Can't open Safari and MacHelp

Question

hi there,
strangely, from yesterday afternoon, ive got problems with opening some of the applications (in the morning everything was perfect and nothing really odd happened in between).
whenever i try to open safari and OS X help, it opens-loads..-and closes and i get the message that 'the application quit unexpectedly' blee and that Mac OS and other applications are not affected. thats all. so basically i cant use these two, all the others seem to work fine. one more thing is that since it occured, my power book starts up really slowly, it takes about 2 minutes to get it going. why?
i tried to sort it out in a simple way, so i run disc utillity thing and i fixed permissions and i run disc repair from the install disc level (as there was some Volume Header error - whatever it is..),and..nothing. the only good thing is that now there is no errors on my hard drive. i also checked it all with apple hardwere test and its all fine.
im not sure if that puts any light on my problem, but im coping in here the report i get after safarii closes:
Date/Time: 2005-11-15 18:19:37.223 +0000
OS Version: 10.4.2 (Build 8C46)
Report Version: 3
Command: Safari
Path: /Applications/Safari.app/Contents/MacOS/Safari
Parent: WindowServer [59]
Version: 2.0.1 (412.5)
Build Version: 7
Project Name: WebBrowser
Source Version: 4120500
PID: 185
Thread: Unknown
Link (dyld) error:
Symbol not found: _ZN3KJS7UString6attachEPNS03RepE
Referenced from: /System/Library/Frameworks/WebKit.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/WebCore.frame work/Versions/A/WebCore
Expected in: /System/Library/Frameworks/WebKit.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/JavaScriptCor e.framework/Versions/A/JavaScriptCore
Model: PowerBook5,6, BootROM 4.9.1f3, 1 processors, , 1.67 GHz, 1 GB
Graphics: ATI Mobility Radeon 9700, ATY,RV360M11, AGP, 128 MB
Memory Module: SODIMM0/J25LOWER, 512 MB, DDR SDRAM, PC2700U-25330
Memory Module: SODIMM1/J25UPPER, 512 MB, DDR SDRAM, PC2700U-25330
AirPort: AirPort Extreme, 402.6 (3.90.34.0.p13)
Modem: Jump, , V.92, Version 1.0,
Bluetooth: Version 1.6.6f22, 2 service, 1 devices, 1 incoming serial ports
Network Service: Internal Modem, PPP (PPPSerial), modem
Network Service: Built-in Ethernet, Ethernet, en0
PCI Card: TXN,PCIXXXX-00, cardbus, PC Card
Parallel ATA Device: MATSHITADVD-R UJ-845E,
Parallel ATA Device: Hitachi HTS541080G9AT00, 74.53 GB
USB Device: Bluetooth HCI, , Up to 12 Mb/sec, 500 mA
USB Device: Apple Internal Keyboard/Trackpad, Apple Computer, Up to 12 Mb/sec, 500 mA
uh, thanks a lot for any solution and advice.
take care to all,
naaura

Answer 1

Dr. Smoke's Troubleshooting Help Viewer is an excellent resource for fixing the help viewer.
For Safari you may wish to trash the com.apple.safari.plist file (this will set Safari back to default settings) and try starting the application.
Best of luck,
Cleo