Make sure that your computer meets our System Requirements.

Intel or AMD x64 CPU with SSE 4.2 required. Houdini 20.5 will not run on a system with an instruction set lower than SSE 4.1.

Do you have Nahimic or 3D audio drivers installed? Or 3D audio software installed? Please uninstall or disable them.

Asus Sonic Suite 2, the audio card software that comes with a lot of Asus ROG mainboards, seems to also be a culprit.

If you have any 3D audio drivers, please uninstall them or disable them.

We no longer provide Qt4 builds for Houdini 17.0 and later.

Other things to try: Try deleting (or renaming) your houdini20.5 preferences directory. When you relaunch Houdini this directory will be regenerated, with all your Houdini settings at default. If you have an older version of Houdini, you will delete or rename the directory for that older version (for example, houdini19.5).

Windows: My Documents->houdini20.5

OSX: /Users/(your name)/Library/Preferences/houdini/20.5

Linux: /home/(your name)/houdini20.5

Qt4 builds for versions older than Houdini 17.0: Windows Mac Linux

If this doesn't help and Houdini stays open long enough, can you please send the support team your machine info from Houdini's Help -> About Houdini -> click on "Show Details". Please click the "save” button at the bottom, and send the file to support@sidefx.com.