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TICKET ARCHIVE -> Help Viewer

shed510 - Nov 19, 2005 - 4:12 am

help viewer, mail help comes up as a blank window.
am I doing something wrong? all other help topics seem to work ok.

edadams - Nov 19, 2005 - 5:33 am

Jeff

Can you please check the following
Go to the finder
Under the Go menu select Go to folder
Paste in-
/Applications/Mail.app/Contents/Resources/English.lproj/MailHelp/
There should be numerous files in there that provide help to Apple Mail
The folder "MailHelp" should be 1.5Mb in size under Tiger 10.4.3

Can you try and repair disk permissions using disk utility? Then reboot?

Regards
Ed

shed510 - Nov 22, 2005 - 10:16 pm

Sorry for the delay in replying.
The "mailhelp" is correct size.
I repaired disk permissions and rebooted but it did not fix the problem.
I have found that generally system 10 help files don't work, but help files from other applications seem to work ok.

Regards,
Jeff.

edadams - Nov 22, 2005 - 10:38 pm

Does the Help viwer open on its own?

Does any other OS help work?

I have not used the built in Apple help system much myself.

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Regards
Ed

shed510 - Nov 22, 2005 - 10:58 pm

Help viewer opens on its own, and comes up with mac os help, but it doesn't work.
Itunes help works,
address book help doesn't work,
dvd, automator, airport, applescript do not work,
iphoto works.
Other applications help seems to work well.

Regards,
Jeff.

edadams - Nov 23, 2005 - 11:10 am

Jeff

Have you tried the help viewer under an newly created user?

This may indicate if it is a user pref causing this issue


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Regards
Ed

shed510 - Dec 11, 2005 - 11:44 pm

The help viewer works perfectly using other logins, but how do I fix mine without upsetting things?

edadams - Dec 12, 2005 - 4:20 am

Jeff

I suggest removing these two files-
com.apple.help.plist
com.apple.helpviewer.plist

These are located in-
/Users/username/Library/Preferences/

Launch help in the apps which are troublesome and see if they work?

Ed

shed510 - Dec 13, 2005 - 8:46 pm

Prior to this latest suggestion, I decided to completely delete my original login and start afresh. The reason being that my address book started playing up. When I click the green plus button, I get one more field and then I can't get any more. This happens when using the edit button or the preferences template. Anyway, after a new login and all the hassle that goes with that, I now have a healthy help viewer, but still a silly address book. I don't mind if you give up on me at this point, because I think nothing short of a complete reinstall will fix the problem. At this stage it is just too much trouble to do that. In the meantime, if I delete files like the last ones you suggested, can I get into to much trouble?
Thank you for your help.

edadams - Dec 13, 2005 - 9:55 pm

OK glad your help is working on the new login.

For address book, delete these files-
/Users/username/Library/Preferences/com.apple.AddressBook.abd.plist
/Users/username/Library/Preferences/com.apple.AddressBook.plist

This may help you, if not, then select all your contacts in address book and drag them to a folder on desktop. Quit address book
Delete the contents of-
/Users/username/Library/Application Support/Address Book/

Start address book and drag the backup file from desktop folder back into address book and see if that has fixed the issue?

I do not give up that easy

Regards
Ed

shed510 - Dec 18, 2005 - 1:47 am

All better, thank you for your patience and help.

Regards,
Jeff Borg.