Some early difficulties with Mac OS X 10.4.11

We've received several reports from Tiger users that after updating to 10.4.11, Safari 3 (which is now included "for real" and no longer an optional beta add-on) crashes constantly. But in every case, so far, third-party add-ons have been present. It is perfectly believable that there is some serious crashing bug in Safari 3 on Tiger, but before testing, please do make sure you are not using anything that might cause an incompatibility.

For example, reader James wrote:

After installing the latest 10.4.11 update (and security updates), I found a new bug in Safari 3. Every single time I click the red close box in the last open window within Safari, Safari will crash. It happens every single time. I have no third party software added to Safari at all. This is very troubling.

But then it turned out that third-party software was to blame. James was using an InputManager to inject modified functionality into Safari (in this case, it was Speed Download). As we have warned in the past, Input Managers are tricky beasts. They use a security loophole to reach right into your applications' code and change that code as the application starts up. (This loophole is, to some extent, tightened in Leopard - though it does not seem to be completely closed. Stay tuned for more on that, as we learn more.) If you've installed 10.4.11 and Safari is crashing, the very first thing to do is clear out your InputManagers folders (both in your own Library and in the top-level /Library), log out and log back in, and try again. As James' case shows, you can quite innocently, honestly, and reasonably believe you have "no third-party software added to Safari", and be wrong. InputManagers is a key place to suspect that such software may reside. (James' persistence in tracking this down is really commendable.)

Similarly, another reader writes:

I updated my G4 PowerBook 1.33ghz to OS X v10.4.11, everything seems well after restart, but the new Safari cannot even be launched, once click in the Dock, the "unexpected quit" message will pop out. I have repair permission, use Single User mode with no avail, still quit unexpectedly. I am not sure what went wrong, I have peformed the pre and post OS update procedures (repair permission, unplug everything etc). The only "possible culprit" is that I have installed an additional "hack" to Safari, an additional Tab button being added to Safari's Address Bar. Now I am trying to see if I can uninstall it.

Yes! Uninstall it, log out and in, and then let's see how we go. There might still be a crash, but let's eliminate anything that might be unfairly sideswiping Safari first, so we can track it down more reasonably.

Again, reader Rich says:

I've just upgraded (using the combo updater) from OSX 10.4.10 to 10.4.11. The upgraded Safari 3 now crashes on launch. I'd be interested if others are having this problem. Note that I've never encountered a serious problem with an OSX update until now. I'm using a PowerMac G5 dual 2 GHZ with 3.5 GB of memory.

So I asked for the crash log, which Rich very obligingly sent along, and the very first thing I observed is that he's using several "haxies" - Mighty Mouse, LCC Scroll Enhancer, and the Application Enhancer framework. (These are visible in /Library/Application Enhancers.) So my initial recommendation was, let's at least try uninstalling these and then try again. Again, it might be a red herring, but with these things present, rational testing is made much more difficult, and it can't hurt to eliminate them temporarily as part of the investigation procedure.

Okay, let's move on to other reports of trouble after installing the 10.4.11 update. Reader Paul says that secure network communication is no longer working on his machine:

I just used the PPC combo updater for 10.4.11. Now Safari doesn't work when trying to access a secure website. here's an example of the error message when trying to log in to ebay:

Safari can?t open the page https://signin.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?SignIn&ru=http://www.ebay.com/&_trksid=m37 because it couldn?t establish a secure connection to the server signin.ebay.com.

I get a similar message for any secure website. And now Mail doesn't work either. I get:

An SSL error occurred while trying to read data from the server "pop.xxx.xxxxx.com". Verify that this server supports SSL and that your account settings are correct.

Finally, as does sometimes happen, some users can't start up at all after applying the update. Reader Doug says:

I installed the 10.4.11 update last night. The first time I downloaded the software via software update the download would not verify so I did it again. The second download went normally and the installation succeeded. The computer would not restart. It proceeded to the end of the normal start up (blue screen, Mac OSX starting) but would go no further. This morning I tried a Safe boot up on my laptop but it would not boot up in safe mode. I got the same result as before. I started up from my initial install disk and ran Disk Utility. No problems were found. I tried a restart again, same result. I am now running from a 10.5 version installed on an external firewire drive. I have never had this type of problem before and wonder what to do now? I will probably run Disk Warrior and see if it can find problems.

In a case like this, one approach for rescuing the disk is to reinstall the system cleanly and use the Combo updater to get back up to 10.4.11, as we've explained in this tutorial.

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