Search function in Help not working in any application

Question

Level 1

0 points

Search function in Help not working in any application

The Search function is not working in any application's Help. Upon entering the terms I need help for I get a hang at "Searching..." but never any result. This problem started sometime in the last year or so. Prior to that the search function in Help worked fine. My network connectivity is excellent.

I recently reinstalled OS X 10.5 but I'm sure the problem existed before that and persisted after the reinstall.

The reinstall was due to upgrading to 10.7 and only then finding that I had lost needed functionality, but I don't think this has anything to do with the current problem. All other aspects of Help seem to be working fine

I don't find any reference to this problem anywhere so I'm hoping someone can help with my Help(!) problem. Thanks in advance.

iMac Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4 GHZ, Mac OS X (10.5.8)

Posted on Jul 11, 2012 4:22 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Klaus1

Level 9

52,749 points

Jul 11, 2012 5:16 PM in response to jcwsmith

I recently reinstalled OS X 10.5 but I'm sure the problem existed before that and persisted after the reinstall.

The reinstall was due to upgrading to 10.7

Sorry, that makes no sense.

What version of OS X are you running?

Reply

Answer 2

jcwsmith Author

Level 1

0 points

Jul 12, 2012 7:16 AM in response to Klaus1

Klaus1

Thanks for the response.

I was at 10.5.8 when the problem first appeared.

Later I upgraded to 10.6 then 10.7 for unrelated reasons. When I realized that I preferred 10.5 I erased the disk and reinstalled 10.5.

I included this bit of history only to illustrate that the reinstall of 10.5 did not correct the problem.

I am now at version 10.5.8.

I'll try to explain the problem better.

From observation it seems that each application has a certain amount of Help information stored locally. If none of that Help applies to the terms entered in the Search field then it appears that the application attempts to find the answer to those terms over the internet. I see this in all OS X apps as well as Firefox. The only other application I have is Quicken 07 and it does not appear to try to use an online search for Help.

In my current case the above scenario results in "Searching..." endlessly with no results. It is what I might expect if I had lost internet connectivity, but that is not the case. It seems as though the application and/or OS X has "forgotten" how to find its desired souce of data online.

For what it's worth, as far as I can tell Spotlight and all other Help functions are working as I think they should.

I hope this clarifies the problem and doesn't muddy it further.

Jack

Reply

Answer 3

Klaus1

Level 9

52,749 points

Jul 12, 2012 2:48 PM in response to jcwsmith

Try running your Leopard install disk again, as well as the 10.5.8 combo updater. This might reinstall any 'missing bits'.

You can do this without deleting the hard drive, just install straight over your existing system, but close all applications and external devices first.

Or you could also do this via an Archive and Instal:

How to Archive & Install:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1710

and this also:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2196?viewlocale=en_US

This document explains how to correctly reinstall a prior version of Mac OS X in the event that other troubleshooting does not resolve an issue:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=25404

BUT: Don't install older versions of Mac OS than what came with your computer:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2186?viewlocale=en_US

Reply