File Update Crashes Robohelp

[Guest]

This is a persistent problem that I've had from Day One of using this product. And yes, I have all updates installed.

I am able to create the RH project and copy by reference the FM book, and generate webhelp alright, but occasionally and for no apparent reason, when I update a single file (chapter) in RH, the update goes to an unspecified point and crashes the program. Every subsequent update of that file results in the same crash. Now I am afraid to update the entire book for fear of corrupting the entire project. When I re-open the RH project following the crash, all the cross-reference markers in the updated file appear in RH as red boxes. Does this indicate a problem with a specific cross-reference in the FM source file?

Any help would be greatly appreciated as the amount of manual post-synchronization work in the converted RH files is significant (due to Chinese translation). By the way, other larger FM files in the same project updated successfully (and were also subject to the same Chinese translation process), so I'm at a loss as to the cause of this problem. It must be in the specific FM source file somewhere.

[Guest]

Follow up to my own question, but not necessarily the solution:

Apparently, the source file had some cross-references that pointed to a file that was not in the FM book. I have somebody fixing those now, then we will retest the file update in RH.
Could this cause the file update in RH to crash?

[Guest]

I and others have encountered this behavior in RH7; given that Adobe has provided no fix for this behavior, it's been my understanding that this is a feature and not a bug. We've had to create a new project when this has occurred. I'd recommend exporting your mapping settings and backing up your styles (fmstyles.css) in order to make working with this feature more enjoyable in the future. It saves a lot of time in recreating the project.

We just upgraded to RH8, and I'm hoping that this feature has been dropped from the new version.

[Guest]

When your RH project becomes corrupted and you can no longer perform an update command, try closing RH and deleting the CPD file instead of recreating your project from scratch. Then restart RH and update the project.

In one case (working locally), I was able to restore my project. In another case (working from a network directory), RH lost its links to the FM files. I don't know if working locally or on the network made a difference in the recovery. Regardless, Adobe needs to fix this issue ASAP!!!!! or are we supposed to spend hundreds of dollars more to upgrade to TCS 2?

[Guest]

Thanks for the tip. Next time I run into this, I will try deleting the CPD file. We do all our RH work locally so maybe that will do the trick.

Instead of spending a lot of development on AIR and throwing Photoshop into the product, Adobe really needs to focus on fixing these corruption issues.

[Guest]

Please Adobe, answer this question and/or address this persistent problem.

Once I deleted the CPD file, not only did half of the files in the FM book lose their links in RH (folder icons appeared instead of the Framemaker Integration icons in the Project Manager > Project Files list) but also got an error message about not being able to update the RHFrameDocs.apj file upon re-opening the RH project. Once the project fully opened in RH, updating a single FM file with the latest changes caused the project to crash, and subsequent repetition of  the deletion of the CPD file no longer worked. Note that none of the FM source files have been moved or renamed or presented any evidence of corruption or crashing, and there have been ZERO problems generating the book in FM, or the PDF. The only variable in our files is that we are using an english-to-chinese character translation program in FM which does not affect any FM book or file operation, and we have correctly set the language in RH. The translator had to change the name of a couple of topics in the FM source, and these renamed topics were NOT updated in the RH project (in fact, the original files in the Project List had X's next to them, indicating that they didn't exist.

I am going to have to rebuild this project from scratch for the second time, but this is getting beyond ridiculous. I will NOT upgrade just to fix this problem.

Adobe, where the heck are you on this? You have long-time customers getting increasingly angry and considering a move to a different software vendor for a solution.

So my questions are:

• Why does the RHFrameDocs.apj not get updated?
• Why does the RH project lose its links to the original FM source files?
• Why do some of the files (including the book) lose their Framemaker Integration icons in the RH Project Manager and appear as Windows folder icons instead?
• Why does the update process continually crash RH?

[RoboWizard]

Hi there

The tenor of your post would seem to infer you believe the Adobe engineers are intently watching the forums in search of issues like yours to address. I'm basing that from your statements:

michaelscohen wrote:

Please Adobe, answer this question and/or address this persistent problem...

...Adobe, where the heck are you on this? You have long-time customers getting increasingly angry and considering a move to a different software vendor for a solution.

The fact is, these forums aren't the place to seek help from Adobe. Sure some of the Adobe staff will visit here from time to time, but if you really want them to see the issue, you need to submit it via the proper channel. That channel is called the Wish Form/Bug Reporting Form.

Click here to visit the Wish Form/Bug Reporting Form

Largely these forums are user-to-user support.

Cheers... Rick

Click here for Adobe Authorized Captivate and RoboHelp HTML Training Click here for the SorcerStone Blog Click here for RoboHelp and Captivate eBooks

[Peter Grainge]

Or go to TechSupport.

---

Visit www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

Unfortunately, I think Support is a bit baffled on this issue too - I haven't had much luck with them figuring out why my FM9 master book crashes RH8 so consistantly.

[______3]

Same here. Using RH 8, first force update of FM book converted to version 9 crashes the app cold; subsequent attempts have the same result.

Deleting the .cpd does not appear to make any difference.

Any workarounds?

[Guest]

I am having exactly the same problem as well.

I am thinking it is a memory issue....How much RAM do you have on the computer running TCS?

I have 1.5 MB and I think it may be too little.

