Messed update
Installed Tiger update 10.4.11 this morning, which mainly provides Safari 3, which cannot access web content. It quits on launch every time.
I have no unsanity products installed, and no APE in my library, but I see “smart crash reports” by com.unsanity.smartcrashreports in the system info Apple collects prior to sending itself a crash report every time Safari 3 quits (which is every time it launches).
At some point in the past, I bought an unsanity product which I later uninstalled—but apparently there is a still a piece of their stuff around somewhere. This may or may not be causing Safari to eat its head.
Great time to break out the latest version of Camino.
Tags: apple, safari, browser, safari3, update, upgrade, osx, bugs, crashes, quits
Filed under: Applications, Browsers
Remove anything inside /Library/InputManagers && ~/Library/InputManagers and it should work just fine.
@Phil: That did it. (Whereas nothing I could find in discussions.apple.com helped.) Thank you so much! Looks like I’ll be buying your books.
So, aside from Safari Tidy, which I installed myself, who installed all these input managers in my system? Menu Enabler, Magic Menu Enabler, Menu Extra Enabler, Ecamm, Smart Crash Reports — what are they and where do they come from?
Maybe I will hold off on installing that update…
Multi-Safari might be worth a look if you still need to test with previous versions of Safari.
Don’t know about the rest, but Smart Crash Reports is an Unsanity product to allow crash reports to be submitted to the developer as well as Apple. It’s auto-installed by various programs, and I think the first few versions didn’t ask for permission before doing so, which was rather poor form. Gruber wrote about it here, with a followup here.
Well… I don’t think it’s fair to blame Unsanity for every weird issue that occurs with Apple-products ever since Leopard was released.
I had the same issue with Safari on Tiger, but it turned out to be caused by two plugins (SafariStand and PicLens). After cleaning these up all was a-ok. I never thought or made the connection to ClearDock or ShapeShifter…
I thought any time you have problems with an Apple upgrade, it’s Unsanity’s fault.
I kid because I care.
Unsanity has nothing to do with the recent iPhone buggery, for instance.
And Unsanity had nothing to do with my initial OS X experiences, wherein updating a G4 tower to OS X via clean install caused the tower to become inoperable. (My theory: that early version of OS X was incompatible with my tower’s built-in SCSI card. And who sold me that SCSI card and installed it on the Mac before shipping? Why, Apple!)
So what did I do when I learned that Apple’s OS didn’t work on an Apple tower with a SCSCI card installed by Apple? I bought a new Mac, of course. I freakin’ love those computers.
Was Unsanity to blame for my Jaguar upgrade fiasco? (Remember Jaguar?) Was Apple? Or was it the terrorists?
While I hope to be remembered as a husband, father, and friend, I will probably be remembered as the guy who could not buy or update any Apple product without experiencing some level of product meltdown. (Likely I’m not the only person it happens to, but I’m the only one boring enough to write about it.)
That 10.4.11 update has nuked the wife’s Macbook. So far nothing has worked in getting it back up and running again. I’m not terribly amused with Apple right now.
And here all these new Mac commercials had me thinking that Mac updates were painless. I guess I was deceived.
Mr Zeldman,
two errors for this page: XHTML Validator and CSS validator.
Why do you put the validator link?
Siete troppo forti voi Guru
Francesco
Some of the input managers you mentioned come from a version of Stuffit Expander Plus, Ecamm comes from a product you might have installed from Ecamm and Smart Crash Reports is a tool from Unsanity.
It might not have come from software you purchased from Unsanity, because they Smart Crash Reports to enable other developers, from any party, to receive notifications about crashes in their apps - Smart Crash Reports - and it is installed on your system if you use a wide number of indie mac apps.
Not all Input Managers cause problems. I’m still running CosmoPod, Inquisitor, and SafariBlock with no problems in Safari 3.0.4
Wow! And that TV commercial would lead us to believe that a Mac upgrade would be so simple compared to Windows.
My upgrade to 10.4.11 went as smooth as silk. For the most part Mac upgrades are so much easier than Windows. It’s just that blog posts that say, “I upgraded my Mac’s operating system today. It went pretty smoothly,” don’t seem to generate as much traction. :)
Have had the same problem with Safari beta 3 for Windows for quite sometime now. Haven’t had the time to debug it. Would try the suggestion by Phil Sherry, but unfortunately, Windows file systems and Mac file systems are…, well, completely different.
@Francesco
Ouch! Is than fan boy bile or just good old fashioned bile. Hope you have a nice weekend as well.
@Francesco:
This site’s markup validates by default.
Somehow, when I was editing content this morning, WordPress generated some inappropriate markup — either because of a bug in how Safari 3’s WYSIWYG authoring view works in WordPress, or because of a bug in WordPress’s WYSIWYG authoring view, or because I was shifting between Camino and Safari due to Safari’s brokenness, and the shifting between browsers introduced a bug.
I had never seen WordPress’s WYSIWYG view before, except when testing in Firefox during some word Happy Cog did for WordPress. Safari 2 loaded WordPress’s *CODE* view by default, and that was all right with me.
