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Urgent: How to Uninstall Safari 4.0?

K

Krokodilens

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 9, 2009
3
0
The update to Safari 4.0 broke a business tool we use and depend on every day for our business, I need to uninstall it ASAP and revert back to Safari 3.2.1.

Seems Safari 4.0 installed some shared framework or something so the page we need to access won't work in Firefox, Camino or Opera either. (Maybe it never did, we only used Safari in the past)

Things we tried, deleted Safarai 4.0 app and all that says safari when you search with spotlight, copied and pasted over Safari 3.2.1 from another computer. Safari works but the page we need don't.

I have the Safari "Safari321Leopard.dmg" on my desktop but it refuse to install since it says a never version is present. How do I remove all traces of Safari 4.0 so I can reinstall it? Thankful for any help, and please keep your ramblings about how good safari 4 is and discussions about other browsers to another topic.

All I want to know is how do you install Safari 4 and install Safari 3.2.1
thanks.
 
I know if I suggest Time Machine, you'll reach through the display and punch me. So I won't... ;)

I do have something useful, though.

Sometimes, a site looks at the specific name and version of the browser, without knowing, for instance, that Safari 4 is a newer version of 3. Changing the User Agent can sometime fool the site into thinking it has the correct browser and load properly (because usually, the there isn't any technical reason it shouldn't load - except for failing the browser type/version test).

In Safari > Preferences, select Advanced. Check the box "Show Develop menu in menu bar".

You should now have a "Develop" menu to the left of "Window".

Try loading your site, then reload it using Safari 3 as the user agent: Develop > User Agent > Safari 3.2.3 Mac.

Hopefully, that'll help until the site can update their code to recognize Safari 4. Since "4" has been around for quite a long time now as a beta, many sites have made the change, but with a major revision, it could take some time to hit them all.

Or, I could be wrong and there really is a rendering issue - then we're back to trying to revert to 3.
 
Hehe... we use Personal backup X, as most enterprise don't provide the space for a full system and history archive.

tried your suggestion about user agent, was a no go!

5 out of 20 machines don't work properly here now.
Will give the app cleaner a go and see how that works.
 
AppCleaner is a no go.

Seems it only remove the actual pref file and application.
Not all the frameworks and stuff Safari 4 installed.

Looking at the package installer it's hundres of files.
 
Krokodilens said:
AppCleaner is a no go.

Seems it only remove the actual pref file and application.
Not all the frameworks and stuff Safari 4 installed.

Looking at the package installer it's hundres of files.
Click to expand...

I think the problem is Safari 4 also updated Webkit, which is used by just about anything doing HTML, etc. rendering. IF you have a full system backup, you could try copying the Webkit and related frameworks from another machine, but that could end up being a "bad thing"... Looking in the System/Library/Frameworks folder, these three were modified yesterday: "Webkit.framework", "PubSub.framework", and JavaScriptCore.framework".

Without a backup of your System/Library/ you're treading on dangerous waters. If I missed something, you could end up with inconsistencies which could make your system unstable. OS-X is pretty good about keeping everything "together", but still - I'm just sayin'.

I'll keep looking at this, though. Last night I looked into the scripts for the beta uninstaller (using Pacifist), but I was too sleepy to make sense of it. I might take another look now that the sun is up... ;)
 
Krokodilens said:
Seems Safari 4.0 installed some shared framework or something so the page we need to access won't work in Firefox, Camino or Opera either. (Maybe it never did, we only used Safari in the past)

All I want to know is how do you install Safari 4 and install Safari 3.2.1
thanks.
Click to expand...

You're really going to have to explain this better. There is no way that Safari 4.0 is blocking your web app from working in Firefox or Opera, they use their own rendering engines.

If it won't work in any browser besides Safari 3, then it sounds as if it was badly written and you should contact the maker.

As someone else said, Safari isn't just an App, it's a whole set of libraries including Webkit.

Without a proper backup, you'll probably have to reinstall Leopard and then install all the updates making sure to avoid Safari 4.0

You aren't very specific about how it broke the app, is it rendering problems? Is it Java app? will the app run at all?

It may just be a small bug that will get fixed soon, you should send a bug report to Apple about it.
 
Similar Problem here

I foolishly upgraded my iMac to Safari 4. Then my QuickBooks Online would not work. I reverted to Safari 3.2.3 using Time Machine (I'm new to Time Machine, so not sure why that was such a bad idea).

Safari is working and I can get into QuickBooks Online. But the reports will not run. None of them. I tried the QBO site on my PC and the reports are working fine.

So I was thinking about AppCleaner, but that doesn't sound promising.

Why would I want to try reinstalling Leopard? That seems fairly drastic.

Intuit's site says they are working on making QBO work with Safari 4. But I hope I have screwed anything else up.
 
pogrady24 said:
I foolishly upgraded my iMac to Safari 4. Then my QuickBooks Online would not work. I reverted to Safari 3.2.3 using Time Machine (I'm new to Time Machine, so not sure why that was such a bad idea).

Safari is working and I can get into QuickBooks Online. But the reports will not run. None of them. I tried the QBO site on my PC and the reports are working fine.

So I was thinking about AppCleaner, but that doesn't sound promising.

Why would I want to try reinstalling Leopard? That seems fairly drastic.

Intuit's site says they are working on making QBO work with Safari 4. But I hope I have screwed anything else up.
Click to expand...

Reverting to a time machine backup will work fine, but the OP doesn't use time machine.

Things like app zapper and appcleaner aren't really meant for removing System level applications, since the libraries involved are depended on by the OS.

