Hello.

I'm getting an error when I press any help icon of any node.
The console opens and gives the same message over and over "Network service crashed".
The help window opens aswell but with nothing on it.
When this happens I have to restar houdini as the system turns very slow maybe due to the looping error.

I'm on Houdini Indie 19.0.455.

Anyone having the same issue?

I have the exact same problem, and have been having it in 18.5, too.
Found out it is a bug with Qt web engine, e.g. see https://github.com/qutebrowser/qutebrowser/issues/6235 [github.com]
Haven't found a solution, unfortunately.

I suspect it might be related to my environment, as the help seems to work on other machines.

I still have this problem in .498 but in the last stable nightly (.504) seems to be fixed.

This problem seemed to be fixed in last nightlies but now that we have a new production build (19.0.531) the problem happens again.
And I'm in a rencently fresh installed system (windows 11)

same here... version (19.0.533)

same here in (19.0.498)

found an solutions, i have this for weeks now

We tested the suggestion of setting LANG, but that did not help.
We contacted support, and they said there are no plans to upgrade Qt, since they are following the VFX Reference Platform. They recommended using an external browser by setting

Same problem here in Houdini 19.0.561!
It is fine at first, Help panel comes out and works as expected but when Vray is installed, this error occrues.

Yes, without VRAY help workes.

monomon

HOUDINI_EXTERNAL_HELP_BROWSER=1

This worked for me -- added it to Houdini.env and on next startup, I could use the Help features. Thanks for posting!

Hope this helps anyone, I removed the desktop folder from documents/houdini19.5 folder and worked for me, needed to create new desktops after that though.

FJSsam
Hope this helps anyone, I removed the desktop folder from documents/houdini19.5 folder and worked for me, needed to create new desktops after that though.

Hello,

I've just tried that and the error keeps poping up.
I'm using 19.0.622

Gagui

FJSsam
Hope this helps anyone, I removed the desktop folder from documents/houdini19.5 folder and worked for me, needed to create new desktops after that though.

Hello,

I've just tried that and the error keeps poping up.
I'm using 19.0.622

Ah, worked for me, try to rename the houdini19.5 folder to houdini19.5_old or something and start houdini, this should start a fresh houdini and create a new houdini19.5 folder there. If all is okay then there's something wrong with your houdini19.5 folder, I've found the desktop thing this way, maybe something else is creating your issue in that folder.

FJSsam
Ah, worked for me, try to rename the houdini19.5 folder to houdini19.5_old or something and start houdini, this should start a fresh houdini and create a new houdini19.5 folder there. If all is okay then there's something wrong with your houdini19.5 folder, I've found the desktop thing this way, maybe something else is creating your issue in that folder.

I've already tried that and no luck. I have a clue the thing is causing this is the vray installation. If I unistall vray the error disappear. I've already wrote in chaos forum talking about the problem and other users have the same issue but for now they didn't find a solution.

Indeed the problem is caused by VRay. We already verified that, and contacted Chaos Group support. They are aware of the issue but there are no plans yet to address it (afaik). The cause is that VRay ships a different version of Qt, which conflicts with Houdini's own, used by the help browser.