Corrupt .cpd file

[Julien_Marchand]

This morning, when I came in the office, I loaded the RoboHelp 6 project I was working on last night. However, this morning, I got an unusual message:

quote:

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Your project file, manual.cpd is corrupt and cannot be opened.
Try deleting the file and reopening the XPJ.

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However, the project still loads, the topic still open, but the files are no longer linked to the table of contents or index I made.

When deleting the file (I actually renamed it to somthing RH6 won't be able to find), I no longer get that message, but my topic list is now empty and no files are listed in the topic list.

Anyone faced that same situation? I'm guessing the solution would be to add all the topic files to the project and then start all over again for the TOC, index, etc. with a new .cpd file.

Thanks a lot

[Peter Grainge]

Welcome to the forum.

Is this project on a network? All RH projects should be on your local drive. If you use source control, then the topics are pulled back to the local drive to work on and that is OK.

At what point did you delete the CPD and where did you rename it?

Did you back up the project before you started deleting and renaming?

Take a look at the topic on my site about Opening Projects. Maybe deleting the CPD and XPJ and then using the HHP file to start again will help.

But backup before you do anything else, if you haven't already.

[Julien_Marchand]

Thanks Peter for the quick reply.

To answer your questions:

Project is on my hard drive, but backed up over the network. We don't use version control yet, but we planned to setup this as soon asmy rush was over.

I opened robohelp, saw the message, then closed it. I then renamed the cpd to cpd.old.

I followed your advice and opened the project from the hhp file (renaming both the cpd and the xpj to cpd.bak and .xpj.bak) and it worked flawlessly.

[ginafromtampa]

Thank you so much for posting this.  Followed instructions to delete .cpd and .xpj file and my project is working now.  (I'm using Robohelp 7).  I also had uninstalled and reinstalled RoboHelp.  One thing to mention and it might seem obvious to others but it wasn't to me.  I had tried to open the .hhp file from Windows Explorer by associating it to RoboHelp.  But that only opened it as a txt file.  You have to open RoboHelp first, then open the .hhp file.

[rccrcoleman]

"I had tried to open the .hhp file from Windows Explorer by associating it to RoboHelp.  But that only opened it as a txt file.  You have to open RoboHelp first, then open the .hhp file."

Would you mind clarifying for me what you mean.  I want to rename my CPD. file and then open my project using the xpj file.  In order to do that do I open robohelp and click on the open folder, find my project open it and then click on the xpj file ?

Message was edited by: rccrcoleman Added quotation marks

[ginafromtampa]

This is actually what I did to fix the corrupted RH 7 project:

1. Uninstalled and reinstalled Robohelp.

2. Fixed by deleting cpd and xpj, then open rh, then open hhp

3. It wiped out the index and TOC in the UI.  Rebuilt by creating new ones based on existing .hhc and .hhk files in project. 

4. Wouldn't let me create new ssl layout, but let me choose one I already had (left the .ssl files in the directory but not in the UI).

5. Also blanked out the rhbuildtag.apj file.  I copied the one from my backup project (which I usually do weekly)

6. Also wiped out the variables.  Found them in the printed docs, then in RoboHelp click on the variables and they redisplay.

[rccrcoleman]

Thanks for your response.  I was able to just rename the CPD and open with the XPJ file thank goodness.  If it had been any more complicated than that I think I would have melted.