Hello, this is my first post here and I hope this is the right place to rant about Houdini on mac. I'm having a terrible experience with using Houdini on my MacBook pro-2019. It crashes even for simple actions like poly extruding or using the scale handles. Is it only me or is there any mac user out there facing a similar issue? This doesn't seem to be specific to my machine. I tried it on a MacBook pro and air. Houdini is an amazing tool and works great on a windows machine. But just for one program I cannot invest in a new PC and go through all the hassle of getting used to a new OS.

Here's a screen recording [drive.google.com]

I reported this issue to the Sidefx team and they couldn't fix it. One thing I love about the support is they are super responsive and helped me in the past with so many issues. But for this one even they couldn't do anything. All they said was “If we cannot reproduce the problem on our machines, it is really hard to fix it..”. I'm regularly trying the daily builds to see if it gets fixed. Hoping that one day I'd at least be able to use Houdini that doesn't crash for simple actions.

Have a great day!

What modeling errors? Just don't do that.
Instead of using the pie thingy in the viewport, try dropping down the nodes in the network view to get your work done.

I think you've been posting under different handles around here with the same issue. In all cases you neglect to post the specifics of your machine, OS and version of Houdini. You seem to get progressively more frustrated but you're not really doing yourself any favors by not posting the specifics or even a .hip file for us to look at.

I will answer you question as I have already answered on your other posts – I can not reproduce the issues you're having. Everything on my end works as expected, although I would advise against using the initial production build since it was pretty unstable (on both Mac and Windows).

I haven't worked with the latest production build that just dropped today, but I will be testing it and hopefully it's more reliable.

Hi! I'm pretty new to Houdini and I have never posted anything before in the community. I should have included all the details in my earlier post. I'm attaching the crash recovered hip file and you can find the system info below. It crashed while I was trying to extrude the top edge loop of the tube.

Houdini Apprentice
MacBook Pro (15-inch, 2018)
2,9 GHz 6-Core Intel Core i9
32 GB 2400 MHz DDR4
AMD Radeon Pro Vega 20 4GB

Your file works fine on my machine.

What I really need to know specifically is: Houdini production build that you're using and, OS X version that you're using. I need specifics, not generic info like Houdini 18.5 and OS X Catalina.

Also…FYI, in the past I have noticed the Houdini Apprentice tends to be more sluggish and buggy than Indie. This is weird since Apprentice is how they convince you to spend money, but nonetheless it's been a thing in the past.

Thank you so much for looking into this! I'm using 18.5.407 and I'm on Big Sur version - 11.0.1 (20B29)

Interesting, I'm on production build 408 which just came out, but even on a previous daily build it wasn't happening. I'm still using Catalina so perhaps it might be some Big Sur related bug but it doesn't seem likely.

I would try to uninstall everything and the redo a clean Houdini install with the most recent production build. I would also double check your permissions in the user/preferences/houdini folder as well as the /tmp folder where the crash files are saved by default.

Have you asked SideFX if they tested on Big Sur?

This was happening even on Catalina. I've actually erased the entire disk and reinstalled macOS. Also, I don't think the version I'm using has anything to do with the issue. I started with an Indie license and after encountering the issue I've downgraded it to Apprentice.

I haven't asked SideFX specifically if they tested on Big Sur. I've shared the system log that you can find in Houdini's Help -> About Houdini -> “Show Details”. It has OS version and build number.

For now, I've installed windows 10 through bootcamp and Houdini seems to work fine there.

Thanks again for your help!

We've been able to reproduce this on one of our Macs. It appears to be a problem in their driver, so we've sent off the case to Apple to investigate. Hopefully that'll get us a workaround in the short term, and a driver fix with the next OS update.

Fantastic! I hope we hear back from Apple soon.

Pretty sure I'm having the same issue. It'll crash during a modelling operation and then I open it back up and do the same thing and it's fine. I sent off a bunch of crash reports.
I currently don't have any other option but to power through, so it's really nice to hear there might be some solution on the horizon.
Let us know if you find any workarounds.

Hi,
Hey just wondering. are there any ENV variables that might help with this? Something that makes OpenGL run at at really basic level?
Also I noticed there was another Big Sur beta out, would it be worth trying that?
I tried parallels , no luck. Not sure I can bring myself to do bootcamp.

Hey! Last week Twod told me that they received some info back from Apple and they are working to track down the issue. He said he's going to update the post when it's fixed.

Yeah that’s great. I’m gonna jump on bootcamp tomorrow. Should be okay for the time being.

Hey just wondering if there has been any progress on this one? It seems like it occurs on every macOS system I’ve tried and it really makes modelling borderline impossible.

Hey Ravi,

Just incase you missed this,

Daily Build 18.5.429

P.

yay!!! that's awesome!

Thanks for letting me know.