Everything Apple (the Mac heads thread)

Weird Safari "invisibility" on intel MacBook Air / Monterey - any ideas?

- solved, see post further down -

Remote family member complains about Safari "not opening" since two days.
Looked into it via Team Viewer, what I can see is:

• Safari does open up, but doesn't show it's window
  
• there is no window shown in the pop-up menu (when holding safari icon in the dock)
  
• it#s not possible to spawn a new window - new window (cmd+n) does not work, all options (new window, new tab etc.) in the menu greyed out
  
• when opening bookmarks window a window is shown, but empty (just grey)
  
  

🤷
..what I have tried so far, all to no avail:

• force-quit safari, open up again
  
• open up again with shift held (reset safari)
  
• disabling all extensions
  
• remove all cookies
  
• reboot mac
  
• reboot mac in safe mode
  
• change resolution of display higher / lower, and back again to "find" the window
  
• checked whether it has been accidentally moved to a second 'space' (no, there is just one)
  
• mirror displays (cmd+f1) - does nothing (there is only the built-in display)
  
  

Any ideas?
Feedback much appreciated, ta!