When I try to open indie.exe it loads apprentice, I'm lost. What do I do!

pls help!

I have the exact same problem and can't see anywhere how to solve it.

It's probably a licensing setup problem. First check out https://www.sidefx.com/faq/ [sidefx.com] to see if there's info there that's relevant for your case. If not, then email support with your license diagnostics.

Me too, licenses are all installed but say not being used by any users. Houdini just keeps opening in apprentice. Uninstalled and removed all license files. Then reinstalled but did the same

I had a similar problem - make sure you are launching with the correct icon/link.
if I recall correctly when I installed Indie it added the Apprentice icon to my desktop.

if you're on Windows it's very likely that the desktop shortcut is pointing to the wrong executable…
right click it and see what it is pointing to for Indie it should be hindie.exe

I was getting this issue… also on windows(10).
I solved it by sending back and re-requesting my license.

It said I only have a limited number of times to do this… hope I don't run out.
edit:
as it seems to be an issue of incorrectly targeting the apprentice version for some, thought I'd point out that in my case I was definitely opening the indy version, but a licensing issue afterward switched that to apprentice.

I had this issue initially both on OSX and Windows. I did not realize SideFX installs shortcut links specifically for Houdini Indie, Apprentice and Houdini. Initially on both my mac and windows machines I just assumed the generic Houdini shortcut was what I should use so on my Mac I placed that on the doc and did the same in windows. When I opened up Houdini it defaulted to open in Apprentice mode. When I replaced these shortcuts with the correct Houdini Indie shortcut everything worked fine on both systems.

Had same issue in 2022. I didn't have the labs/packages downloaded in the Houdini Launcher so my education license didn't kick in. Apprentice kept opening up instead. Adding my experience for any other newbies in the same boat desperately checking out this forum.