Mac Help

[cjhdaddy1]

My 'Mac Help' command has suddenly stopped working in Panther. The window will open, but as you type anything in it the letters show up very slowly and when you hit return after typing a question nothing happens. All other help commands are fine (Safari help, iphoto help etc.)

Any suggestions?

Thanks

 

[MacAddikt]

the Help function usually bogs down , due to the massive amount of information stored in the small app. Your best bet would be to just ask your questions here or look them up under Apple Support

 

[tracks]

My 'Mac Help' command has suddenly stopped working in Panther. The window will open, but as you type anything in it the letters show up very slowly and when you hit return after typing a question nothing happens. All other help commands are fine (Safari help, iphoto help etc.)

Any suggestions?

Thanks

I have the same problem in 10.3.2, but I'm not exactly sure when the problem started as I don't use the Mac help really. I reported it to Apple, their response was that the help subsystem is highly integrated into the OS - the only idea was to reinstall the OS. Now that sounds like Redmond - I guess it is just AppleCare though. On a lark, I attempted that, but it wouldn't allow a reinstall of the same version OS. Anyone else tried to reinstall 10.3.2 with archive of user data? Seems like it should work.

Maybe we'll just wait for the next OS upgrade to get the Mac help working again.

 

[muso]

I gather from what MacAddikt mentioned is that it doesn't matter how much you use help, just how many applications use mac help for their help files.

 

[tracks]

Ok, this one intrigued me enough to try something. I just corrected my problem by clearing cached help files - actually I dumped all the cached files by trashing everything within Library/Caches directory. I don't know what help file was corrupted. It dawned on me that maybe a particular help file could be the problem. I needed to clear the Safari cache to get my new SWF file to load, and the light bulb turned on.
Clear the cache and you should be good to go.
Jon

 

[joelkanning]

I'm having this SAME problem....

Funny thing is, if I lauch the Help app from its location (System/Library/CoreServices/Help Viewer) it works just fine.

 

[joelkanning]

FYI - I dumped my cached files this evening, but the problem still persists. I have also noticed that using Help from any program menu gives me the "buggy" version of Help Viewer.

Hmmmm....