macOS Safari Page Zoom Resets to "Actual Size" automatically

[triptolemus]

Not sure how to explain or troubleshoot this, so here's a quick clip. When page zooming (Cmd + or Cmd -), the zoom level resets on its own to default after a couple of seconds.

This is Safari 16.3

I've turned off all extensions (1Blocker and VaultWarden); no help. Rebooted... nada. Google-fu turns up nothing. The problem is not present in other browsers, just Safari.

For good while now Safari has remembered zoom settings for pages previously visited. Those still work fine and load with the saved zoom setting and do not reset. It's only pages that haven't been "previously zoomed" that exhibit this problem.

Anyone else seeing this behavior?

 

[Lifeisabeach]

I have not seen it myself, but there have been posts about it. There's a preference you can turn off, but I suspect there's a preference file that is corrupt and deleting that should fix the root cause of the problem. Here's one thread I participated in with some thoughts and troubleshooting ideas:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/command-and-command-no-longer-work-on-docs-and-web-pages.2379203/

Short answer: Open Safari's settings; switch to the Websites tab on top; then uncheck the box labeled "Share across devices". If this fixes your problem, then we are on to something, but this is a bandaid because this shouldn't be necessary. I suspect there is a corrupt preference file. If you want these zoom and other preferences to sync, try deleting this preference file: ~/Library/Containers/Safari/Data/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Safari.plist

 

[triptolemus]

I have not seen it myself, but there have been posts about it. There's a preference you can turn off, but I suspect there's a preference file that is corrupt and deleting that should fix the root cause of the problem. Here's one thread I participated in with some thoughts and troubleshooting ideas:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/command-and-command-no-longer-work-on-docs-and-web-pages.2379203/

Short answer: Open Safari's settings; switch to the Websites tab on top; then uncheck the box labeled "Share across devices". If this fixes your problem, then we are on to something, but this is a bandaid because this shouldn't be necessary. I suspect there is a corrupt preference file. If you want these zoom and other preferences to sync, try deleting this preference file: ~/Library/Containers/Safari/Data/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Safari.plist

Wow, thank you very much! Unchecking and re-checking the "Share across devices" setting remedied the problem.

That is a little gremlin of a bug that will likely take years for Apple to fix.

Appreciate you!

 

[Lifeisabeach]

Hey, good to know that worked, and it's really great that re-checking the preference didn't revert it back to the faulty behavior. That's a lot simpler than rooting out the preference file!

 

[triptolemus]

Hey, good to know that worked, and it's really great that re-checking the preference didn't revert it back to the faulty behavior. That's a lot simpler than rooting out the preference file!

Yeah, well, no actually. It turns out the "fix" was temporary. The behavior returned about 30 or 40 minutes later. Unchecking the setting and leaving it unchecked has worked so far.

Can you confirm the correct plist file? It's 404 on my system...

 

[Lifeisabeach]

Yeah, well, no actually. It turns out the "fix" was temporary. The behavior returned about 30 or 40 minutes later. Unchecking the setting and leaving it unchecked has worked so far.

Can you confirm the correct plist file? It's 404 on my system...

View attachment 2159079

Yes, that would be the correct file. That command you used lists folder contents. You are including the file name in Terminal when you should just be using the path to it. If you want to do it in Finder, switch to that; click on Go in the menu, then Go to Folder, and paste the path: ~/Library/Containers/Safari/Data/Library/Preferences

From here, you can just drag com.apple.Safari.plist to the Desktop; re-open Safari; and experiment a bit to see if that cured the problem. This will reset other preferences also. If it didn't do the trick, then you can move that file back in place to put all your prefs back to how they were.

 

[triptolemus]

~/Library/Containers/Safari/Data/Library/Preferences

ls will list a file if it's there, fyi:

 

[Lifeisabeach]

Huh. My bad... I thought it was for folders-only and was an easy explanation for why you couldn't find it. But that's odd that the folder doesn't even exist. Hmmm... what version of macOS are you on?

So here's what to do. Use something like Find Any File or EasyFind and search your drive for com.apple.Safari.plist. There's one in the usual ~/Library/Preferences folder, but when I was experimenting with this for that last conversation, the modified date of that one never changed when I toggled that preference inside Safari off and on. The other one that I was pointing out did. So... let's see what one of those apps can turn up; then inspect the modified date. Once located, toggle the preference off and on, then re-check the search results. The one that changed to the current time should be the culprit.

This may not be the correct file, but it's a start. If deleting this so Safari can redo it from scratch doesn't fix the problem permanently, then there may be other files to try and root out using this same trick to inspect the modified time.