Hello guys,

I have just installed huodini 12 Apprentice HD and whenver I press the F1 for help or the Stat Here link from the help menu, it tries to open a web page at this address with no success.

http://localhost:0 [localhost]

or

http://localhost:0/start/ [localhost]

Where can I change a setting so to make the help work?
Is it possible to have a local version of the docs as well??

Thanks for any help

I can confirm this for the latest build 556 on OSX too. I've logged a bug for it. In the meantime you can try to use the online version here http://www.sidefx.com/docs/houdini12.0/ [sidefx.com] (although that one won't let me search in Chrome…)

So the reason appears to be that the help server is not starting up properly. However, there's a workaround to get it running. Not sure if all the steps are actually necessary, but this worked for me (based on the instructions on how to install your own local help server)

1. start Houdini
2. Window > Shell
3. Enter these commands

cd $HOME
mkdir helpserver
cd helpserver
export PYTHONPATH=$PYTHONPATH:$HH/scripts/pythonlibs:$HH/scripts/python
cp $HH/config/Help/deploy.ini deploy.ini
python /Library/Frameworks/Houdini.framework/Versions/12.0.556/Resources/houdini/python2.6libs/server.py deploy.ini


despite what the manual says you dont need to modify the deploy.ini in this case
and you may need to change the path to the server.py depending on your build number

anyway, after all this, try Help > Start Here and see if it works now.

for me it's http://localhost:48626 [localhost]

Actually i found that online documentation ( http://www.sidefx.com/docs/houdini12.0/ [sidefx.com] ) is much better, because when H12 crashes you losing all your open pages/connection to built-in server.

There's couple of problems with online docs tho, including completely not working google search and missed images/section, esp. for new features.
Still, prefer to have 20 persistent tabs opened in chrome/ffox.

I spoke to the sidefx support and it turns out the solution is to upgrade XCode, at least if you're running Lion. That has fixed the issue for me.

I'm having trouble with help as well. I'm getting an error where it can't initialize the server and gives the following at the end of the shell output:

DistutilsPlatformError: invalid Python installation: unable to open /usr/include/python2.6/pyconfig.h (No such file or directory)

I'm on the latest Xcode, and I also tried setting the python version back to 2.6x from 2.7x but this didn't seem to work either.

Hello Everyone,

thanks a lot for all the answers.
I tried all these approaches but unfortunately its still not working.

I am on Lion and I have upgraded my XCode as suggested by ripclaw, but to no avail.

At least the help online now works fine (the search wasn't working for me either).

Will keep looking, if you guys have any update, please share!

Thanks again!

pietro

I'm still having difficulties with this. I just updated xcode to no avail. When I hit help >>> start here I get the following:

The webpage at http://localhost:0/start/ [localhost] might be temporarily down or it may have moved permanently to a new web address.
Error 108 (net::ERR_ADDRESS_INVALID): Unknown error.

If I type in the command suggested in terminal, I get the following:

Kevin-MItchells-Mac-Pro:helpserver kevinmitchell$ python /Library/Frameworks/Houdini.framework/Versions/12.0.586/Resources/houdini/python2.6libs/server.py deploy.ini
Traceback (most recent call last):
File “/Library/Frameworks/Houdini.framework/Versions/12.0.586/Resources/houdini/python2.6libs/server.py”, line 5, in <module>
from paste.httpserver import serve
ImportError: No module named paste.httpserver

Any help would be much appreciated. I liked having the ability to launch example files for studying purposes.

I'm running Houdini Master on Mac OSX 10.7.3