Safari Beta 2 - Strange Behavior
 

I have noticed that in Safari Beta 2 if I click on the Safari icon the app launches "Beta2" version no problem but when I click on a link in Mail.app it somehow opens "Beta1". I know this by checking the About Safari window and by the absence of my always show tabs pref and lack of the reset safari option in the safari menu.

Has anyone else noticed this? I only have one Safari.app in /Applications and if I already have launched safari and click in mail it works as expected by opening a new tab. The Beta1 version only appears when I click a link without first opening safari.

Any Suggestions?

EDIT: Sorry, I had a copy of beta1 in my installs folder that was somehow being launched when links were clicked.

I am experiencing the same behavior. I do not understand how to fix it. Could someone please give an explanation. Thanks.

That original message was written quite some time ago.

projects - why stick with old betas in the first place? Try upgrading to Safari, the public release.

I'll echo Jacques in saying that it is good to throw out the older versions of software once it is clear that the newer version is stable.

However, Mail uses the settings in the Internet Preferencepane to decide who to call upon for a link. Go to the Web pane of the Internet preferencepane to select your preferred browser. Then Mail will select that browser to open links in the future.

I have Safari 1.0 (v85). That is what had me confused. Upon looking in the Internet Preferrence pane I noticed that Safari Beta was selected, however, Safari 1.0 is also included in the choices. I will of course select Safari 1.0, but why is Safari Beta still included? I had noticed the behavior only if Safari was not open when I clicked on the link.
Thanks for getting me to a solution.

You're welcome.

I think that the Internet preferencepane will list all browsers (it can detect?) on your computer (in your Applications folder?). I don't know if it registers them as you open the browsers for the first time or how it does so. The moment you throw one away, the list in the Internet preferencepane will be selected.

I spoke too soon. I am still unable to click on a link in Mail and have it open in Safari. I checked in System Preferences and I do have Safari as the Default Web Browser. It also has these listed as available:
Safari copy.app
Safari (1.0)
Safari.app
Safari (1.0 Beta)

It will not stay on Safari (1.0) when I select it as Default Web Browser.

I'm grasping at straws here a bit, but...

1a) Perhaps Mail reads the identity of the appropriate helper Applications at start up. Make sure that Safari 1.0 is selecting in the Internet preferencepane. Quit and restart Mail. Now see if Mail reacts as expected.

1b) To see if Mail is the problem, double-click on an html file on the desktop to see what opens it.


2) Perhaps com.apple.internetconfig.plist is corrupt. Take it out of ~/library/preferences/ and put it on the desktop. Restart and set the entries in the Internet preferencepane again. Now see if Mail acts as expected.

macmath
I tried all your suggestions.

1a)Did not work
1b)HTML file on the desktop will not open unless Safari is open.
2Did not work

There are some links for whatever reason that will not open in Safari. Most of the time, I get links and they work fine, however, any links I get from www.WheresGeorge.com will not work for whatever reason. For all intents and purposes, these links appear to be normal in the actual body of the email but won't function for whatever reason. Perhaps this is what you're suffering from?

When I quit System Preferences it keeps going back to Safari,not Safari(1.0), as the Default Web Browser.

yellow
I tried opening www.apple.com from Mail and it is still not working. I assume that rules out the same trouble you are having. Thanks.

Then Mail.app is not the problem. There is some problem with the ability to change your preferences in the Internet preference pane, and perhaps some problem with the association of *.html being openable by web browsers.

Delete ~/library/preferences/com.apple.internetconfig.plist
and ~/library/preferences/com.apple.internetpref.plist, and immediately restart your computer (these files will be recreated by the OS). Then go into the Internet Preference pane and set it up again.

Throwing away all copies of Safari but Safari v1.0 will solve one of the problems, but not the underlying cause.

Any file named *.html should automatically open with the browser named in the Internet prefpane. Just as an interim measure, select a file with suffix .html, choose Get Info. Under "Open with" choose Safari v1.0. Then select "Change All".

The first suggestion is not working. As far as I know, I only have Safari (1.0) installed on the machine. It is the only one in the Applications Folder. The other versions are showing up in the Internet Preference Pane, however.

I have not moved on to your last suggestion yet

So a search (command-F) on your drive for Safari.app

It thinks there are others, so perhaps there are---either that or something is corrupt.

Search shows only the Safari (1.0) version in my Applications folder

Then clearly, something is corrupt, either the Internet preference pane or some file it is reading.

For the sake of fun, take the ~/Library folder out of your home directory and put it on the desktop. Now restart the computer. What happens now if you click on a file with a .html suffix? What shows up now in the Internet preferencepane? If everything is ok, then one or more of the files which the Internet preference pane depends upon is corrupt. If everything is not ok, then I might suspect the Internet preferencepane itself.

If everything is ok, then put the original Library folder back and take out the Preference subfolder and put it on the desktop and restart the computer. Is everything still ok?

