Hi werwack,

Are you running another firewall other than the Win XP one?

In any case, after you start the Help in Houdini, can you copy & paste the URL (http://localhost:48626/) [localhost] into your internet browser, either Firefox or Internet Explorer, to see if it works?

If it works, you can browse through the Help in the internet browser & if you have an example you like, like Attract To Curve Points (http://localhost:48626/examples/nodes/pop/attractor/AttractToCurvePoints) [localhost] , you can copy & paste the URL into the Houdini Browser so you can load the example files easily.

I hope the above will work for you to ease the pain a little. Please continue to report the errors so someone might be able to figure out something.

Cheers!
steven

As I mentionned, and this may not be very clear in this thread, I have 2 versions of Houdini installed on 2 different computers, and each one has its own trouble with the documentation.

Both versions are non commercial, on XP 32.

* at work: (H 9.0725) behind a big firewall and proxy and I have no information about them. The Videos section in the Help browser is empty but everything else in the help work (slowly though, and with the messages mentionned previously). On this computer (the screenshot previously sent) I tried http://localhost:48626/ [localhost] in the browser and the page cannot be reach.

* at home: (H 9.0747) I have the XP firewall desactivated and I use Kerio. But when I installed version 9.0747 yesterday evening, with the firewall completely desactivated, still the same pb: I see the videos in the Help browser, but the online help (the other tabs of the browser), the tutorials, the contextual help etc are not available at all. Nothing happens. I can use the integrated browser, where the help should be, as a standart explorer but no help is found…

I really think a online help or a standalone one, like a chm file, would be useful
Am I the only one with such documentation problem? Or everyone already knows Houdini?

Hi Werwack,

Sorry I haven't devoted enough time to this, I've been distracted by other things at work.

Did you turn on “Remember this decision” and click “Allow” in that dialog that pops up? That's necessary until we figure out some scripting issues in the embedded browser.

I'm not sure why it doesn't work at home… sorry if I'm asking you to repeat yourself, but can you see the documentation in a normal browser at http://localhost:48626/ [localhost] when Houdini is running?

You can view the videos on the web at http://www.sidefx.com/tutorials [sidefx.com] . You can start with the “Houdini 9 Interface lessons”. The docs aren't so great for learning yet anyway… we're spending time right now just getting the reference material up-to-date for the new Houdini 9 interface

I'll post a script to this thread today that will let you convert the wiki-formatted docs into HTML files so you can read them without the server running if that's the problem (been meaning to do that for a while).

If you have any motivation left to try to fix this problem, could you please email me directly at matt@sidefx.com so we can do some troubleshooting?

Thanks,

Matt

Forgot, also check out the “H9 Blog” link http://www.sidefx.com/blog [sidefx.com] … that's where most of the videos on the Houdini start-up window come from.

Looks like I spoke too soon … a script to generate HTML turns out to be harder than I thought currently, because there are lots of places that assume the server is there to do certain things. I guess we'll have to concentrate on getting your server working properly…

mchaput
Did you turn on “Remember this decision” and click “Allow” in that dialog that pops up? That's necessary until we figure out some scripting issues in the embedded browser.

Yes, sure, (I mentionned it).

mchaput
I'm not sure why it doesn't work at home… sorry if I'm asking you to repeat yourself, but can you see the documentation in a normal browser at http://localhost:48626/ [localhost] when Houdini is running?

Yes, I tried (this is for my computer at work), and the browser said it could not reach the page (I also mentionned it)

mchaput
You can view the videos on the web at http://www.sidefx.com/tutorials [sidefx.com] . You can start with the “Houdini 9 Interface lessons”. The docs aren't so great for learning yet anyway… we're spending time right now just getting the reference material up-to-date for the new Houdini 9 interface

Thank you very much. I found them (at home) and they helped me to start.

I think we should concentrate on my pb at home because the one at work is only about reaching a few basic videos. At home I have no online help at all, even after a reinstall and with firewall, proxy and antivirus turned off

Some screenshots when I start Houdini at home (9.0747), no firewall nor proxy nor antivir activated (note that I don't touch at anything after the launch - I have the message poping up)

Grab the latest version. That bug was fixed a few releases after the one you're running.

Cheers,

J.C.

The latest available version is Houdini 9.0.747, right?
That s the one I am currently using…

Is the version 0761 available?