But Camino and Safari 3 load WordPress’s WYSIWYG view by default, and I’m sure that’s how most WordPress users like it. (I discovered Safari 3’s use of WYSIWYG view once I got Safari 3 to stop quitting.)
Although I am busy, it pains me to think that XHTML errors generated by a bug in WordPress or Safari or Camino are disturbing you. So I will go back into WordPress now and fix those errors. Then you can be happy.
As for the CSS errors, there aren’t any. The W3C’s CSS validator flags with a *warning* properly authored CSS3 rules. Safari supports the valid CSS3 rule I wrote and other browsers are on the way to supporting it as well. The W3C validator doesn’t recognize CSS3, and there are legitimate reasons for that. I’ve been having that conversation with the W3C for five years, and in 2005 or so they changed the false “error” message to a “warning,” which is the best they could do, it seems. I’m sorry the “warning” upsets you, but I can’t make the W3C’s CSS validation service parse correctly authored CSS3.
As for why I have those validation links, I put them in there in 2000 or so to encourage other designers to learn about web standards. It seems you have been one of the beneficiaries of my effort. I understand that your taunting me over a real validation error (caused by software) and a validation warning you mistook for an error are just your way of saying “Thank you, Jeffrey.”
You’re welcome.
P.S. WordPress content and comment editing in Camino and Safari 3 is apparently buggy. Matt! Safari 3 is a complete mess. It would be much better if WordPress didn’t even try to support code view in Safari 3. I can’t edit content or comments in Safari 3 without WordPress deleting carriage returns and then marking close-paragraphs as break tags and such, thus generating the errors that so disturb @Francesco. Camino works better, but even in Camino, there are problems. Comment editing in both is a weird bastard amalgam of code view and WYSIWYG. I am weeping as I write this.
I had very similar problems with the Apple Menu update, everything was slow especially Safari. Did the following:
- applied Apple menu update
- restarted
- (after update everything ran at a snail pace)
-downloaded combo update
- repaired permissions (repairs were done)
- applied combo
- restarted
- repaired permissions (was clean)
Very satisfied, performance at least as good a before, maybe even better.
I’ve had problems with previous update and applying the combo generally fixed things.
Regards,
Al Malin
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Bitch and moan, Zeldman. You, however, do get answers. And the right ones, too. Must be the aluminum foil lining in the tobogan.
The Newly Approved W3C Anti-Flame Addendum:
The foregoing statements were made in jest regardless of their probable truth.
Jeff, as far as WordPress is concerned, have you tried going into Users -> Your Profile and then unchecking “Use the visual editor when writing” to disable the WISIWYG editor? I’m just asking because it seems like you have the visual editor enabled by default (I turn off the visual editor on all my installs since I also tend to use EXEC PHP as well).
Unsanity is notorious for hiding little treats in your system. It really bugs me (no pun intended).
I had the same problem with Safari quitting, and removing Safari Tidy solved the issue. I didn’t have Unsanity or anything else in there, only Tidy.
I upgraded all three of my Macs without any real issues. First was my 15″ MacBook Pro (C2D 2.33)… I started the download and the fired off the update on my wife’s 13″ MacBook. Somehow hers finished and rebooted first without any issues. Mine, however, was stuck at the grey apple screen post-reboot. I let it site like that for 10 minutes and finally held the power button down to restart. Luckily when it came back up it was fine. My 1.42Ghz Mac Mini also upgraded fine.
I’m still on the fence about upgrading my MacBook Pro to Leopard.
my battery in my 17″ macbook fried last night. it had been running hot all day. it probably has nothing to do with the update, but maybe the bugginess put some strain on the processor. anyway, i’m stuck to the wall until the apple store opens in a few hours.
last major update disaster for me was in April when a Quicktime update caused Rosetta and all non-UB progs to stop working (this included Office, my time tracker software and several other major players).
gotta love apple’s updates….sigh.
On behalf of the PicLens team, I’m writing to provide the solution to issues arising from PicLens and the recent Mac OS X 10.4.11 Combo Update with Safari 3.0.4.
Users of PicLens v.1.5.14 or older are reporting a conflict with the new Mac upgrade, whereby either Safari or PicLens stops working.
The good news is that the solution is fast and simple.
1. Go to View > Remove PicLens
2. Restart Safari
3. Reinstall the new version of PicLens from our website at http://www.piclens.com.
We apologize for the inconvenience and hope you can now return to enjoying PicLens on your new Safari browser!
For further support, please kindly visit http://www.piclens.com/support/
Kind regards,
Alec & The PicLens Team
I wish you swapped standards rant comment and OS X update post. The former is so much more interesting!
Oh, and thank you!
FYI Creammonkey has been causing similar “on startup” errors in Safari 3 upgrades.
Jeffrey, you’re IT antics have become some of my favourite posts. I still consider the “Mmm, that’s good coffee” line in to be one of the funniest things I’ve ever read.
So imagine my delight when I came across the validation-police in the middle of this comment-thread. Reading through the posts for your response was like hoping for the walkie-talkies at Christmas ‘70. You’re response did not disappoint!
Keep on keepin’ on. I have decided that I will wait until that magical day when I have redundant backups before installing Leopard. I will probably be re-reading this post then, and look forward to it.
