answer 4

bnsonger47 Author

Level 1

8 points

Dec 17, 2017 9:50 AM in response to dominic23

Thanks. In the old days (up to 10.5) I was a field SE for Apple. That seems like a long, long time ago in that I've forgotten one-half of what I knew. Of course, about every other version of OS X things get moved around so that figuring out where to look becomes an issue unto itself. Anyway, in the last eight years or so things have gotten more stable and the need to look has seemed to diminish.

Long story, short. Removing "Player for YouTube™ (Flash version).safariextz" allowed Safari to launch and bring up the windows that were last loaded. I added that extension because Safari was no longer displaying anything on You Tube except the home page.

Oh, how I have grown to dislike the feud between one arm Adobe and one arm of Apple. Of course, since I've been a Mac fan since 1984, I think HTML5 is superior to Flash though Flash did bring us along. It reminds me of the format argument on Beta vs. VHS.

Thanks. Issue is fixed. I'll just use SeaMonkey for You Tube.

Reply