helpd quit unexpectedly

[tfindlay]

I occasionally get a crash report window opening up saying "helpd quit unexpectedly". Does anyone know what "helpd" is? Should I be concerned?

 

[chas_m]

Does this happen with any one specific program, or is it a problem that pops up with a variety of programs?

 

[tfindlay]

It just seems to happen randomly. Here's a screenshot.

 

[chas_m]

Try this:

In Finder, you'll see a "Go" menu. Use that to go to YOURUSERNAME/Library/Caches, then look for and drag to trash the file called com.apple.helpd to the trash (this is just a preference file: a new one will be generated later, so don't empty the trash yet). Then restart the machine. That should fix the issue.

Cheers
Chas

 

[tfindlay]

Thanks Chas. I'll give that a try.

 

[tfindlay]

Unfortunately, trashing the prefs file doesn't seem to have solved the issue. I did a Google search and found a suggestion to delete Apple Help cache files. I used OnyX to do this and so far no more crash reports. Fingers crossed.