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Wither Safari?

S

spellflower

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jun 7, 2005
236
16
I let my roomate use my mac to surf the web, and to enable him to keep his preferences separate from mine, he has his own user account. Today when he went to use Safari it displayed a question mark and wouldn't work. He says the wireless signal was strong, so I know that's not it. When he didn't have any luck clicking on the icon on the dock, he tried dragging it to the desktop, which, of course, made it go up in smoke (forgot to mention, I run tiger). Now Safari is absent with out a trace on his account, though it's working fine for mine. I thought dragging an icon from the dock merely removed the applicaiton from the dock, not the account! How do I get it back? Is it possible to do this without a reinstall of OSX? :confused:
 
Try looking in the applications folder. When Finder is in the menu bar, go to Go->Applications. Safari should still be there and you can drag it from there back to the dock.
 
I tried that, but Safari is MIA. I searched for it in spotlight, and all I found were peripheral files. One of these was the install file, so I tried reinstalling, but it said it couldn't reinstall and to try again later 2x. WTF?
 
Hi,
I don't think this will help you, but the same thing happened to me with msn messenger today.. it got the question mark even though I was connected to the internet, and I had to restart and download it again to get it to work. I couldn;t find the program file anywhere.
 
Daveway said:
Safari is an app like any other. So redownload it.
Click to expand...

How can I redownload it if I have no web browser on that part of the computer?

Is there any way to import it from my user account to his? What about starting a totally new user account- I hadn't thought of that, maybe I'll give it a try. He doesn't use anything but Safari, so he won't lose any preferences....
 
ElectricSheep said:
The question mark over the icon in the dock means the item can't be found. Sounds like Safari got either moved or deleted.
Click to expand...

It must still be present on the system somewhere, since it's working from the "main" account.
 
Okay, I created a brand new user account. It looked just like the first one: no Safari, just Safari folders, including the install "cardboard box" icon, so I tried again to install Safari, but all I got was "There was an error. Please try agian." I'm sure there's a simple solution, but I'm too new to know what it is. Come on guys, I'm counting on you! Otherwise I'm gonna have to sit on hold for 15 mins to talk to apple!
 
Duff-Man says....as Nermal says, if it works on the "main" account then it *is* still on the system somewhere...two things to try
- repair permissions
- look in the Applications folder inside the Home folder of the account it is working on (each user has an Apps folder as well as the "global" one) - I would have no way of explaining how or why it got there, but it may explain why it is only visible to one user.
...perhaps longshots but try it out.....oh yeah!
 
Case closed.

Very interesting... I tried your suggestion, DM, but there was no "Applications" folder inside the home folder, just library, music, documents, etc. I messed around with it a bit, and it turns out that it wasn't working in other accounts because I had dragged it to the desktop. See, I love the invisible dock feature with the enlarged selections, but I got sick of having to roll over it and find Safari every time I wanted to use it. Plus, sometimes Safari would disappear from the dock, and I don't know why. Then I'd have to use spotlight to locate it and open it. To avoid this I decided to keep it on the desktop like in the days of yore. I now know that this takes it out of general circulation, effectively removing it from the other accounts. Thanks for everyone's help. Good luck finding MSN, Smoochy; it's probably there somewhere.
 
I had a problem with Safari this morning myself. It would bounce in the Dock, but wouldn't launch. I tried several time. The fix was a reboot, no works fine.
 
This or this should be stand alone Safari downloads. After you redownload Safari- upgrade as usual.

I can't test the downloads, as I have Safari working. If not, check your OSX install disk or your restore disk.
 
So I've solved The Case of the Absent Application, but I still don't know why Safari keeps disappearing from my dock. I use it more than any other applicaiton, yet I keep needing spotlight to open it! Suggestions?
 
Move it off your desktop and back into your Applications folder. Then create an alias and put that alias on your desktop.
 
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