If everything is ok, then put back the original Preferences folder into ~/Library and take out anything like com.apple.*.plist (except com.apple.mail.plist) and the byHost folder, restart, and see if it still works. If everything still works, I would consider trashing the old com.apple.*.plist and the byHost folder (except com.apple.mail.plist) and going on with things.

For the sake of fun, take the ~/Library folder out of your home directory and put it on the desktop. Now restart the computer. What happens now if you click on a file with a .html suffix? What shows up now in the Internet preferencepane?

Did that and it is still not working. Internet preference pane still shows multiple copies.

How do I get the original ~/Library off the desktop and into my Home folder. Keep in mind that my wife is the user with these problems and I am the Admin on the machine.

Edit: Disregard the above. I figured it out.

Does your administrative account have these same problems too, or does only your wife's account have these problems?

If your account is ok, then there is something going on within her account and it is not the fault of the Internet preference pane itself. If your account is ok, one sure way to fix things is to create a new account for your wife, transfer all her files out of her old account into the new account, change ownership of her files to her new user shortname, and delete her old account. I've had it happen before that the behavior of one application persisted even after all user artifacts were removed from the account and the machine was restarted. I moved everything to a new account and all was well.

Just do the following (sorry if I'm being repetitive, but I 'm not gonna read 33 replies)!

- Make sure you 're logged in as root or admin.
- In Finder: go to "find" in the File menu (Command F).
- Make sure "all disks" is selected and search for "Safari".
- If there are more versions, delete everything but the newest version.
- Start this newest version.
- See if the problem is fixed.
- If not: download Safari 1.0 v(whatever); even if you have it allready.
- Replace the "older" version with the version you just downloaded.
- Et voilà...
- Maybe it's also a good thing to get rid of the Safari Preferences, located in your Library; the problem may be caused by a corrupt file in this folder.

TJ.

Creating a new account sounds right. Can you give me some coaching on "transfer all her files out of her old account into the new account, change ownership of her files to her new user shortname"?
Thanks

trianglejuice,
I had tried your suggestions and it still didn't work. Thanks to you also.

A bit of a warning first. This solution to your problem might be the right one if something is amiss with her user account beyond the files relevant to Internet preferences (as was the case with my old account as I mentioned above). More likely, this solution is akin to killing an ant with an elephant gun.

You should first create the new account and see that all works fine in the new account.

I can think of two ways; others on this board will likely know a better way. Since I don't know how she has the top directory of her home account set up, I'll describe the way with the least 'Terminal' work:

A) Setting up the new account with her documents:

1) Move the contents of her old user account to /users/shared. Log out and then log back in under her new account and put her items from shared away where they go in her new account (except you won't want to transfer anything from her old user's Library to her new Library that you don't have to [you'll probably want to keep her bookmarks, her old ~/Library/Mail folder with all her email messages in it, her old ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail.plist {contains her accounts setups}, old desktop pictures, etc., anything personal that is unlikely to be system-related.])

2) While logged in under her new account, from Terminal, type
If she does not have adminstrator privileges, you'll have to either do this from another account, or give her administrator privileges temporarily. You might have to log out and back in for this action to be felt in the Finder (or click somewhere else in the Finder and come back, but sometimes I have to log out and back in for a nested chown to be felt). If she can't read her files for some reason, you might have to also do
B) Getting rid of the old account.
3) Use this account for awhile until you are sure that you have everything out of the old account. Then you are ready to delete her old account and the files in shared. [Before you delete her old account, if you have bought music from the iTunes Music Store, remember to deauthorize your computer from her old account first.] You can log back into her old account and move all of her files from /users/shared back into her home directory. Then log out and back in as yourself and delete her account from the Accounts preferencepane. Then, to delete the remains of her old account, in terminal (from an administrator's account) type
That should be it.

If you liked the Terminal, and her home directory were laid out fairly simply, an alternative to (1) above would have been to try a number of statements like:
etc.
Naturally, you'd only want to move select pieces of the old Library, again. Then do (2) as above.

Also, even if you had done this as in (1) as above, you could have removed her stuff from shared by typing
(assuming her old account had been put in a folder called 'herstuff' inside of /users/shared).

Good Luck!

Sorry I couldn't help you. For me this solution worked (with several apps).
Creating a new account will definitely solve your problem. The only thing is: it's a lot of waste of your time.

Greetz,
TJ.

I created a new account. I didn't use Terminal. I'm not ready for that yet. I transfered the a few things from the original. It is still exhibiting the same behavior. In Mail links are not opening in Safari, even though it is set in Preferneces to do so.

My account on this machine is working as expected.

Any new ideas?

I tried this now and this will not work. After I select Change All it reverts to Not Applicable. It will open in Safari if Safari is open. I can choose and open it with Camino.

You're using an incredible brute force approach. A System Preference problem like the one you're experiencing can be solved by finding and deleting all copies of the app in question. Then, delete the system preference cache, located in ~library/caches/ and reinstall your app.

You might have to delete the app receipt, and I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong.