Safari not launching; related to problematic history files

Several users have experienced problems with Safari not launching. For affected users, the program seems to run perfectly fine and then suddenly stops. There doesn't seem to be any specific cause for the problem, but once it occurs the program just hangs if it's opened.

Apple Dicussions postermbp233 writes:

"Suddenly Safari can't launch. (I'm using Firefox now) What can I do to make Safari responsive again? "

This problem persists despite users running permissions fixes and trashing Safari's preferences file, and even when users have reinstalled the program itself; however, the program does launch if users log into another user account. Users should not be expected to migrate to another account to fix this problem, but this does indicate the problem is with some resources that Safari accesses in the user's Library folder, and users should be able to troubleshoot the Library's contents.

Some affected users have found this problem to be with history items such as caches and history preferences, but it could also be with other internet resources such as cookies and plug-ins. Unfortunately users cannot use Safari's "Reset Safari" feature since the program will not load to access it. Perhaps Apple should supply this as a separate utility, but for now users must perform similar tasks manually if they're affected by this problem.

NOTE: It is always recommended that you keep another browser installed on the system as a backup in case there are problems with the user's primary browser. Alternate browsers include: Firefox, Camino, Opera, iCab, SeaMonkey, and OmniWeb.

Fixes

Remove history- and session-related preference files Go to the users/username/Library/Safari/ folder and remove the following two files:

If these two files are corrupted or otherwise inaccessible by Safari, then the program may not load properly, resulting in the behavior experienced by users.

Reset Safari history caches Remove the Safari Cache by navigating to the following folder in the Finder: /username/Library/Caches/Metadata/Safari/History/ and remove the contents of the folder. This folder just contains webhistory files and nothing is required for Safari to run. However, similar to preference files, if any of these files are corrupted, when Safari loads and accesses the file it will create problems.

Remove cookies Locate the cookies.plist file that's located in the users/username/Library/Cookies/ folder and remove it. If any faults in stored cookies are interfering with Safari's launch, then this could lead to problems at launch.

Internet Plug-ins If users have any third-party internet plug-ins installed (flash, adobe reader, etc), they should try removing them. User plugins are located in the /username/Library/Internet Plug-Ins/ folder and should be removed for troubleshooting first. Global plug-ins are located in the /Macintosh HD/Library/Internet Plug-ins/ folder, and should be removed next if nothing else has worked.

Resources