Apple has recently released the first public version of Safari 5 with some cool new features, which make it very tempting to download and install. But I would like to recommend caution before you click on that download link.
We are aware of several problems with Safari 5 -- some of which can break critical features in Sente. And it is likely that there are more problems yet to be discovered.
The biggest problem we have seen is that installing Safari 5 on systems running OS X 10.5 will simply break web browsing in Sente. Attempts to load many web pages in Sente's embedded browser will cause Sente to crash. It does not matter whether you are actually running Safari 5, just whether you have installed it or not. There is no approved method for uninstalling Safari 5, so you will be stuck until you either upgrade to OS X 10.6 or Apple fixes the bug. We are not aware of anything we can do to fix this problem.
The problem is that installing Safari 5 is not like installing a new version of Firefox or any other browser. Installing a new version of Safari changes OS X's internals for web access, the very code that Sente and many other applications depend on.
I have some confidence that Apple will address the problems with Safari 5 quickly, but it seems that their public debates with Adobe may have lead them to rush this out the door without as much testing as it deserves, given how critical Safari and WebKit are to real world users.
I am sure that many of you will have found this post only after installing Safari 5 and experiencing problems. The best that I can offer for the problems that we are aware of is to consider upgrading to the most recent version of OS X. Even if this does not solve the problem, it makes it far more likely that you will see a quick fix from Apple.
Michael
There is a way to get Safari 4.0 back. It takes a couple of hours of your leisure time, but I have found it worth it.
Put your Leopard install disc in. Click and hit restart when it comes up. [This should work with all systems but I only tried Leopard.]
Install using "Archive and Install."
When the new system is installed, update it with Software Update. Safari 5 will not be included. If you want/need update your Safari 4 to the most recent using Apple's download page.
That's it. Sente will work again in its web-related functions.
One user reported success with the approach described here:
http://appletoolbox.com/2010/06/downgrade-from-safari-5-0-to-safari-4-0-5/
We tried this here and it appeared to work, but we obviously cannot guarantee that it will work for you.
Michael
It appears the the latest release has solved the main problem I had after upgrading. When I dragged a PDF to Sente, and it did the lookup to PubMed, Google Scholar, etc., it would fail on accepting the entry. The update to 5.0.1 fixed this behavior. Hopefully it'll fix other browsing problems too...
http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1070
I was never tempted to upgrade to snow leopard. Now I hope after paying the $29, I can use Sente again.
Does anyone know if this is "fixed" in the latest builds of Safari (5.0.2)?
I echo Nathan's request: any update on this issue?
No, no update. We do not know whether the latest update to Safari helps or not. We are not optimistic that this will be addressed by Apple.
Michael
Have you fixed Sente (as opposed to blaming Apple and/or abandoning those with 10.5)? 6.2.10, at least, gives the warning:
"This computer has Safari 5 and Leopard (OS X 10.5) installed. This
combination causes crashes when using internet-based features of Sente. You
must upgrade to Snow Leopard (OS X 10.6) or return to Safari 4 to use
Targeted Browsing or Quick Add."
Of course there is another option (Using Endnote or some other software). I realize Endnote isn't the best at supporting users, I had hoped less popular software vendors would 'try harder', to coin a phrase.
Dr.H
We have admitted that we do not know how to fix this problem. The problem happens deep inside the web framework code from Apple, only in this particular combination of OS and webkit versions. As far as we have been able to understand this, there is nothing we can do to fix the problem, short of removing the features that trigger the symptom.
But perhaps you have experience with this sort of problem and can offer us some insight about how the problem could be solved? If so, we would certainly love to hear your thoughts. In the absence of new insights, we are at a dead end.
Michael
Michael wrote:
>In the absence of new insights, we are at a dead end.
To avoid giving you old insights, I'll need to know what ground has already been trod on. And I will need the source where you think the problem is (to start with). Or perhaps, I will need the source where it used to work but breaks with the changes in WebKit.
Feel free to take this offline.
Dr.H.
The problem is that, as best we can tell, the bug is in source code that we do not have (Apple's web framework). Sente's interaction with this framework is sophisticated, involving thousands of lines of code, but none implicated in the crash.
You may, of course, doubt our judgement in this area, but there are numerous well-documented cases of bugs in Apple frameworks (no surprise to anyone involved in large scale software development). For some of these, there are workarounds. For others there are no workarounds -- if you invoke the bug, the program will crash. For example, there are legal PDFs that crash PDFkit. The best a third-party developer like us can do is avoid the situations that expose the bug. This is what we are doing now.
We do not expect Apple to go back and fix this problem. We are talking about an old version of the OS with a version of webkit that only became available long after the OS started shipping. We wish the situation were otherwise, but that is how it looks to us after many, many hours of exploration.
Michael
Fair enough. I'll check again to see if there is any update or alternative for the (unrelated) program keeping us at 10.5.