THe OP could wait a few days to see if Apple releases a downgrader, unlikely unless there is a lot of outrage.

It may be possible to alter the safari 3 installer to allow downgrade, but It would be tricky since I don't think the point upgrade packages include all the libraries, just the ones needing upgrade.
 
Again, this is experimental and you don't have a backup of your system-

You can try and tell the package manager Safari 4 is no longer installed. That might allow the Safari 3 installer to do an install and overwrite the Safari 4 files, including frameworks, etc.

This is what the Safari 4 beta uninstaller does, after moving the Safari 3 backup to its original locations (unfortunately, there's no such thing for the final release).

Code: 
pkgutil --volume / --forget com.apple.pkg.Safari40Leo

I also looked at the installer script. I'm by far no expert in knowing the in's and out's of package installation, but it looks like there are probably 8 more "bundles" installed in /system/library. You might get away with manually copying them [from your other machine], but I wouldn't recommend it because the package manager ("Software Update") won't know you did it. That would, again, be "a bad thing".

Barring a real script to revert back to Safari 3, the above could end up being a safer, though kludgy way, to "fake out" the Safari 3 installer.

If there are any experienced developers following this, please chime in. I'm working off experience in "another" OS ;) and :(
 
Unfortunately, I'm not sure how well that will work.

If you look in /Library/Receipts/boms/ and compare the com.apple.pkg.Safari40Leo.bom and the com.apple.pkg.Safari321Leo.bom with Pacifist, you'll see that the safari 4 installer alters more files than the safari 3 update did.

Things like WebApplicationCore.bundle, Safari.framework and Symbolication.framework. That means the Safari 3 update left the files as they were from previous updates, but safari 4 replaced them. Reinstalling the safari 3 update won't fix those files.

It may partially work, I'm not sure what it changed in those files or how important they are, but I think it would lead to serious instability.

I still think your best bet is to backup your data and reinstall.

gr8tfly said:
Again, this is experimental and you don't have a backup of your system-

You can try and tell the package manager Safari 4 is no longer installed. That might allow the Safari 3 installer to do an install and overwrite the Safari 4 files, including frameworks, etc.

This is what the Safari 4 beta uninstaller does, after moving the Safari 3 backup to its original locations (unfortunately, there's no such thing for the final release).

Code: 
pkgutil --volume / --forget com.apple.pkg.Safari40Leo

I also looked at the installer script. I'm by far no expert in knowing the in's and out's of package installation, but it looks like there are probably 8 more "bundles" installed in /system/library. You might get away with manually copying them [from your other machine], but I wouldn't recommend it because the package manager ("Software Update") won't know you did it. That would, again, be "a bad thing".

Barring a real script to revert back to Safari 3, the above could end up being a safer, though kludgy way, to "fake out" the Safari 3 installer.

If there are any experienced developers following this, please chime in. I'm working off experience in "another" OS ;) and :(
Click to expand...
 
ihabime said:
Unfortunately, I'm not sure how well that will work.

If you look in /Library/Receipts/boms/ and compare the com.apple.pkg.Safari40Leo.bom and the com.apple.pkg.Safari321Leo.bom with Pacifist, you'll see that the safari 4 installer alters more files than the safari 3 update did.

Things like WebApplicationCore.bundle, Safari.framework and Symbolication.framework. That means the Safari 3 update left the files as they were from previous updates, but safari 4 replaced them. Reinstalling the safari 3 update won't fix those files.

It may partially work, I'm not sure what it changed in those files or how important they are, but I think it would lead to serious instability.

I still think your best bet is to backup your data and reinstall.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the feedback. I agree. Without the originals, there would be a mix of the two versions - very bad on the "good/bad" scale. At this point, the most stable solution would be an Archive and Install, then apply the appropriate updates through Software Update - taking care to disable the Safari 4 update. The OP should then be able to manually install the Safari 3.2.1 update.
 
Isn't there an uninstaller which came with the Safari 4 dmg? I know there is one for the beta of Safari 4. Maybe try that?
 
darkcurse said:
Isn't there an uninstaller which came with the Safari 4 dmg? I know there is one for the beta of Safari 4. Maybe try that?
Click to expand...

No there is not an uninstaller included in the dmg. That is why this thread exists, and many others like it with users wanting to downgrade somehow.
 
darkcurse said:
There's something to try.
Click to expand...

It won't work, because it won't find the backup files (there's a hidden archive of 3, plus other files containing the previous configuration).

Good thought, though.

edit: to clarify - the uninstaller script will fail tests to see if those files are there, and just exit
 
The beta uninstaller will only work for a machine upgraded with the beta installer, instead of replacing the files and libraries it moves them to a backup directory. The beta uninstaller just moves those files back. On a full safari 4 install there is no backup created so the files are lost.

I suppose it would be possible if you have a clean machine with safari 3 on it.
Run the beta installer, find out where it stores the backup files then copy that directory over to the Mac you want to restore safari 3 on.

The Beta uninstaller probably won't run on a machine with a full safari 4 though, so you have to replace the safari 4 files with the safari 3 files by hand. You'd want to examine the safari 4 bom file from your receipts directory to see exactly where each file goes, plus make sure the permissions are set correctly on each file.

Of course, a well motivated individual with a good knowledge of the terminal and a copy of the beta installer backup folder could probably hack a script together to automate the process.

Then again, archive and install and you're done in less than an hour.
 
Doh! beaten to the punch by gr8tfly and bobzune.

Nice find bobzune, I DLed the standalone safari 3 and it seems to be working fine using the older version of webkit.

I'm not sure if it replaces the javascript engine though, so we'll have to wait and see if it fixes the OPs problem.
 
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