Project size limitations

[Guest]

I have 7,100 files, including images, in my RH6 project. The project is held in a RoboSource Control 3 database on a server on my network (local copy on my C: drive) and RoboHelp keeps crashing. The Project file size is 54 MB (70 MB on disk).

As much as the project needs to go on a diet, I don't really want to split it up; it would be a nightmare, especially with all the inter-topic links.

I Created a new (local) WebHelp project, and opened the project from Source Control into it. It downloaded all the files but crashed as it was opening the project in RoboHelp.

Is there a limitation on project sizes? Is the project in Source Control corrupted (how can I tell)?

Any advice would be much appreciated.

Thanks,
Dan

[RoboColum_n_]

Hi Dan.

The only limit in a project is the one that makes it unworkable for you. That said, 7000+ topics and associated files in the same project is quite large. From a workability perspective, splitting such a project up would be a good idea in the long term. It may well cause your workload to increase in the short term but once completed it will make things easier.

Before you do anyhting though, I wonder if the RoboSource element has caused a problem here. How big is your project's CPD file? if it is >2mb you could try renaming/deleting it and opening the project again. Failing that, try following the instructions from this link.

[Guest]

Thanks Colum. My .cpd file was unusually large > 10 MB. It's normally less than 1 MB. I deleted it and then re-opened the project, and whenever I do this I get an error message saying that my .cpd file is corrupt, delete it and re-open the project. Well, I've had that message for a different (though still quite large) help project and learned that if you delete the .cpd file, you'll just keep getting that error message. Instead, I just shut down RoboHelp, didn't delete the .cpd, and opened the project again. Instead of a corrupted .cpd error, I now get a bunch of "To execute the selected action, the xxxxxxxx files in the list below must be writable" Confirm Access messages. (One of those files was the .xpj file.) Then RoboHelp froze; I didn't even get into the project.

So frustrating. I'll try again tomorrow.

[Peter Grainge]

I hope you are working on this with a copy of your project. Provided you are, look at the topic about Opening Projects on my site. Delete both the CPD and XPJ files noting what gets lost and how to fix it.

[Gravenstein · Accepted solution]

Hi Dan -

Do you have a zero-length file for your rhvariable.apj file? If so, that is probably the culprit for your crashes on opening after deleting the cpd file.

Sorry to be singing the same old song over and over, but the error message saying that the cpd is corrupt is a typical symptom. It's worth checking, anyway.

G

[Guest]

Peter, Gravenstein,

Thanks for your advice. I did read your article on Opening Projects , Peter, and after deleting the .cpd and the rhvariable.apj (which was indeed 0 KB), I have been able to open the project with no error messages, update topics with images and build tags, and check-in updated topics to RoboSource Control without incident. My .cpd is now 2.5 MB, which seems reasonable.

I haven't tried deleting the .xpj file yet, but if I get any more error messages, I'll try that.

I'll leave this thread unanswered for now, and see how it goes for a couple of days.

Thanks,
Dan

[Guest]

The large projects seem to be behaving themselves now, but I have found that I can't Get a whole project from RoboSource Control from the RoboHelp client (i.e. Open from Version Control into a new folder) - it just shuts down without an error message after downloading all the files and while opening the project. Instead, I have to Get a project from RoboSource Control3 Explorer (which seems quicker), launch RoboHelp, get the 'corrupt .cpd' message, close RoboHelp, re-open without deleting the .cpd and then it works.

Major hassle, but luckily I very rarely need to download entire projects from source control.

I've also learned that having 'local admin rights' hasn't make any difference in any of this.