Troubleshooting the help server

The Help Server should start automatically after installation of Maya, and is available whether or not you are using Maya. However, if you get a File Not Found error or Can't Find the Server error when trying to view the Maya help, please read this document for troubleshooting tips.

Was the help installed properly?

Please check in the Maya documentation directory to see if the Maya Help was installed. If there is no content in the following folder, make sure that your installation process happened correctly: you may need to do a custom installation of just the Maya Help. See the printed Installation and Licensing Guide for details.

Starting the Help Server: Windows

If the Maya Help was installed (that is, there is content in the docs directory of your Maya installation, as you determined in the previous step), but the Help Server is not started, do one of the following:

Please note that you may need to be a PowerUser/Admin Privileged account on your Windows machine in order to start the Maya documentation server service.

Starting the Help Server: Mac OS X, Linux

If the Maya Help was installed (that is, there is content in the docs directory of your Maya installation, as you determined in the previous step), but the Help Server is not started, do the following:

  1. Open a shell or Terminal window and cd to the location where the Help Server is installed.
  2. Start the doc server by typing: ./startdocserver.sh

What if I can't start the help server service on Windows unless I'm an Administrator?

This is a known issue with Windows. Refer to the following Microsoft knowledge base articles for information on how to fix this.


support.microsoft.com/?kbid=256299

support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;256345

What if my browser complains that "localhost" is not found? Or searches the Internet for "localhost"? What if the server seems to be running but I can't load any pages from it?

This can happen if your computer is behind a proxy server.

Make sure the proxy configuration for your browser knows that you shouldn't be going through the proxy to access "localhost".

You can also try using your computer's DNS name or IP address instead of localhost. In Maya, choose Window > Settings/Preferences > Preferences and click Help. Set Help Location to Remote and enter http://<your computer's name or IP address>:4449/Maya7.0/en_US/.

What if I still can't view help from the help server? What if the Web server won't start?

There are a few other conditions that may prevent the help server from starting:

Port issues

The Help Server may not start if another network service on your machine has already claimed port 4449. You can make the Maya help server use a different port number by editing docs/port.txt under the main Maya folder.

The Help Server may not start if another copy of the Help Server is still running on the same port. Try opening a page from the server in a browser (for example http://localhost:4449/Maya7.0/en_US/) to see if this is the case.

Certain Internet security and anti-virus software (such as ZoneAlarm and Norton Internet Security) may block software from using http ports on your system. The software may pop up a query window, asking you to allow the Help Server to use port 4449, or it may block the use of the help server without giving you a status message. You can configure your security software to allow access through port 4449. See your security software documentation for details.

Windows Misconfiguration

On Windows, the Maya help server runs as a network service, and Maya uses the net start and net stop commands to control it. It is possible for Windows to be misconfigured to the point where these commands are not available on the command line. To test this, open a command window and type net start aliasdocserver. If the computer responds that the net command is not a command, you need to fix your system paths to include the directory with the net command.

No Mac TCP/IP settings

If your Macintosh is not yet set up to use a TCP/IP network, the Help Server will not run. You can get around this limitation by manually configuring a loopback network with the following values:

Old help servers

On Mac OS X or Linux, you may get a condition, especially after uninstalling and reinstalling, where an old help server is still running and unable to serve content. Find the server process in the process list (grep for java and/or lucene) and kill it, then restart Maya.

How do I shut down the help server?

On Mac OS X or Linux, do the following:

  1. Open a shell or terminal window and cd to the location where the Help Server is installed.
  2. Stop the doc server by typing: ./stopdocserver.sh

On Windows, do one of the following:

To view the Maya Help again, you must restart the help server. See Starting the Help Server: Windows or Starting the Help Server: Mac OS X, Linux.

Shutting down the help server when you quit Maya

By default, the help server stays active whether you are working in Maya or not. You can choose to shut down the service when you quit Maya by setting the shutDownDocServer option variable. If the value is set to 1, the help server stops when Maya quits. If the value is set to 0, the help server runs whether or not Maya is running.

Do one of the following:


optionVar -iv "shutDownDocServer" 1;

optionVar -iv "shutDownDocServer" 0;