Home Forums Networks & Cross-Platform Networking Weird Safari doings

This has begun happening in the past few days...

All of a sudden, my front Safari page changes to this, while my original page with a bunch of open tabs remains open behind it. I can't figure out how to revert the front page, and if I close it, next time I quit and relaunch Safari, my previously open tabs are gone despite my pref to reopen all windows from my last session.

Has anybody got any idea about what's going on?

Which version of Safari are you currently running? I did a long look through Preferences for version 16.5.2 and didn't see anything that looked like it would relate.....do you have any third party extensions or add-ons running?

Latest Safari: Version 16.6 (18615.3.12.11.2)

I'm running Roadblock and Wipr extensions, but versions that long precede my issue.

If I inadvertently click on my Favorites "dots" I can click back, which I can't do when the weirdness occurs.

I looked through my current Safari prefs and didn't see anything pertinent or new.

Did your Homepage setting in Safari get changed? Do you want Settings>General>New windows open with>Tabs for Favorites; all that along with Settings>General>Safari opens with A New Window.

These are my settings. They're the same as they've been since time immemorial.

Note that my issue doesn't occur when I launch Safari. It happens out of the blue while I'm in the middle of a session.

For lack of a better suggestion, have you tried emptying the Safari cache?

Well, I ran TinkerTool System, but I'll have no way of knowing if it accomplished anything unless it happens again. It's only happened two or three times, and it's not happening again won't prove anything. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

⇧⌘N (the Safari shortcut for New Private Browsing Window) produces what appears to be the results you are getting. Knowing your penchant for keyboard shortcuts could you be hitting this accidentally, overloaded the shortcut, or have a sticky key on your keyboard? (If it were me, I would most likely have "fat-fingered" it. )

(I wish I could claim credit for knowing that rather esoteric shortcut, but I found it using Softonic's freeware app CheatSheet for Mac.)

Nope, that's not it.

When it happens I see the window in the screenshot in my OP.

Customize the start page in Safari on Mac refers to a Bookmarks -> Show Start Page command. Lacking such a menu item in my outdated version of Safari, I don't know if there's a keyboard equivalent, but if so, perhaps you're inadvertently invoking it.

Thanks for the thought, but "Show Start Page" is a menu only option...no key command.

And further, if I invoke it from the menu, I can go back to where I was, which I can't do when the anomalous page turns up.

It happened again, but this time I got a helpful screenshot.

Also curious is where that Top Site came from. It's WQXR FM radio, which I haven't accessed in Safari in, I'm pretty sure, years. I visit that site in Firefox.

Finally figured it out!

It doesn't happen on all Safari pages, but it happens on some when I hit ⌘ ⇧ ↓ . Hitting ⌘ ⇧ ↑ reverses it.

The closest I can come to discerning a common element on pages on which it happens is pages with text and images, such as Amazon product pages.

Now that I've finally got a handle on it, I can "research" it.

i may be mistaken, but as far as I can tell from the information provided it appears what you are seeing is normal in Safari 17.1 in Sonoma.

Given:

• Your screenshot implies you may have multiple Safari Windows open on your desktop
• ⌘⇧↓ is the Safari 17.1 shortcut for go to the next tab group and ⌘⇧↑ is the Safari 17.1 shortcut for go to the previous tab group

Try opening the Safari Sidebar (⇧⌘L) so you can see where the commands are taking you and see if that doesn't give you a clearer picture of what is going on.

1. Sonoma 14.0 has got Safari 17.0.
2. This began happening in Ventura.
3. I can't find those key commands in either my menu bar or Prefs > Tabs. Found them under "Window."
4. I can't find any set of circumstances in which those key commands work religiously.

I guess Safari 17.0 is just plain bug infested: For instance, ⌘ ⇧ N doesn't work until I first invoke the command once from my menu bar.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

But at least I now know what's happening and how to recover.

Yes, but I am running Sonoma 14.1


Pay close attention to where the cursor is when you press the key. I won’t swear ro it, but I think that makes a difference



I am tempted to ask “Have you tried Arc?” , but I won’t.

I am inclined to think there is something else going on here. I just upgraded to Sonoma and I am not experiencing any of the problems that you mention in your posts in another forum and here. Something like the shortcut you mention here for a New Private Window works for me and presumably others (e.g., joemikeb). I would think that a bug like that, if it truly were Sonoma 14.0 related, would permeate to others, which does not seem to be the case. You don't mention what hardware you are running. Can you do a fresh installation of 14.0 or just Safari 17.0?

Sorry, Ira. My bad. (Thanks for spelling out the command and getting me looking.)

The command for New Private Window works as expected. It's the ⌘ ⌥ N command for New Window that's giving me problems. Any time I quit and relaunch Safari I've got to first invoke it from my menu bar, after which the key command works as expected.

There doesn't appear to be a freestanding Safari installer, but all considered, maybe I'll d/l and rerun the Sonoma installer.

I reran the Sonoma installer, and nothing has changed.

AT LAST SOMETHING I CAN RELIABLY REPLICATE IN SAFARI 17.1!. Add to that, if Arc 1.10.1 is open, even though Safari has focus, ⌘⌥N will open a little arc window and has no effect on Safari. Most definitely a bug in Safari and I am reporting it to Apple.

Here's another Safari 17.0 bug: I've got "shift focus to next window" hot keyed (I'm not sure of exact term, command, or where it's located.), but it doesn't work on many occasions unless I do something else first...using my "Show All Windows" hot key or clicking on my desktop and back to Safari are the two examples I'm sure of.

I can't pin down the exact circumstances. Sometimes it happens after I quit and relaunch Safari, sometimes after I hide and unhide it, sometimes I think it just times out.

I'm anxiously awaiting a safari update or two.

As i said previously, i have reported the issue, but from experience the more reports Apple receives from different users, the higher the priority it will have in getting fixed. So you might try submitting feedback as well.

Personally, i am no longer convinced this is a Safari issue per. se.. Arc is about the only app I ever use keyboard shortcuts in and I now realize I have observed analogous behavior in Arc which I attributed to Arc's early stage of development. Apple is going to have to sort out whether the problem is in Safari or macOS. Given Arc uses the Chrome browser engine which is a derivative of Webkit, the original issue could even be in Webkit or its javaScript interpreter.

You can't have reported this issue, because I just posted it.

I have posted feedback, though.

As I said earlier, I'm anxiously awaiting a Safari update or two.

Pardon me for conflating two different issues you have raised. Actually, I suspect there is one issue with multiple symptoms. The issue being how and in what order actions are being taken when there are multiple definitions for the same shortcut key combination. For example a website, Safari, and the OS might all define a shortcut like ⇧⌘N to create a different new entity. theoretically the different defintions would cascade to the lowest level, but that is theory and there is opportunity for error and different actions. For example Arc on a shortcut by shortcut basis will…

1. Follow the site defintion of the action
2. Follow the browser definition of the action or
3. Both/either (press once to use the site shortcut or twice to use Arc's shortcut)

Lots of room for confusion and error, not only on the user's side of the keyboard, but also on the part of browser and site developers.

It definitely times out, and happens pretty much invariably when I either hide/unhide or quit/relaunch.