Special Report: Troubleshooting Safari 1.0

We've published the Safari 1.0 Special Report, which covers these and other issues:

• Introduction: The Safari Advantage
• Broken Banks and other financial application woes
• Child Protection/Filtering
• Adding an e-mail button
• Docking with the Enterprise
• Using HTTPS behind a Firewall
• Resolving Permissions/Preferences Issues
• Incompatible sites - that should be compatible
• Language Support
• Enabling the debug menu
• Improving overall stability (When in doubt, throw it out)
• Misc. site/Web app compatibility reports
• Still no way to access some Enterprise sites on a Mac

Click here or on the link below to access the report.

Introduction: The Safari Advantage

Apple's browser Safari, now in final 1.0 release form, is still a maturing product. Though there are a rash of site compatibility and functionality issues, we should see the application evolve into the tightly OS integrated - therefore both speedy and compliant - browser that Microsoft is still trying to manifest in Windows.

Take, for instance, the difference in processor usage between these two browsers. While the latest release of Internet Explorer (5.2.3) running under Mac OS X 10.2.6 consistently uses between 2 and 4 percent of the processor when idling in the background (your results may vary depending on system speed), Safari 1.0 quietly rests at exactly 0.00 percent processor usage.

Granted Microsoft's Macintosh Business Unit has done a wonderful job of making Internet Explorer a well behaving Carbon program (it hasn't received a major refresh in two years) the underlying message from this small example is that Cupertino knows more about building good Mac OS X applications than Redmond.

Much as Mac OS X 10.0.0 was widely criticized as being unsuitable for full time use, Safari 1.0 is not yet a fully ripe product. Microsoft has had has 5 years, and more than a half-dozen major revisions to perfect its Macintosh browser. Apple only recently exited the beta phase of its first major release.

The bottom line is that Apple is innovating on a number of fronts, and is unable to polish every major new shipping product in its initial release. But as we've been taught by iTunes, iChat, and the promising glimpses of Panther's Mail.app, Preview, and the Finder, Apple's software tend to age with grace.

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Broken Banks and other financial application woes

WebConnect function in Quicken Safari 1.0 still does not synchronize with the WebConnect function in Quicken 2003, forcing some readers to continue using Internet Explorer 5.2.3 as their default browser. One MacFixIt reader writes:

"I am using Quicken 2003, OS X 10.2.6 and Safari 1.0. Bank of America is the bank from which I download data. When I use the "Download" function in Q2003, the application opens up my default browser, goes to the bank's Web site. I log in and issue a command to "Download to Webconnect".

"When I use Internet Explorer, Q2003 immediately responds to the downloaded file --bringing in the data, matching it with existing records and proposing categories for the new transactions. This matching functionality is a timesaver as there are some transactions I've already entered manually.

"When I use Safari 1.0, Quicken 2003 does not respond to the file downloaded from the bank. The only option is to 'Import QIF' in Q2003 --which means the sorting and matching functionalities are bypassed."

The incompatibility between Safari 1.0 and Quicken's WebConnect files stems from the fact that neither the browser, nor Mac OS X assigns the correct type (WBCN) and creator (INTU) codes to the downloaded file, which bears the .qfx extension. Quicken, in turn, does not recognize a .qfx file having no type and creator codes.

Fortunately, you can work around this issue with a little extra leg work. First, download the shareware utility FileType (or another utility capable of changing file type and creator codes), then perform the following steps:

• Create a new file type in the righthand pane called "Quicken WebConnect", with Creator: "INTU" and Type: "WBCN".
• Drag and drop your downloaded WebConnect file from your bank into the lefthand pane, or select Add File and pick your downloaded .qfx or WebConnect file.
• Select the file in the left pane, and the WebConnect type in the right pane, and click "Change".
• The file should now be recognizable by Quicken simply by double clicking. You can also use the "Import WebConnect" function located under the File menu in Quicken.

Banks advising customers against Safari MacFixIt reader Jim Hays notes that as of June 25 technical support personnel at Fidelity Investments Bill Pay site are advising Macintosh users that the only Macintosh browser that is compatible with their web site is Netscape 7. He writes:

"I have confirmed that neither Safari 1.0 nor Internet Explorer 5.2.3 works correctly with the site. However, Internet Explorer 5.2.2 apparently works just fine. Going back to 5.2.2 is a much better solution, in my opinion, than shifting to Netscape."

Users complain that they cannot do transactions with Strong, an investment company. One reader writes "I brought it to the attention of a Customer Service representative that their system only works with IE which is being discontinued. They seemed to be completely unaware of Safari or the problem."

David Reiser writes: "I still cannot log into a TIAA-CREF account (one of the largest retirement fund management organizations for U.S. academics community). It claims Safari doesn't accept cookies -- not true by my settings. Changing the user agent doesn't help."

Likewise, there still seems to be no way to access Citibank Japan's online services with Safari .

Other banking sites simply have interface problems with Safari . Ray Willis writes: "There are a number of buttons that do not generate actions within my account at Harris Bank in Chicago. This has been a problem since the beginning. I have to switch to another browser to get detail information regarding my account."

