If you are having any of these issues this troubleshooting guide might help you out:

• Octane is not starting with octane installed
• Houdini is starting but octane plugin is missing completely
• Houdini is starting and some octane elements exist but others don’t
• I opened an older file after an update and I’m getting a bunch of errors
• …

There are a few common things you can try that will resolve your issue 90% of the time. Try these first!

1. Ensure proper installation

Here is a video guide on installing the plugin:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0AX-YBRQAw

Common issues:

• Using houdini.env to install octane plugin (NO LONGER SUPPORTED)
• Having solaris.json file in your packages folder (was briefly used by Octane Solaris plugin but caused some issues)
• Having the wrong Octane plugin installed (needs to match Houdini version EXACTLY - so Octane 2026.2 Houdini 21.0.631 will only work with Houdini 21.0.631
• If setting up your own json, using an outdated json (with missing paths) or using the “/” instead of “\”

2. Redownload and re-unpack the octane installation.

Sometimes the zip file can get corrupted during download or unpack. Usually if this is the case you will get weird errors when starting houdini or the IPR and you will have missing octane material/vop nodes etc.

3. Clear Octanes AppData folders

In some cases there has been a corrupt file in octanes cache/app data folder. You can delete or rename the folder in AppData/Roaming/OctaneRender and AppData/Local/OctaneRender. You might have to re-login after doing this, and if you’re using meshlets/virtual textures they might recache (automatically on first IPR start), but there have been quite a few times where this resolved the problem.

4. Temporarily reset the Houdini documents folder