Image files in google drive won't display in Safari for one user

It seems that you exhausted all the usual troubleshooting steps, and I can think of nothing else other than to methodically isolate the problem to one or more Safari-related files in that User Library.

The procedure is along the lines of this old Discussion, which described a more serious problem as its title describes: *Unable to open safari at all* Review it at your option so that you may familiarize yourself with what may be required.

The following is an excerpt from that lengthy exchange, which was ultimately resolved. It will be time-consuming and tedious, but success is nearly assured. If I had anything better to suggest I would.

Back up all data as a matter of course (should go without saying).

Quit the Safari app if it is open.

Then, navigate to your User Library by typing the following in the Finder's Go menu > Go To Folder... field.

~/Library

Make it look like this

... and click the Go button. A Finder window will open. The files it contains are some of your User Account - specific files that could be contributing to the problem. Other User Accounts have their own User Libraries.

From there, your task is to find certain Safari-related files and drag them out of their locations and onto the Desktop. Each time you do that, open Safari again and determine if the problem is fixed or not. Quit Safari if it is not fixed, and proceed to the next step. Stop when it's fixed.

Open the folder named Saved Application State. Drag the file named com.apple.Safari.savedState onto the Desktop. Then, back out of that folder (use the "back button") which returns you to ~/Library or just repeat the same Go To Folder actions you did before.

Repeating the same general instructions, open the ~/Library/Preferences/ folder. In it, find com.apple.Safari.plist and drag it onto the Desktop.

That is as far as I'll go for the time being, but you should have the general idea. The worst thing that could happen is that you will be logged out of websites and / or have to provide login information or whatever other website preferences may have been affected, in which case you could always drag those files back into their original locations. Let me know if anything helps.

Another idea, along the lines of my previous reply.

Consider copying the entire ~/Library/Safari folder from the test account to Shared, and then drag it into the affected User Account's Library. Be sure to drag or copy the affected user's ~/Library/Safari folder to the Desktop or somewhere else first so that you can easily undo that action.

That may shortcut the aforementioned tedious procedure. Be advised however I have not attempted to do that myself so be sure to follow all appropriate precautions (backups, etc).

I would not advise anyone to do that unless they appeared to be sufficiently experienced, but you seem to be.

... The only thing I've done in the user Library folder so far is to remove the existing Safari preferences (plist) file just due to that having fixed a number of unrelated Safari anomalies in the past.

That would have been grabbing some low-hanging fruit, and I wouldn't expect it to have had any effect on that particular problem. It will be one of the many others in ~/Library/Safari and there are dozens of them. You can pick through some of the mort likely candidates; sometimes you get lucky.

Yikes. That sounds like quite the nightmare.

It's anyone's guess what might have happened. Of courser the nuclear option you chose will always work, but it should not have been necessary. Nor should anything have resulted in even more problems like the KP.

Everything you did points to some other underlying cause that we may never know, but there is only so much time your or anyone can be expected to devote to solving problems such as this. I prefer a more methodical approach, when I have the time, which isn't always the case.

I am beginning to suspect the problem lies with Google, in the way their Google Drive product appears to be working on that Mac. If you isolate the problem strictly to it, then you found the culprit.

Thanks for the update. The nuke-and-pave approach always works, though I'm sure you would prefer to know what the underlying cause was so that it doesn't happen again.