Safari Homepage

W

Willtc123

Registered
Hi there. I have had this 'issue' for quite a while now and have tried quite a lot in regards to solving it.

Now for some reason I cannot change my homepage. I change it in the Safari preferences but as soon as Safari is restarted my homepage goes back to the previous. Now what is interesting is the fact that my homepage which is un-changeable is actually my ISPs website 'DartyBox'.

The only possible reason why I believe my homepage is this, is I do remember a long time ago when I first moved to this apartment sticking in the disk that was issued with the ADSL router, the 'DartyBox'.

So to cut a long story short, can someone please give me something to do so that I can go back to having a website of my choice as my homepage.

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Merry Christmas,

Will.
 
The Safari prefs file could be corrupted somehow. Find that file in your user folder/Library/Preferences folder. It will be named com.apple.safari.plist
Quit Safari, then try deleting that file, and relaunch Safari. Try changing your home page setting, and see if that sticks now.
 
Try just going to the website that you want your homepage to be, then open safari preferences and select "set to current page".
 
Funny thing about that is, when I change it, if I simply close all safari windows and open it again it will open the homepage I want...but if I actually QUIT Safari, once I reopen it, it goes straight back to the undesired website.
 
Your ISP software (Dartybox) may have changed some of the network settings in your system, which automatically changes your home page. If you change your DNS settings to one of the public setups, you may bypass that, and also, may end up with faster browsing.
Follow the instructions to replace your DNS settings here: http://code.google.com/speed/public-dns/docs/using.html
or here for OpenDNS (another public DNS site): https://www.opendns.com/start?computer
You can actually use the same instructions for either set of DNS numbers.

Are you in France? Several sites mentioned that most french ISPs try to control your browsing by keeping a tight control of the settings in your modem. You may have success with changing the DNS settings in your Mac, or you may have to change the settings in the modem, too, if that's possible.
Something else to try - Start up Safari, then go to Safari menu/Preferences/Security, and click Show Cookies. In the search box, type dartybox, and delete any entries for that. If there is no obvious entries for that, you can also delete ALL entries. You will appear to be a new user at some sites as new cookies are created, but that might be a good thing... :)
Let me know if the Google DNS, or OpenDNS settings help you at all...
 
Well thanks so far for dedicating this time towards helping me. But at the moment haven't quite fixed the issue. So I followed the instructions and now have the DNS settings: When I go to Network in System Preferences and go on the Advanced option for my Airport I have under DNS: 8.8.8.8, 8.8.4.4, 208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220 in that list. I also did as you said and cleared out the cookies but simply no luck.

You are right in thinking I am in France, but I am quite sure its nothing to do with that as I have my Macbook Pro + other computers in the house running fine on the network and they can all change their homepage with ease :(
 
Did you restart after changing those DNS setttings?
I provided links to both of the DNS sites, but try removing one set, so your settings are only for one set. I don't think it will make a difference.

You may also have a caching issue with Safari on just the one computer.
Quit Safari, and delete that same com.apple.safari.plist file again.
Go into your user Library, then to the Caches folder, and delete the com.apple.Safari folder that you will find there.
Back into your Library, then open the Safari folder, and delete everything, except bookmarks, and Form Values.
Open Safari, then select Empty Cache... from the Safari menu. Do not change your home page (yet). Quit Safari. Restart your Mac. Open Safari. Change your home page. Do that manually by entering the page address in Safari's preferences. After entering the new address, exit the prefences, and Quit Safari. Now - open Safari.
What do you get this time? If you STILL get the Dartybox (Dirty Box?) web page, and you want to go all the way - click the Safari menu, and choose Reset Safari...
That will remove all Safari settings, and take you to pure defaults. You would also lose passwords to sites, so you if you really want control back, this is what you can do.
 
Well. I've tried everything you have thought of and NOTHING. I even did the 'Reset Safari' with every box ticked, so that it reset everything but still got the bloody Dirty Box site.

The only thing I can think of which I thought about a while back trying to mess about with is that when I go to Bookmarks, Show All Bookmarks and I go down to Bonjour under Collections I get About Bonjour and DartyBOX Configurator..now what is that?? I had a thought that, that might have something to do with it.

Let me know what you think.

Will.
 
I don't know about that. If it allows you to run that configurator, maybe you can change those settings yourself with that.
I'm guessing that your other Macs don't have that Dartybox item in their bookmarks either ?
 
The other computers do not have that item in their bookmarks no. And there is no way of deleting it. I just feel that it has to have something to do with the time I stuck that DartyBox disk in my computer because that disk hasn't been put in any other computer. Perhaps this issue has something to do with the system preferences in more depth as we have completely removed all Safari preferences and all, I dont think it can be anything to do with Safari..

Will.
 
You might want to go into system preferences/accounts and check your login items. There might be a service associated with DartyBox that is launching at startup causing the issue? May want to try a safe boot as well by turning on the computer and holding the shift key until you reach a login window. Open Safari while safe booted and see if the issue reoccurs. Then just reboot normally and see how it acts. Some third party utility like Onyx may be helpful in clearing hidden user and system caches.
 
Right. Well I went into System Preferences, Accounts and checked my login items and there wasn't any service associated with the DartyBox launching at startup..simply: iTunesHelper (which was hidden), Transmission, GetBackupAgent and SpeechSynthesisServer. I then did a safe boot as you suggested and the DartyBox website was still my homepage on Safari, and then booted again normally and the only change now is that my wallpaper was changed back to the default Snow Leopard 'star type photo'. I actually do have Onyx installed as you mentioned and use it every now and then to clear..not 100% if it is clearing hidden user and system caches though like you said.

I know this sounded like a rather simple issue at the beginning but it is proving to be quite the b***h.

Will.
 
If you are connected to a router you may want to reset the router. I know back when I used to work for an ISP, sometimes when people wouldn't pay their bill or if the modem wasn't provisioned they would see a splash screen whenever trying to access the internet. This was supposed to be remedied by provisioning the modem or removing the pending disconnect status after they paid their bill. But sometimes the splash screen would get stuck in the router until the router was reset. Sometimes the splash screens would get so hung up in the router that the router would require a hard reboot back to factory defaults.
 
Hello Will,

I am wondering that do you fix the problem yet?
Now, I am suffering from "DartyBox", and I have no idea what can be done.
Please let me know if you find the solution. Thanks.

Yi
 
No Yi, I never did fix it. I just have been putting up with it for damn ages. It's such a f**king pain. The other day I even uninstalled Safari, and once I'd installed it again, DartyBox was my homepage yet again.

I really have no idea what I can do fix this.

Will.
 
Hi Will,

Here is another forum for this problem.
But it doesn't work for me, hope you have better luck.

Now, I totally give up using Safari, I switched to Chrome, and no this annoying problem. :p

Good luck,
Yi
 
Hi Will,

Good news! Finally I found a solution.
Here it is :
1) Go to Finder -> User -> Library -> Preferences
2) Search : Safari and click "Search : Preferences"
3) There is a file which name is com.apple.Safari.D1241DE1344444 (with long words, everybody has different name )
4) Double click on this and edit : Delete the "homepage" item.

Hope this works for you, enjoy the new Safari.

Cheers,
Yi
 
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