TOC not compiling correctly

[Authorgirl]

Help, I have a horrible problem and a deadline first thing tomorrow.

When I compiled my project in HTML, I noticed that two of the TOC books were not included. There are no conditional tags set for them. When I create a new book just to see what happened, that doesn't show up either. It seems that the TOC has got corrupted somehow and isn't shwing any new changes. Is there anything I can do without having to recreate my TOC which is huge?

Thanks

[Peter Grainge]

Are you generating webhelp or a CHM? Both use HTML.

Create a new topic with just the text "redrabbit". Generate and search. That will establish the help is updating and you are looking at the right output.

In the wizard, are you selecting the same TOC as the one you are editing?

RH7, RH8?

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[Authorgirl]

I'm generating a chm in RH7 and I only have one TOC.

Yes a topic called redrabbit is updated but not a folder of the same name in the top level of the TOC.

I have a lot of conditional build tags in my project and suspect it is something to do with them. This all started when I excluded a book from the output. The book was successfully excluded but so was another one that I had wanted included. Both books are contained together in another book. This top level book has no tag attached. I need to exclude lots of other books within the project and it has worked correctly in those cases.

So I suspected a problem with this particular tag and deleted it from the project as a workaround. Then I discovered that I can't add a new book to the top level of the TOC.

I have checked some old backups I have and it seems the problem has been there for ages. I have only just discovered it as I have only just now needed to create this specific output.

[Authorgirl]

I notice lots of instances of this message during compilation:

HHC5003: Error:
Compilation failed while compiling Unnamed\image22.jpg.

The message all concern images but these images display fine in the compiled chm.

[Peter Grainge]

Recreate the tag(s) you deleted, character perfect.

Then go to the CBT Pod and right click on that tag. Select Properties. Does it show anything in Used In?

You could also try renaming the CPD and reopening the project.

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[Authorgirl]

I have sorted the deadline by modifying an old project so the pressure's off for a while.

Yes I recreated the tag and checked its properties and it is 'used in' all the TOC books/pages to which it was originally attached. And the hashing has returned on the books/pages in the TOC.

It doesn't seem to matter whether the tag exists for that book or not - RH behaves as though it is there and has been set to be excluded. The topics are never included in the TOC when I generate a chm. The topics do not exist in the index either and all links to them from elsewhere have been removed - all as though there is a tag.

And I cannot add any new books to the TOC.

I don't know if this is related to the error messages I get whilst compiling - the HC5003 error. Racking my brains, I do now remember getting a message something like 'project.hhk_backup cannot be created' when I was using Find&Replace a little while ago. I guess this was the start of it. Do you know what may have caused this?

I think I will have to return to a version of the project before the problem tag was created and redo the work. Renaming the cpd file had no effect.

Thanks anyway.

[Peter Grainge]

Before you delete a tag, you must remove all references to it so you have to untag the TOC entries, any topics, and any content that are tagged. You cannot just delete the tag and it sounds like that is what you did.

You need to get to the point where the Properties show nothing is tagged.

Then it should work correctly.

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[Authorgirl]

Ah yes that is exactly what I did. I deleted the tag without having removed the references to it. I assumed it was OK to let RH do that for me.

I have learned my lesson.

Thanks so much for unravelling that.