We just received our 24" iMac today. This replaces a MacBook Pro running Mojave. Migration Assistant worked fine – mostly. The one thing that is odd is Safari extensions will not load for one user. Extensions are okay for the Admin account but don’t load for a standard account.
I tried the usual. Reboot, Safe Boot, clear caches using Onyx. Also tried some more esoteric suggestions such as these:
Finally, I created a new user. Safari extensions load just fine. So in the admin account and the new standard account there is no problem. Still, one standard account will not load any Safari extensions.
Are you really running 13.6.2 (and not 14.1.1) on a new M3 iMac?
Be careful with that.
Extensions might need to be deleted and re-installed to get Apple Silicon code.
It is puzzling that extensions work for the admin user! Are the extensions the same for the admin user?
It shipped with 13.6.something. It offered an upgrade to 13.6.2 or 141.1. I chose the incremental upgrade for now and will install 14 later.
Yes, the extensions are the same and located in /Applications. They were migrated from the MBP running Mojave. I think deleting and installing might be the next thing I try.
I deleted the extensions (there were only two) and then re-downloaded them from the App Store. No change in what happens, The admin account loads the extensions but the standard account does not. Also, the new account (also standard) that I added yesterday does load them.
I tried Recovery mode to re-download Ventura but the download failed with dropped connections. Will try again tomorrow.
There’s obviously something up with that user’s preferences. A re-install isn’t likely to fix them.
I’d create a new user account for that user and move everything over from whatever source you used for Migration Assistant, but don’t migrate anything in ~/Library. You’ll have to deal with some fallout but I think that’ll get you up and running faster than trying to figure out why Safari is rejecting the extensions.
I deleted both the ~/Library/Caches and ~/Library/Preferences directories (after saving a copy elsewhere). No difference–still no Safari extensions–so the problem is not with those directories.
I upgraded from macOS 13.6.2 to 14.1.1 because why not? No change on extensions.
A comment on Reddit mentioned Safari Technology Preview and how STP correctly loaded extensions while Safari did not. So I downloaded STP and extensions loaded. Restarted Safari but still no extensions.
I think it is a Safari bug that affects only a very small number of users.
Not through Migration Assistant - there’s something buried in the old profile that’s obviously driving Safari to not be able to load that you don’t want copied over. I am suggesting manually moving stuff over, avoiding the repopulation of the ~.Library folder.
Mail databases and Keychains are going to be trouble spots. Mail might be easier to deal with, however.
I set aside some time today to look into this issue again…and solved the problem!
Based on an article by Jeff Johnson (“Stop The Madness”) that specifically mentioned issues with ~/Library/Containers I simply deleted all folders in that directory containing the name Safari. Now Safari extensions load for all users on the M3 24" iMac.
Of course, I had to set up Safari again and re-install my bookmarks but that took only a few minutes.
