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drambuie

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Feb 16, 2010
751
1
I just noticed that clicking on most of the help ? marks in System Preferences returns, "The selected topic is currently unavailable" from the Apple server. Network help is one of the few that still works. Could Apple be updating their help server, or is something else happening? I have a 2012 27" iMac, just updated to 10.8.3 this week. It all worked prviously.
 

Weaselboy

Moderator
Staff member
Jan 23, 2005
34,482
16,197
California
Just checked on several of the pref panes and all mine work on 10.8.3. Maybe it was a temp. issue on Apple's side.
 

gc916

macrumors regular
Apr 23, 2012
157
0
I was having the same issue with Help topics yesterday. I found this info from a link (scroll to the bottom) on the Apple Support Communities site, and thought it was worth a try. It may have been coincidence (if indeed the problem was on Apple's side) but the first four steps resolved the problem for me.
 

drambuie

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Feb 16, 2010
751
1
Still having issues with this?

Yes. This problem started with the 10.8.3 update. As I said, it's not a complete help viewer failure as it does work for some preferences items. Help on my MBP with 10.6.8 works perfectly.

Gc916 didn't say which OS X version he has, but the mentioned procedure doesn't apply to my 10.8.3 install. I have no help related plist entries.

I thought that there may have been an issue with the 10.8.3 combo download, so I redownloaded and reinstalled it, with the same results. The problem seems to be with Preferences only. It works for all apps, etc.
 

gc916

macrumors regular
Apr 23, 2012
157
0
Gc916 didn't say which OS X version he has, but the mentioned procedure doesn't apply to my 10.8.3 install. I have no help related plist entries.
Sorry I didn't think to include that info. I'm running 10.8.3 on my MBP. The procedure that I quoted in my earlier post definitely solved the System Preferences>Help problem for me.
 
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