Not new to Houdini, but certainly not using it on a regular enough basis to be familiar with all its features. The problem I have with it is that when rendering or baking, nodes will fail and no error message is provided. No logs are available. I have looked up and down the internet and in this forum for hours, and can't find anything that would resemble a simple "log that shows you why your node failed". As you know, the documentation was basically just thrown together without much afterthought, so wanted to query the community.

Before I go back to C4D and never return, please tell me --- what do I do when a node shows a yellow exclamation point?

I should add that the Log Viewer [www.sidefx.com] is mentioned in Help / documentation, but there is no such viewer in any of the panels, and the docs don't describe how to find it.

VisionaryMind
what do I do when a node shows a yellow exclamation point?

MMB on it to read the message

The yellow exclamation mark is a warning. You can examine node warnings and error by looking at the node's info window. Bring up the info window by middle-clicking the node or hovering over it and pressing the info button. It's covered in the docs: https://www.sidefx.com/docs/houdini/network/nodes.html#info [www.sidefx.com]

VisionaryMind
what do I do when a node shows a yellow exclamation point?

if it's yellow let it mellow