Child Protection/Filtering

Tommy B notes a lack of parental control/blocking software for Safari 1.0 - a standard function in Internet Explorer.

MacFixIt reader Luke Mazzeri wishes for an implementation of parental control reminiscint of KidSafe - an original component of iTools where Apple employees selectively built a database of sites that could be safely viewed by children. He writes "I feel that a good implementation of the 'Child Safe Surfing' feature would be the ability to universally block the whole 'net' with a parental password. and then the parent can add each 'child safe web site as the parent see fit. Initially, all web sites are blocked (behind parent password), then as the parent adds web sites they go into a list of 'ok' sites. eg: child wants to visit "www.lego.com" safari asks for password - if parent "ok's" www.lego.com it goes into a list of ok sites. Then the child can go to that site at any time in the future and the list would be editable.

Meanwhile, Mike Stimpson suggests using the shareware utility Privoxy "I use Privoxy, which has a beta parental control built-in that can be turned on. The downsides to Privoxy are that activating the Parental Control will block a lot of legitimate sites; however, you can add sites to an unblock list, and also designate what sites you'd like to add. Also, another downside is that it is not password-protected. You can, however, set up controls for who has access to change the Privoxy settings and who doesn't, and an administrator user could also block the Network preferences from being altered, which will lock the Privoxy proxy settings as well."

Adding an e-mail button

Jack Kuiper suggests this innovative tip for adding a "Mail To" button to Safari 's main browser window - this small piece of JavaScript. Just select the following text, and drag it to your bookmark bar, and a new e-mail message will be created by your default e-mail client when the bookmark is clicked.

javascript:location.href='mailto:?SUBJECT='+document.title+'&BODY='+escape(location.href)

Another script by Rich Shrieve adds the web page's title to the body of the e-mail and also formats the URL to work with a broader span of e-mail clients (some require brackets "" to render the link to be clickable). Your mileage may vary depending on the e-mail client in use.

javascript:location.href='mailto:x@x.com?SUBJECT='+document.title+ '&BODY='+document.title+'%5Cn%3C'+escape(location.href)+'%3E'

Docking with the Enterprise

While we continue to have problems in-house with the WebTrends statistics reporting software when accessed with Safari 1.0, Fons van den Berg notes that the Safari 1.0 release finally incorporates full support for the Blackboard servers used by a number of universities:

"The Safari betas usually worked fine (albeit that pages did not always render 'nice'), although not officially '100% guaranteed' by Blackboard. There used to be some issues though with the Blackboard Knowledge Base which relies on /works mainly with JavaScript where the betas were not able to 'open' the database or display query results.

"The official release however has made these problems go away. Big hurray for Apple on this one, making everything work in this widely used educational / enterprise application and preventing me from having to do my work on a PC."

Using HTTPS behind a Firewall

No HTTPS support behind a Firewall The final Safari 1.0 release still does not include support for accessing HTTPS (secure) sites behind some Firewall implementations, while most other browsers do.

Authoxy - a small shareware application that runs in the background intercepting all HTTP and HTTPS requests, adding an authentication string, and forwarding them on to your regular proxy - has been an answer for many users, though accessing some sites can still be a hassle.

Resolving Permissions/Preferences Issues

Safari NoBrush, an add-on that removes the "brushed metal" interface stylings from Safari , will sometimes deliver a 'can't copy 'xxx' file' error if the Safari installation is owned by 'system', and not the current user (admin or otherwise).

The solution, according to poster VersionTracker poster Frederico , is to login as root and rerun the application, or, simply duplicate the Safari Application and run Safari NoBrush on it, or change the permissions using Get Info for the folder Safari ->Contents->English.lproj and its entire enclosed contents.

This problem unveils a potentially bigger issue with using Mac OS X's automatic Software Update function to download the latest release of Safari . It appears that Software Update will, by default, set the ownership permissions of Safari to "system," while downloading the application standalone from Apple's Web site will result in permissions being set correctly for the current user.

Internet Explorer and Safari changing each others' preferences MacFixIt reader Jim describes a problem which we were able to duplicate in-house where Internet Explorer and Safari are able to modify each others' image download preference: "I created a separate location for the downloads used by Safari 's 'Download this image to Disk.' Then I noticed that my Explorer download preferences had changed to the Safari location. When I changed the Explorer preferences back to the correct location, I opened Safari to check that preferences and it had changed to what I just set Explorer to."

Incompatible sites - that should be compatible

Despite the fact that FileMaker Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of Apple, its e-commerce page still presents the message "The FileMaker Store does not support Safari Beta" when attempting to access the store with the final, non-beta 1.0 release of Safari .

Separately, we have been receiving reports of incompatibility with the FileMaker Web Companion instant publishing system. Some buttons and menus are missing, and display slightly erratic behavior.

