“A blogger has identified an apparent flaw in the Apple’s Mac OS X graphics display engine, ImageIO, that will crash the company’s Safari Web browser and other system applications, including the Finder. The flaw, posted by DrunkenBlog, crashes anything using the Mac OS X ImageIO API including Finder, Preview, and applications based on Webkit and WebCore — Apple JavaScript/HTML display engine for Safari and other applications,” MacNN reports.
Full article with more info and link to test the flaw here.
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That explains why my Safari has been going down lately. 6 times the other day, after waking from sleep.
no problems of that nature here – i wonder what triggers this behavior? at any rate, i’m sure apple will have a fix for it soon. they’re usually pretty good about that.
Yeah, I’ve noticed Safari crashing more than usual lately. Geez, I hope what he says about Apple employees isn’t true i.e., they’re not that confident about security.
Sheesh, remember OS 9 when a web page would crash the entire system? Good times…
Safari is nice to use – but it is by the far the most unstable browser I’ve used.
wandering joe: No it doesn’t…. Unless you’ve open that page everytime your login or wake it up from sleep
Safari has been crashing on me for a while now and that never happened before until 3 months ago so Ive been using Firefox and Camino since Safari won’t stay stable for me right now.
I hope this was reported to Apple if in fact it is a bug and not just posted on a blog then carried by MacNN then carried by MDN, etc., etc.
Seems everyone is really hungry for their 15 minutes of fame® not very altruistic.
Shame.
I’m force to use Firefox now, eventhough I prefers Safari.
I’ve trashed the peferences files, but it still hang, or seeing the “Ball of death”, same as the calculator and Onyx.
Well, nobody is perfect eventhough is UNIX base. But at least I don’t have to restart the whole machine…..
ANyone has any solutions or tips. Please……….
Safari has been more unstable just recently. Camino is a Great browser (10x better than FireFox for Mac), but it doesn’t offer any of the JavaScript debugging features that can easily be enabled in Safari.
Huh? Wha? A piece of software has a flaw? Christ! Call the authorities! Some one found a way to crash a PROGRAM! OS X can’t crash! NOOOOO. Apple software is invincible!
tip: Try letting your cron jobs run. Not putting your computer to sleep. UNIX likes to run all the time. Or run the cron jobs yourself.
Firefox users can use Camino, which has the Gecko engine goodness inside, but an OS X-native shell.
Oh well. I’m sure this’ll get patched soon enough. Even Apple can make mistakes.
>That explains why my Safari has been going down lately. 6 times the other day, after waking from sleep.>
Ask Elton.
tHE dUDE: This has nothing to do with cron jobs etc. read the linked articles.
The only thing that crashes Safari for me is when I try to view Windows Media (Mafia) on a website, and I have flip4mac installed. Although I suspect that has more to do with MS than Apple, because it happens to me in Firefox too.
Anyone else have that problem?
but apart from that, solid as a rock.
PMG4QS800
PB17″1.33
The only time I ever had a problem with Safari crashing on me was when I first got my quad. Nothing, not even erasing all traces of Safari from my system, and replacing them with versions from a computer running a stable Safari, solved it.
Then, I did a clean install of Tiger form the included disc, and it has not had a simgle issue since.. and that was 3 months ago now.
Safari has been 100% reliable for me otherwise. I have used it since the day it was announced, and currently run it on at least 4 different Macs I might be on on the course of a day.
The blogger sound slike an arrogant jackass to me. As far as I know, OS X does run on the same internet that Windows boxes do, without any of the security problems Windows users have to deal with daily.
Yes, Safari did crash when I clicked the link. Big deal! So I clicked on Safari and restarted it. My system kept running. I lost what? Five seconds? Apple does not comment on security flaws until they are fixed so that hackers aren’t encouraged and tipped off to exploit those flaws. They’ll fix it soon. No worries.
Loooong wait for ShortHorn
Use MacJanitor. Lots simpler
i’ve come across this kinda crash, doubt it’s the same as whats talked about here but go to amazon and make sure your not logged in, type in your email address then tab twice, crashes every time for me
The dude that authors Drunken Blog is a developer who has education, knowledge, experience and contacts throughout the developer community– otherwise his credentials are above board. He’s no troll. He is a Mac user, but is no fanboy. He sees the Macintosh for what it is– the best tool available today, but not perfect.
The truth is that Apple, in it’s breakneck development pace to mature the OS and it’s limited beta testers, has some chinks in it’s OS and associated tools. Some parts of X-Code and subsystems of the OS are still considerably less than they should be. The same is true of security, and make no mistake– this instability could be an avenue for a security exploit.
Apple’s closed nature has hurt it in some ways. The very limited number of beta testers has led to some major screw-ups with certain OS updates and security updates. If Apple were a little more open and ran a larger Beta testing pool, we would all be better served with more stable and secure software.
X-Code, while good for most developers, is still not all it should be. A recent blog over at Adobe tells us that large and complex code bases like Photoshop will not run in the X-Code developer environment. Apple blindsided MetroWerks and Code Warrior Developers with the Intel switch and forced many Apple Developers from Code Warrior into an X-Code Developer Environment that is not all it should be. The long wait for Adobe Photoshop is more Apple’s than Adobe’s fault. A little transparency by Apple with it’s commercial developers would benefit all of us.
The bug is an example of some of the holes that exist in OS X that could have been easily quashed if Apple would be a little more open in it’s Beta testing. One thing is for sure– where there is one there are bound to be more. As the Mac platform continues to grow it is going to come under a level of scrutiny way beyond what it has ever faced before and more problems like this will surface. Some of these could be holes that could be exploited. Should that happen the results will not be pretty as most Mac users are living in a Fool’s Paradise regarding security.
A respected Mac expert has shown you a serious bug that could have been caught in a proper beta test program. He doesn’t sell services or software that would benefit from pointing this out. You would be well advised to listen. There are other bugs– some known and others are to be found. Spare us all of the fanboy hype. Mac OS X is great, but far from perfect. Consider yourselves warned.
Wow – all you people having problems with Apple software and you did not bring it up until now.
Anybody have any other problems? – maybe the one´s I have are not unique and are widespread throughout the OSX world.
Drunken Blogger Shoots Straight, even if what you say about his qualifications is true, he’s still an shithead for posting the image inline rather than linking to it with a prominent warning. He’s cast himself as part of the problem, not the solution.
ALL you people with problems??? Half a handful, so what? I can’t even remember when I had a Safari crash last..at least a year ago I’d imagine. It is the most reliable browser I have ever used. I do use safariblock and usercontent.css (sorry MDN!). That may help to block troublesome rubbish that people insist on putting into adverts.
One other thing, I restart Safari every three days to make it hand memory back which it starts to hog. The system normally gets restarted once every two weeks. I don’t think that is in any way comparable to Windows..!
So Macfanboy, I don’t suggest you get excited that you have stumbled in secret life of OSX, so back to your leech infested swamp called Windows…
I haven’t had many issues with Safari. There are times that it shut’s down, but usually when I’m tasking it multiple open webpages and downloads.
My biggest complaint with OS X (particularly since switching to Tiger) is that Mail is incredibly slow at everything it does. It also tends to hang up frequently (under the “force quit” box I get “Mail not responding”). Apple has absolutely got to get mail brought up to speed.
Just my .02,
Mark