Scroll further down the Downloads page to the “Daily Builds” section.

Yah, I shouldn't assume you'd go digging down there, sorry. Houdini is unlike most apps in that they have daily builds(apart from the odd technical problem). Again unlike most apps you shouldn't be leery of snagging the latest build or perceive it like a particularly dangerous leading-edge product. For the most part the latest is the best - more bug fixes and new/improved features.

“Officially” SESI has the so-called Production Build as a milestone release, but many of the active smaller Houdini studios snag the latest quite regularly and put them into the pipeline. Even larger studios can be quite aggressive about it. SESI responds equally aggressively about any bug reports in new builds - they want to know about them. You won't get the “well you should be using the Production Build” attitude from them.

Cheers,

J.C.

Hey, all the latest versions are there! Thanks a lot, I didn't know that

So now I have the version 9.0759, the latest available on XP 32, and unfortunately I still have the problem (and the same message)

Could it be because the integrated Firefox is not configured for my internet connexion? Is there a way to switch from the embedded version to the one I use? Or to force it to use my preferences located in the Application Data directory?
I try to reach a preferences panel for the embedded brozser but I didn't find anything helpfull.

:cry:

You need to start houdini first, open the main doc page. That starts up the server. Same release on the same system works here.

Cheers,

J.C.

It's hard to tell from the movie exactly what's going on, but it seems like the help server isn't starting at all. Which is weird.

If you have a second, could you please try this:

Choose Start > All Programs > Side Effects Software > Houdini 9.0.xxx > Command Line Tools

CD to “c:\Program Files\Side Effects Software\HoudiniXXXX\houdini\scripts\python”

Type “hython start_server.py”

Thanks!

Hello Matt,

I get this error message in the command line tool when I follow the steps described above (cf picture).

That certainly seems to indicate a/the problem. Apparently you have an environment variable PYTHONCASEOK set, and one of the modules used by the help server doesn't like it. This environment variable may have been set up automatically by a Windows-y python environment like ActiveState Python if you've ever installed it.

Can you check whether this environment variable is set in your system? (RMB My Computer > Properties > Advanced tab > Environment Variables) Do you know if you need this variable set for something else?

One of the gurus is working on how to automatically unset this variable in the environment Houdini runs in, which should help.

Thanks!

Matt

Please try putting this in the file $HOME/houdini9.0/scripts/123.py

import os

if “PYTHONCASEOK” in os.environ:
os.environ.pop(“PYTHONCASEOK”)

On Windows I believe HOME is “c:\Documents and Settings\YOURNAME\My Documents” so the file would be “c:\Documents and Settings\YOURNAME\My Documents\houdini9.0\scripts\123.py”.

You'll probably need to create the scripts directory and the 123.py file.

Thanks!

Matt

Hi Matt,

indeed I have a few Python environement variables set. I have the Python devkit installed for a long time, though I've not use it so far. Beside the path related to the IBMTOOLS folder very likely comes with my computer:

PYTHONCASEOK: 1
PYTHONPATH: %SystemDrive%\IBMTOOLS\utils\support;%SystemDrive%\IBMTOOLS\utils\logger


The 123.py script is called at Houdini launch, but it doesn't like it (cf picture)


I then removed the 123.py file and changed the value to 0 in the env variables but it didn't change anything. So I forced the value to 0 in the __init__.py file, as follow, just for the purpose of the test, and then the error is a bit further (image 2, NullTranslations pb).

…
# restrict this check to certain platforms. See PEP 235.
import os
if ‘PYTHONCASEOK’ in os.environ:
PYTHONCASEOK = 0


I reverted the changes. Do you have another suggestion?

Thank you very much for your time by the way,

Just to be sure the pb doesn t come from the 123.py file, I sent it to you

Hi Matt,

Guess what? It's working!!

I am not sure exactly of what made the difference though, but here it is!
After the few tests above I desinstalled the Python dev environment I had on my machine, removed the environment variable and rebooted.
The 123.py script is not used.

It is really easier now with the doc: very helpfull, and the possibility to load an example scene is really a great feature!


Thank you very much for your help and the one of the team. I hope this pb doesn t append to too many users…


By the way, a quick question: is there a bug repporter integrated in Houdini? I crashed a few times, sometimes without a message saying “File saved…”. Not sure to be able to repproduce…