"help" doesn't work

Question

When I start to type any for of question into the "Help" box of ANY application the iMac just freezes and the beachball starts to rotate. Eventually the typing is entered but after quite a delay, probably 30 seconds per letter.
Anyone ever come across this before?

Answer 1

Sometimes just closing and reopening the Help window will clear up the problem. Otherwise, you may need to delete the Help cache.
Back up all data.
Triple-click anywhere in the line below on this page to select it:
~/Library/Caches/com.apple.helpd
Right-click or control-click the highlighted line and select 
Services ▹ Reveal
from the contextual menu.* A Finder window should open with a folder selected. Move the selected folder to the Trash. Log out, log back in, and test. Help pages will be slow to load at first.
If that doesn't work, the problem may be caused by network conditions. It may go away by itself, though I can't say how long you should wait.
   A persistent failure to load help data has been reported as an issue with satellite networks. Test on a different network, if possible. I've also seen at least one report that Photo Stream in iCloud can mysteriously interfere with Help. I'm not sure whether that's true, but try disabling Photo Stream, if applicable.*If you don't see the contextual menu item, copy the selected text to the Clipboard (command-C). In the Finder, select
Go ▹ Go to Folder...
from the menu bar, paste into the box that opens (command-V). You won't see what you pasted because a line break is included. Press return.