Help Window Disappears?

M

mizzlewillz

Registered
Hello,

Just recently the last day or so when I try to open the apple help window, it opens for about a second or so then immediately closes. Does anyone have any ideas on why this happens, I got the ibook 12" about two weeks ago, and the only thing I installed was a HP printer.

Thanks in advance for any comments!

-Mike
 
Go to the Utilities folder and select Disk Utility. When that opens, click once on the second icon at the left, then click on repair permissions. Make sure you are logged in as the Admin. Give Apple help a try.
 
Well, try doing these steps:

1) Open your Hard Drive icon->Applications->Utilities->Disk Utility and "Repair Permissions" on your Startup Drive. As a good manner of practice (for a healthy Mac) is to Repair Permissions around every two weeks or after big software installs. This will save you a lot of future headaches.

2) If the first step doesn't help, try opening the folders Users->your user name->Library->Preferences-> and trash the preference com.apple.helpviewer.plist. Also trash com.apple.help.plist. Then try to run the Help menu again.

Also, this is just a word of advice. If you really new to the Apple world, then try a good book called Mac OS X: The Missing Manual, Panther Edition by David Pogue. You can pick one up in a local book store. The book is well worth the money and it is a really easy read that is straight forward and informative for home users. Good luck!
 
Thanks for the great tips, I will deffinately pick up the suggested book.

Unfortunately those procedures did not work. I can use the help if like safari is open or another application is open. However, the help window closes when I try and open Mac Help, I guess when the Finder is the active application. When I go to open it, it opens but then closes before displaying anything??

Thanks again for the posts

-Mike
 
Sadly, those tips have NOTHING altogether to do with Help Viewer. They're usually given at ALL times whatever a poster writes as the problem in these forums. Sure, they're not bad at all and you should repair permissions and fix your harddrive from time to time, anyway, but they usually only help when something's really _wrong_ with permissions or the disk drive.

What helps _here_ is: Get rid of the preference files of Help Viewer. You have to delete the following files:

- /Users/YOURSHORTNAME/Library/Preferences/com.apple.help.plist
- /Users/YOURSHORTNAME/Library/Preferences/com.apple.helpui.plist
- /Users/YOURSHORTNAME/Library/Preferences/com.apple.helpviewer.plist
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top