Try deleting the HPDBookRemoteURL
key (see Authoring Apple Help).
· on per-application basis:
defaults delete /Applications/MyApplication.app/Contents/Resources/MyApplication.help/Contents/Info.plist HPDBookRemoteURL
If you catch the outgoing connections with Little Snitch, the problem will be rather getting to know which application's help book is triggering it, as the URL might point to a cloud server whose name won't contain any of the author's data, see below.
· on a cache basis
cat ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.helpd/HelpCache.plist | grep -C 2 HPDBookRemoteURL
Sample output
--
<key>HPDBookPathKey</key>
<string>/Applications/Server.app/Contents/Resources/GetStarted.help</string>
<key>HPDBookRemoteURL</key>
<string>https://help.apple.com/serverapp/mac/getstarted/2.2/help/</string>
<key>HPDBookTitle</key>
--
--
<key>HPDBookPathKey</key>
<string>/Applications/DEVONthink Pro.app/Contents/Resources/DEVONthink Pro Office.help</string>
<key>HPDBookRemoteURL</key>
<string>http://s3.amazonaws.com/DTWebsiteSupport/download/devonthink/2.7.5/DEVONthink%20Pro%20Office.help/Contents/Resources/</string>
<key>HPDBookTitle</key>
--
Then you might want to clear these other caches ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.helpd/Cache*
and restart helpd
.
Helpd seems a bit more sinister. Starting it up, then using lsof shows it accessing System.keychain, my personal login.keychain, SystemRootCertifcates.keychain. – Sherwood Botsford – 2013-11-04T19:12:38.787