I used to have 1.O MB and it crashed more often

now I have 1.5 MB and it crashes less often but the crash does occur only on updating frame files in robohelp.

the process starts and then an error occurs, RH shuts down and that is it

the only solution is rebuilding the project from scratch...

the workaround i have read doesn't work.

any and I mean any ideas would be helpful as I lose 2 days work rebuilding the help project each time it crashes.
thanks!!!

Laura Novich

[Guest]

I don't think RAM is a factor; the PC we're using to generate the RH has 2 gigs of RAM, which should be plenty. The crashing is intermittent; fortunately, I have been able to quickly rebuild the project when necessary (the CPD file deletion work around doesn't work for me), so this has not been a supercritical issue, although it is annoying to have to rebuild the project periodically.

I still like this product even with the crashing.

[Guest]

Laura,

Two days to rebuild a corrupted project sounds excessive. Many of the settings can be carried over from the corrupted project to a new project. Use the following checklist (Project A = Corrupted Project; Project B = New Project):

• Copy the applicable .CSS file from Project A to Project B.
• Copy the style mapping information. This workaround was originally posted by JainVivek on 1/29/08:
  1. Backup Project B.
  2. Copy the RHFrameStyleMappings.APJ file of Project A to Project B (this file is located in the project folders of Project B).
  3. Delete the CPD file of Project B.
  4. Start RoboHelp Project B.
  5. The style mappings show up in the RoboHelp project in the dialog.
• If using topic templates, import the template from Project A to Project B.
• If employing context-sensitive help, copy the map file (e.g. BSSCDefault.h) from Project A to Project B.

Granted, using this checklist is a small bandage for a large wound. I hope Adobe is working on a patch that fixes this corruption problem.

[Guest]

Thanks for the tip...

I was exaggerating on the timetable it takes about 3-5 hours to do the project but in order to do this I cannot have anything running in the background while the files are updating and importing.

I am so upset over these crashes (honestly at first I thought it was me... how relieved I am to see it is Adobe) that my company wants me to look for a new vendor.  I have been a FM user since version 3 or 4 (about 12 years) and have no desire to change authoring tools.

I just want this issue fixed and I do not want to upgrade to TCS 2 (unless Adobe gives it to me)... if the software is defective I as a paying customer should get a patch or a fix of somekind....

I issued a bug report and contacted my software supplier, but I am sure this will go no where...

anyone have an idea?

Laura

[Guest]

Laura, out of sheer desperation borne of a RH crash upon attempting to update a single chapter in a previously fully functioning FM-RH project, one of our writers closed RoboHelp and deleted the RHFrameDocs.apj file.

VOILA!!!

Upon re-opening the project, the single chapter was updated successfully without a crash, and the link to the FM source book was maintained, the entire book was also subsequently updated successfully without crashing, the help project compiled successfully and all was right with the world.

Not sure WHY this worked though; I'm guessing that the RHFrameDocs.apj file is one of the supporting files that becomes corrupt (although why this should be, I don't know). So you might try that, but first rename the original file JUST IN CASE.

In summary, deleting the RHFrameDocs.apj file resolved a crash that occurred when trying to update a single chapter in RoboHelp.

Now, somebody is going to tell me that you should NEVER NEVER do this! But it worked for us on this one occasion.

[isologica]

not much more action in this thread, but I am having terrible problems with RH appcrashes and FM linking as well, even without a corrupted project (initial project was actually corrupted, but i decided to start with a new RH project to save troubleshooting time).

VERY unhappy TS2/2.5 customer!!

[Matt S - Tech Comm Tools]

I've posted a list of solutions to your problem (with the new project "solution" listed as one of the last resorts) at
http://blogs.roundpeg.com/2010/01/checklist-for-framemaker-to-robohelp-crashes/

If it helps (or not) please leave a comment there and/or here

-Matt

[isologica]

@Matt - great tips, and I wish they helped, but they don't. It seems that I have isolated it to two files that consistently crash the conversion process...but since there is no indication of page # or offending element, the hunt will be difficult.

PS: I would hire someone to help troubleshoot the FM files in question. If interested, contact me at my first name and the domain listed below

Bastian

Isologica Software, Inc. – www.isologica.com

[Guest]

I had this same problem with RoboHelp 8. I updated some of my linked Word files, but they didn't update in RoboHelp (they should have shown up red, so I would know to update them). I went ahead and updated the files so I could get the HTML files. Well, this caused a crash and when I tried to open RoboHelp again, I got the RPJ error message. RoboHelp opened, but the linked files were gone. I still had the HTML files, but that wasn't going to help much because my client needs seamless updates as they change their documents.

So, I read here how one user's data center re-build the APJ file. I copied the APJ file to my desktop and opened it with Wordpad to check the HTML - especially at the end, where I found two instances of </genfile > that didn't match up to <genfile>. (I did go through the whole document to be sure I wasn't missing anything). I deleted them, copied the file back to my RoboHelp directory and opened RoboHelp without any problems. The linked files are there and everything seems back to normal.

I hope this helps you.

[isologica]

Fab - thanks for the tips.

I have managed to tip-toe around these issues (more gingerluy than I care to) and hope that TCS3 with new FM/RH integration is going to solve these issues

Regards,

Bastian