So I am a bit puzzled…

I was working on file for while now and wanted to create a quick WIP render.

But after setting it up I get a Popup with the Houdini Console saying this:

mantra: Can't find geometry /obj/geo/copy1
Invalid detail specified

I thought I might have done something wrong in the nodes but I created a fresh geo node with only a box in it - same problem.
Deleted Mantra, deleted the camera … nothing.


Is the project File lost?

Hi, it's the same for me, Mantra take 2 secondes to render a black image and I get the same message : mantra: Can't find geometry.

Hope we will resolve this.

Any news on this topic?

These are mostly user supported forums. If you really have a problem, you need to log a bug. See https://www.sidefx.com/forum/topic/15603/ [sidefx.com]

Understood

Hi Folks,

Was evaluating the Apprentice version and all was working fine. Just upgraded Win10 to the latest 1709 Fall Creators build and this old error is coming up again. I was just about to upgrade to Indie but would like to figure this out first.

Invalid detail specified
Invalid detail specified
mantra: Can't find geometry /obj/grid_object1/grid1
mantra: Can't find geometry /obj/sphere_object1/sphere1

There are no spaces anywhere in paths or filenames. Just made a simple project (and set the project) and added a grid and a sphere. Anyone got an idea what's causing this? I even went and made sure all the permissions are set to “Full control” across the board on the Houdini install and project directories/files.

Thanks for any help,
Steve.
EDIT 11/5/2017: Clarification: The system mentioned here is a 10-core system, bells and whistles.

Driss Elmeloud
Hi, it's the same for me, Mantra take 2 secondes to render a black image and I get the same message : mantra: Can't find geometry.

Hope we will resolve this.

I did solve the problem in my case.
Because I used spaces and caps in the Houdini file name it was creating a path error. I just had to correct that and it worked perfectly.

I wonder if in the upgrade Microsoft did something to the way they handle paths? Perhaps it has something to do with the “/” and “\” slashes? Something maybe the user can set in a config file somewhere to fix? It's quite annoying.

Steve

EDIT 11/5/2017:
I am going to try and reproduce the error. I'm currently running the upgrade download for Fall Creators Update on my laptop's Win10 partition. Apprentice is working fine with Win 10 version 1703. We'll see how it goes. I'll be back…

So I finished upgrading my old laptop to Win10 version 1709 and to my amazement, there are no errors when running Houdini. So now it's time to ponder what in blazes could be different about the high-powered, 10-core monster I'm trying to run it on at home? Any users have a clue what could be going on? It's obvious that it's an OS related thing and not Houdini at this point. I remember running “sfx /scannow” and the appropriate DISM commands to see if anything obvious was broken. I'm ready to buy an Indie license but not until I can get it to work on my home system. If I understand correctly I can't keep moving the license from my home system to my laptop (which I bring over the GF's house on the weekends) constantly, right?

Thanks for any help,
Steve

I downloaded apprentice and had this problem. It was fixed by removing the space in c:\windows\users\first last\
It's actually a pain to do the change. I did it on my computer and it ended up screwing up some other programs. Mostly firefox, thunderbird, dropbox. A few others needed reinstallation or editing of preference files.

Below is the best way to perform this task
Microsoft has actually documented a very simple and clean way to rename a user profile folder.

Log in by using another administrative account.

Note You may need to create a new Administrative account at first.

Go to the C:\users\ folder and rename the subfolder with the original user name to the new user name.
Go to the registry and modify the registry value ProfileImagePath to the new path name.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList\<User SID>\

That's it!

A note on <User SID>: the ProfileList registry key contains a number of sub-keys. To find out which one to change, click on each sub-key and examine the values, to find the sub-key with the right ProfileImagePath:

enter image description here

For example, let's say we want to get rid of the space in a user profile folder name. So in step 2, we use File Explorer to navigate to C:\Users and rename the John Smith subfolder JohnSmith. And in step 3, we click on the <User SID> sub-keys until we find the one with ProfileImagePath C:\Users\John Smith, and change it to C:\Users\JohnSmith.

New to Houdini and got the Free version (Apprentice 18.5.633) and had the same issue.

Searched online and found it's because manta renderer uses TEMP files which are located in your users %temp% folder in the C drive (C:\Users\firstname lastname\AppData\Local\Temp\houdini_temp).

Since my pc's user account is my full name (firstname lastname) this filepath contains a space,
which causes manta renderer to freak out.

A simple, easy fix is to add this text to a new line at the bottom of your houdini.env file located in your C drives documents folder (C:\Users\firstname lastname\Documents\houdini18.5)

HOUDINI_TEMP_DIR = (insert path of new location here without the brackets. make sure the path has no spaces in it!)

e.g.

HOUDINI_TEMP_DIR = D:\Users\User2\AppData\Local\Temp\houdini_temp

Since I'm on a laptop with a SSD and HDD, I simply mimiced the directory onto my other drive. That's just how I set things up. Yours can be anywhere as long as the file path does not have spaces.

Restart Houdini and the problem should be solved.

Solution found from Right-Brained Tutorials on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHvtpOFEqFs [www.youtube.com]

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Additionally, if you get this error message

Unable to load HFS OpenCL platform.

just add this line to the same file:

HOUDINI_USE_HFS_OCL=0

I got this solution from u/Spicy_Rendang on the reddit thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/Houdini/comments/l2o4io/unable_to_load_hfs_opencl_platform/ [www.reddit.com]

hoskij
Searched online and found it's because manta renderer uses TEMP files which are located in your users %temp% folder in the C drive (C:\Users\firstname lastname\AppData\Local\Temp\houdini_temp).

Since my pc's user account is my full name (firstname lastname) this filepath contains a space,
which causes manta renderer to freak out.

A simple, easy fix is to add this text to a new line at the bottom of your houdini.env file located in your C drives documents folder (C:\Users\firstname lastname\Documents\houdini18.5)

HOUDINI_TEMP_DIR = (insert path of new location here without the brackets. make sure the path has no spaces in it!)

You shouldn't need to do that. I have spaces in my user name on windows, and my temp dir path in houdini uses the dosname for the path, which doesn't contain spaces.

For example if you name was Abc Defg, the value of $HOUDINI_TEMP_DIR in houdini should be C:/Users/ABCDEF~1/AppData/LocalTemp/houdini_temp without having to do anything.

The filename of your HIP file matters too, get rid of any space or any symbols, only used underscore. That's how I fixed mine.

ksohart
The filename of your HIP file matters too, get rid of any space or any symbols, only used underscore. That's how I fixed mine.

This Fixed mine, I hade parenthesis in my file name (which I do in Maya all the time with no issues!) thanks!