Safari 3 + 4 Quit Working

Question

I've been running Safari 4 Beta for a few weeks until RSS feeds quit working. Everytime I tried to view a feed, Safari would freeze and sometimes show a "mach error". I don't have the exact code because at the moment, Safari will not respond at all.
I used the uninstaller that comes with v4 to downgrade to v3, same problem.
If I login under a guest account, Safari works fine.
I've tried everything I've found suggested in these forums for problems similar to mine. Resetting Safari, erasing plists, caches, libraries, 3rd-party apps, etc., same problem.
Apple Care had me erase a few files from both my local user Library and the system Library to completely wipe Safari from my computer. But that broke every application I had other than Firefox and iCal.
I've reinstalled os x and got my other apps back, but Safari still will not display feeds. In fact it will do nothing but show me a white page and a beach ball. (Question: can I remove the "Previous Systems" folder from my HD?)
Sooo back to square one! Anyone have any ideas?

Answer 1

Hi Bryan
This really isn't a beta issue; rather, one affecting the RSS database.
Sounds like one or more feeds has corrupted the database. As the RSS database is maintained in your User Library, the same problem will not show up in other user accounts.
RSS database feeds are found in your User Account>Library>PubSub folder. In that folder, open the Database folder and move to the desktop the Database.sqlite3 file. Then, restart Safari. If the problem recurs, go back to the PubSub folder, open the Feeds folder. There, move the contents to the trash, then restart Safari.
You'll need to reestablish your custom settings for the RSS feeds. Also, they will repopulate, i.e. show older articles as "unread" until you open the various feeds.
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