Saft Bug? Safari Won’t Keep Plug-Ins Enabled
Posted January 17th, 2006 @ 01:27pm by Erik J. Barzeski
Every time I launch Safari - whether it's after a crash or after a restart or after me quitting Safari manually - the "Enable plug-ins" option in the "Security" preferences is disabled.
I have Saft installed, but none of its settings seem to be affecting this issue. I can check the box and Safari works properly, but the next time I launch Safari it's unchecked once again.
I can save other preferences and their on/off state is preserved. The permissions are correct.
-rw------- 1 iacas admin 16573 Jan 17 13:24 com.apple.Safari.plist
So what's going on? Safari 2.0.3 (417.8) and Mac OS X 10.4.4. As I said, Saft and not much else non-standard installed. More notes will appear in the comments as I trouble-shoot this issue. I wanted to get the symptoms here first.
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Posted 17 Jan 2006 at 1:33pm #
List of /Library/Internet\ Plug-Ins:
Contents/
DRM Plugin.bundle
Flash Player.plugin
flashplayer.xpt
Flip4Mac WMV Plugin.plugin
Flip4Mac WMV Plugin.webplugin
iPhotoPhotocast.plugin
iPIXBrowserReadme.rtf
ipxBrowserPlugin/
Java Applet Plugin Enabler
Java Applet.plugin
JavaPluginCocoa.bundle
NP-PPC-Dir-Shockwave
nsIQTScriptablePlugin.xpt
QuickTime Plugin.plugin
QuickTime Plugin.webplugin
RealPlayer Plugin
RealPlayer Plugin.xpt
Effect of removing all these plugins and launching Safari: checkbox still disabled.
Effect of removing Saft? Checkbox is checked as it should be. Saft version: 8.2.3 - the latest version.
Posted 17 Jan 2006 at 1:39pm #
Visit the Saft author's site and you see this:
Erik J. Barzeski said on January 17, 2006:
I re-downloaded Saft 8.2.3. No change - plug-ins are still disabled every time after launch. I re-set the pref (by clicking it) every time.
Posted 17 Jan 2006 at 6:55pm #
I've been seeing that behavior for a while now. I don't recall what version of Saft I'm running (at work on a Windows machine at the moment) but I know I have to recheck that box every time I launch Safari. I know I'm not running the latest version of Saft, but I can't remember how many versions back I've been seeing it. I also have not upgraded to 10.4.4 or the newest Safari yet.
Posted 18 Jan 2006 at 3:55am #
It's likely you just have "Block Plugins" enabled under Safari menu -> Block Images and Plugins -> Block Plguins.
Posted 18 Jan 2006 at 8:10am #
Yes, Hao's last response has the answer. I dislike the number of things Saft puts in the "Safari" menu and I really dislike that they're given keyboard shortcuts. A submenu in the Safari menu - a menu I never use - is not a place I'm likely to look when troubleshooting. Make it a pref to turn off all "Safari" menu changes, Hao - I don't change any of them.
Posted 23 Apr 2006 at 11:33pm #
Wow, I'm glad I was able to google the answer here! Before reading this, I'd no idea that Saft added anything to the Safari menu, which I almost never peek into.
Posted 22 Jun 2006 at 8:16pm #
Thanks for blogging about this as I just discovered recently that plug-ins were turned off every time I started Safari. The Safari → Block Images and Plugins → Plugins setting was getting me as well. You are quite right that there should not be keyboard shortcuts on those settings.
Posted 07 Aug 2006 at 5:53am #
Hao to the rescue. Thanks, I couldn't figure out why this was happening either.
Posted 12 Oct 2006 at 3:29am #
This was bugging me for weeks!!! Thank you!!!
Posted 12 Dec 2006 at 7:30pm #
I just encountered this problem myself. Likely cause? apple + option + L = Downloads. With Saft installed, apple + shift + L = Block Plugins.
Posted 20 Mar 2007 at 4:12pm #
Wow! I'm also very glad you blogged about this! And I'm glad that Hao found your blog and responded, too! I love it when things are easy!
Posted 20 Sep 2007 at 9:15am #
ohh! Thanks!
Posted 27 Sep 2007 at 3:23am #
Dang it, I feel so, so silly.
I was accidently hitting the shortcut for disable plugins without even knowing it.
Posted 18 Jul 2008 at 3:36pm #
Ha! This has been plaguing me for at least a year now. I'd resigned myself to just having to reset the checkbox every time I relaunched Safari.
Like others above, I didn't even know that Saft added anything to the Safari menu. And, like everyone else, I probably accidentally hit cmd-shift-L trying to open the Downloads window at some point. I do love Saft, but it would be nice if this sort of thing was controlled in the standard Saft prefs menu. Then, of course, it wouldn't have a shortcut, but maybe that's not such a bad thing.