Language Support

Here is a partial list of issues with Hebrew/Arabic text:

• A crash when reading certain hebrew DHTML based message boards, is still there. (the crash is at #4 0x7eca14bc in khtml::Bidinext(khtml::RenderObject*, khtml::RenderObject*, bool, bool*) , which is only for Hebrew sites)
• Parenthesis in logical Hebrew web sites are still reversed.
• Still can't mark text properly in logical Hebrew pages.
• Going back to a form filled out in Hebrew still loses the date, giving question marks instead.

Enabling the debug menu

If you are having site compatibility problems, you might want to try using Safari's User Agent Option, which emulates other browsers and is available under Safari's Debug menu. To activate the Debug menu, quit Safari, launch the Terminal application, type the below command in the Terminal window, and press return:

• defaults write com.apple.Safari IncludeDebugMenu 1

Quit Terminal, launch Safari, and note that Debug is now the last Menu item. Select User Agent from that menu and you can select one of these emulations:

• Mozilla 1.1
• Netscape 7.0, 6.22, and 4.79
• Mac MSIE 5.22
• Windoze MSIE 6.0
• Konqueror 3

Improving overall stability

If you are having stability problems in Safari 1.0, try these procedures:

• Delete the Cookies.plist file found in the /Library/Cookies directory (from your home folder). Make a backup of this file first. If this is not the problem, you will lose your cookies.
• Search for SIMBL in the Finder. Deleting this folder will delete any plugins such as PithHelmet which you may have installed on Safari . You can re-install them later.

Disabling older versions If you choose to use Software Update for upgrading to Safari 1.0, Mac OS X will automatically install the browser into the Applications folder with no option to put it anywhere else. However, Software Update will not remove previous beta versions of Safari , nor does it remove their icons from the dock if your previous installation was located somewhere other than the Applications folder (true in most cases, not all).

This means that your old beta (should you choose to revert) will no longer work properly in some cases. Most readers report that the old installation will launch but fails to properly render any pages, and generates the following error message in the Console:

"Safari [494] *** -[NSMutableURLRequest _partWithClass:createIfDoesNotExist:]: selector not recognized"

If you want to use the new 1.0 final release exclusively, drag your old beta of Safari out of the dock, and put the new installation (located in the Applications folder) in its place.

Removing and re-installing If you are having serious problems after installing Safari 1.0 via the automatic software update (application not launching, frequent crashes, etc.) try this: use the "Find" command in the Finder to search for any file named Safari . Do this once with visibility on, and once with visibility off. Delete every file containing the name Safari from your system. [see "removing an iApp" also in today's edition]

Then try re-downloading Safari as a standalone download from the Web, not through Software Update: http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/17743

When in doubt, throw it out: Trashing preference files While this workaround seems strange at first, it has worked well for a number of readers who previously had serious problems with Safari 1.0 unexpectedly quitting and displaying a host of other problems.

Try deleting the file: com.apple.quicktime.plugin.preferences.plist which is found your Home/Library/Preferences folder, and then re-launching Safari . Apparently this entity, like other Mac OS X preference files, can become corrupt and cause problems with Safari as well as other browsers.

This fix has also been able to cure problems adding bookmarks in Safari , and incomplete downloads.

Misc. site/Web app compatibility reports

GroupWise One MacFixIt reader writes "The university where I work uses GroupWise 6.x, and many Mac users can't stand running GroupWise in Classic, so they use GroupWise Web Access while we all wait for an OS X version of GroupWise. The final release still does not work with this standard. I now use Mozilla and find it much faster than Safari , and I can use GroupWise Web Access.

DirecTV Clifton Berrier notes that the online program guide for satellite television provider DirectTV has problems searching, and changing the time, day or time zone in Safari , whereas the same functions work will in Internet Explorer 5.2.3.

Still no way to access some Enterprise sites on a Mac

Microsoft's decision to discontinue further development of Internet Explorer 5.x for the Macintosh platform could signal a dire predicament for users of some enterprise Web sites that do not work with any Mac browser.

Many users had hoped that a future revision to the Mac OS X version of Internet Explorer would bring more rendering parity with the Windows release, resulting in a much more compatible browsing experience. Since most commercial Web developers code their pages for the best rendering results on the most popular platform - currently the Windows release of Internet Explorer, by a wide margin - some critical pages will display correctly in no other browser.

MacFixIt reader Jack writes:

"Internet Explorer 5.2.3 didn't fix any of my problems with accessing certain enterprise sites. I still can't properly access: www.rmlsweb.com/Login.asp or www.realestateadmin.com/admin/. The only way I can use these sites is with a PC and Windows Internet Explorer."

Several sites, including the rmlsweb.com outlet mentioned above, display the message "a script error occurred. Some scripts on the affected page may not work properly" when accessed from the Mac version of Internet Explorer and in other browsers.

The RMLS site also states "If you are not using Internet Explorer 5.0 or better you will not be able to utilize the NEW RMLSweb."

Note that through the use of utilities like Safari Enhancer , and setting the User Agent as Windows MSIE 6.0, users have been able to successfully access portions of the above sites.

Resources

here

Privoxy

Authoxy

Safari NoBrush

http://www.versiontracker....

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