Hello,

I bought a Houdini Indie license via Steam some dsays ago. I watched some tutorials and wanted to start using it, but it reproducible crashes to the desktop after a few seconds. This started after todays update to 18.5.563 (autoupdate by Steam), I was able to fiddle around some time without problems some days ago directly after installation. I today got an error message regarding Redshift Render after the Steam autoupdate.

The guys from Redshift told me I have to manually add a custom plugin version, I downgraded to 462 via Steam instead, but to no avail, Houdini still crashes to desktop after a few clicks. I then downgraded to the last version before 563 (532, I guess), but again still the same: crash after a few seconds. I then deactivated Redshift by uncommenting it from the env file. Houdini still crashes.

I looked into the folder where the logs are but found only an xml file listing tools and some svg files from the time of the crash.

Help?

Windows 10/64 (2004 19041.928)
Ryzen 7
32 GB Ram
RTX 3090, latest drivers (just installed because I thought this might be the problem)

Update: I completely uninstalled Houdini and reinstalled: Still crashes.

Does anyone from SideFX even read this forum?

I was able to remove the problem by uninstalling, rebooting, reinstalling. But only for a day, the next day Houdini again crashes to desktop seconds after starting it.

How is this considered a professional software? I have used lots of DCC like C4D, Blender, Subtsance Painter, and many more. I have never seen one that was this unstable.

The support has no interest of helping and just say I should contact Steam support. Yeah, as if Steam support can help if Houdini is the problem. Houdini was not even able to suggest the solutions that I was able to find via a web search. It sounded as if the support person was either completely clueless or had no interest in helping at all.

I will now write a couple of bad reviews in relevant places.

Just a couple of things to try.
1) Do you have Core Performance Boost enabled for your processor in your BIOS? If so, try disabling that.
2) I haven't used the Steam version of Houdini but I assume it saves preferences in the same place as the regular version. Try renaming your houdini18.5 preferences folder under My Documents so a new one is generated on launch. FYI this is not a folder that Houdini will remove when you uninstall it.

Thanks.

I removed the preferences folder and so far no crashes. But afaik from other DCC applications if I customize the UI or other things inside Houdini these changes would be lost if I delete the pref folder. So if the crashing happens again in the future and I have to remove the folder again, I would loose all customizations, right?

Yes, that's correct. In my experience it's uncommon for prefs in Houdini to go funky, unlike say Maya where preference corruption is almost expected. If you like, maybe try creating a backup copy of your preference folder once you have things set the way you like in case these crashes return in the future.

I come from C4D and there I never had a prefs corruption in all those years I use it.

It looks like the deletion of the prefs folder solved the problem once and for all. Thanks again. I have absolutely no idea why the official support was not able to suggest this ...

That is weird, had that problem before. Good the know the solution is that simple.

xanathon
How is this considered a professional software? I have used lots of DCC like C4D, Blender, Subtsance Painter, and many more. I have never seen one that was this unstable.

Please keep in mind that while you might be running into weird issues, I assure you that many many thousands of other users are getting a solid experience from Houdini.

I guarantee that if Houdini crashed all the time for the likes of WETA, Method, ILM, Pixar, Animal Logic, and on and on; they would have abandoned it a long time ago (these guys are not idiots).

While it's true that Houdini does crash occasionally, I have worked on it for weeks without a single crash. As a matter of fact a couple of years ago I did a live presentation for the Houdini User Group in Los Angeles where I was doing a lot of "risky" operations live while also screen capturing the whole thing, and Houdini hung in there like a champ.

Lastly, I will say that these forums are not an official support page. Lots of new users automatically assume that posting here will result in a SideFX employee coming to the rescue, but this is often not the case. Your best bet for issues such as these is to contact support directly: https://www.sidefx.com/support-programs/ [www.sidefx.com]

Also, make sure you are using a supported video card and proper drivers for it. You can rename your preference folder, and restart Houdini. When Houdini rebuilds the folder, you can move some of the files from the old one into the new one, and copy the .env file contents as well.

Siavash Tehrani
Just a couple of things to try.
1) Do you have Core Performance Boost enabled for your processor in your BIOS? If so, try disabling that.
2) I haven't used the Steam version of Houdini but I assume it saves preferences in the same place as the regular version. Try renaming your houdini18.5 preferences folder under My Documents so a new one is generated on launch. FYI this is not a folder that Houdini will remove when you uninstall it.

Renaming the folder worked for me, thank you!

Quite old thread, but I just like to share my experience and say things haven't been improved since then. Houdini at this point is the most crashy software I've ever seen. The last time I've seen something this unstable was when Windows XP was still mainstream.

The most bizarre part is that the crashes usually not happen during some heavy simulation jobs, but the most mundane UI stuff (like RMB a VOP node, Alt-MMB a parameter to promote it, etc).

Anyway I'll still recommend people to download Apprentice and try it out themselves. But if it's too unstable for you, just keep using other DCCs and don't buy it. Don't migrate your workflow to Houdini. Don't be naively optimistic like past me and think it will surely get better. It won't.

Edit: At this point I'd strongly advise against Houdini as a generalist DCC. Unless you have a very specific requirement that can only be done in Houdini, it's a great waste of time.

Same here, switched back again to ancient XSI for most of the basic work. It hasn’t been updated for almost 10 years, and hardly crashes at all, what a relief…no more cursing at the screen.

Also gave up on reporting most of the bugs I encountered lately in Houdini, it just takes way too much time.