And–most importantly–thank you!
A moment of perfect irony - I forgot to close the ‘a href’ tag. Please feel free to do that for me. Yikes.
My upgrade went OK, but I don’t use Safari, anyway.
I feel a bit odd, because most other web designers seem to use Safari for non-work stuff, but I just can’t used to it’s bookmarking system. How do you guys cope with the way it expands every single folder in the drop-down menu used to add a bookmark? The other option is to use the bookmarks view, but that interferes with the current page — it seems to reload the page when you click “back”, but even if it does use the cache, it’s still extra clicks and generally feels clumsy. I prefer Firefox with the OpenBook add-on.
Did you uninstall the Unanity product using AppZapper? Although, with the more problematic Unsanity products, AppZapper might not work.
Having written the book on web standards, you’re held to a higher standard, Jeffrey. But validation errors and warnings seem to be the stuff of the universe. It’s entropy at work. With CMSes and other bodies touching our perfect code, it’s pretty much impossible to have a completely validating site 100% of the time.
Okay. So I am frustrated with my Mini.
Nutshell: updated on Thursday to 10.4.11. It aborted itself halfway though. Though it does say under “About this Mac” that I am using 10.4.11.” It shut down during install and said it was unable to install.
Since then I have been unable to open mail, safari, dreamweaver, iChat. I have tried the idea of removing everything in Inputmanager. the 2 things that were in those files are in my trash now and I still cannot install. Downloaded the combo and smaller update from apple. even tried installing in safe mode, which I didn’t know mac’s had…
Help!
1.42 ghz PPC G4512 sdram
I HAVE to get into mail. This has already cost me money.
We trust. We believe. We update. Usually with a sort of funny stomach feeling, like before an exam. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Now, if it really were that simple, we would all have more time to design websites or play outside with our kids. But it isn’t. Instead, we spend hours, days, and weeks fiddling with technology. Besides the fact that we are dependent of a running system—what is it that makes us pursue these things with such devotion? I can’t wait for the day when words like plugin, clean install, and SDRAM will be obsolete. In my lifetime?
Validation: come on guys, give us a break, we’ve discussed this before, don’t expect a publishing or any other comprehensive system to be free of errors.
MacPookPro (dual-core intel) had an “issue.” I’m full- working: lots of programs open, and then the Software Update pops-up. “Sure,” I thought, ” I’ll download it in the background and install it later.” Software Update auto-installed and crashed halfway through. Then, programs became non-responsive and no apps would launch. Single, dead bounces on the dock. Tried to relaunch. Nothing. Reboot… Gray screen of spinning for six minutes. Reboot…. Cmd+S: sbin/launch failed error 808 …aaaand - BRICK.
Took it to Mac Doctors (local guys) they had two MBPs ahead of me with 4.11 update issues. Intel/PC didn’t matter. SOLUTION: They reinstalled from the OS disks that came with it. Then, completed the updates and apparently everything’s fine. We’ll see after lunch, when it gets picked-up.
My boss is never going to let this go…
Upgraded to Leopard Nov. 5th.
iDisk/.Mac outage November 7th - 8th.
No IMAP/POP email since — only Leopard affected; other Mac on 10.4 is hunky-dory; webmail is only way to get email from .Mac account. Apple tech stumped (along with thousands of other Mac users who upgraded to Leopard).
Problem mysteriously corrects itself November 20th — without user intervention.
Go figure.
Ah well, this boils down to the usual update all your third-party plug-ins or software before doing a system update or patch.
Granted, Safari has no auto-update mechanism for plug-ins like Firefox does so if you’ve ever installed Saft, etc. you need to do the updating manually.
I admin a hoard of Macs of all types, old and new, and we’ve had no issues with 10.4.11. I’d like to think this is because I set up and maintain clean machines. There isn’t a known universal issue with the update per se, but like all patches it may not like some baggage that you’ve accumulated over the years. Like email piling up, software bloat is something we are going to all have to deal with eventually.
If you ever have an Apple update, make sure you’re backed-up first, then run it after checking your disk permissions and stats (DiskWarrier or Disk Utility are good).
If it fails, the worst thing you might have to do is a full clean system install over the hosed one. This can take a long time depending on the age of the machine (Leopard is probably the slowest OSX to install). Use the “Archive and install” option and you’ll end up with a clean system with all your user settings, apps, etc. Some reinstallation may be necessary but if you’re lucky you can be up and running in 45 minutes. “Archive and install” will weed out the Insanity or other non-supported fluff that isn’t installed in proper places.
I guess what I’m saying is that if your Mac pays your bills take this into consideration before applying an update and be at least mentally prepared that you may someday have to do a lengthy archive and install. There are many, many factors here (outside of Apple hardware issues), and even Apple can’t work around all of them.
If you haven’t done Leopard yet definitely do an “Archive and install” when you do - it will eliminate any possible issues you might have.
@Eric Peacock
Thanks Eric, you’ve made a great point on and resolved my trillema about what to do with my 10.4.11 update vs. Leopard vs. complete reinstall. I’ll do the Archive and Install, combo update to 10.4.10 and keep my 3rd party programs away from my iMac.