RH8 crashes when starting the application

[Rasterdan2U]

Everytime i attempt to start RH8 the splash screen pops up and starts loading but when it gets to Loading HTML Editors, it crashes with the following:

I have performed a repair and nothing has changed.  I suppose it will be the uninstall then reinstall but i did not want to go that route without checking to see if anyone else has encountered this problem.

[Rasterdan2U]

Uninstall and reinstall did not work either.  Same problem.  RoboHelp 8 crashes starting up every time it gets to loading html editors.

[Peter Grainge]

Are you starting RH from the start menu (no specific project) or opening a project from Windows Explorer?

I've seen RH throw the error but the second attempt works. Certainly I have not know it repeatedly error other than when a specific project is involved.

This was working for you so has something in the environment changed?

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[Rasterdan2U]

I have tried launching from the tray icon, the desktop icon and now from the start button. It crashes every time. It worked yesterday. I hibernated the pc overnight and today, crash-o-manga. Rebooting did not help. Repair did not help. Uninstall/reinstall did not help. It is really unhappy with my computer right now. Nothing new was loaded. Nothing different was done. I don't think any auto updates occurred.

Dan Vasterling

T +1 604 273 7730 M +1 727 698 3422

[Peter Grainge]

Nasty one this. Normally you can identify that it is project related - some projects cause issues and others don't - or it is installation related - an uninstall and reinstall fixes it. You are not at the point of opening a project but a reinstall hasn't fixed it.

It might be worth trying the uninstall again but this time with the free RevoUninstaller. A number of people have had success with that. Use the most advanced option but do not the instructions and only delete stuff marked bold at the end. Obviously, at your own risk.

Adobe's site does have a troubleshooting guide for this sort of situation. Post back if the above does not help and you cannot find the article.

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[johndaigle]

What's really odd is that it apparently was working before this happened, so Peter's right to be asking "what changed"?  I don't know that much about hibernation, but that does seem to be a candidate for mischief since it was coming out of hibernation when this happened.

I don't suppose you have a Windows Restore Point you could revert to at the time everything was ok? That's worth a try given the trouble you've already gone through.

It may not make any difference, but it would also be helpful to know what OS (XP, Vista, Win7) you are using. 64-bit?

Also, the error dialog has a Debug button and a Click here link to see the data that is being sent. It might be helpful to have that info as well if we need to go to engineering with this.

...just graspin' here.

John

[Rasterdan2U]

I called Adobe Tech support and they had me delete all of my temp files. That did not work. So, he sent me to a link for basic troubleshooting which means they don't have a clue either. One option is to reformat my disk and reload the os and RH8. That sure sounds like fun ... not.

I am running XP professional. I clicked the debug button but did not see anything but a window that flashed up for a microsecond. I can try to see if there I a restore point.

I have not loaded any new drivers. I did hook up my KVM switch yesterday but I have used it in the past without any problems. I will investigate to see if that might be causing some trouble. I disconnected it but I suspect that I need to reboot. So bye bye...

Dan Vasterling

T +1 604 273 7730 M +1 727 698 3422

[Rasterdan2U]

OK, i have identified the problem and have it working temporarily.  I run RH8 on my laptop.  The laptop is in a D-Dock with a Matrox Dual video card.  My laptop has a high end nvidia card built in.  To make the system work so that i can use one monitor from the laptop card and both monitors on the Matrox card work, the laptop gets booted until the display on the laptop starts then hot dock.  This tells the laptop to use the internal card.  When it is booting, it recognizes the Matrox card and uses it as a secondary card.  This enables my 3 displays.  4 if i enable the laptop which is handy for email.

The dog was barking to go out during my last boot so it came up without hot docking which uses only the Matrox card in my D-Dock.  So i said well, it is up, lets give it a go.  Presto, it worked.  So, i rebooted with a hot dock and brought all monitors up and it doesn't work.  So something happened last night to the driver for the laptop display.  I am going to try to roll the driver back and see if something changed.  Maybe some auto update occured.

Anyway, there is some issue with the video driver that for now i can work around and i have too much work to do to be fooling around with the drivers.  So, i am off to work and if i solve the dual driver issue, i will post the results.

Thanks gents!

dv

[Rasterdan2U]

I have solved my problem.  Switching to one video card got me on the right track in the previous post.  I was attempting to try a previous restore point and hit the F2 button which opened the BIOS for my laptop.  I started poking around in there to see what options were available and what setting options were selected.

I found an interesting dock setting that allows the video card in the laptop to act as a primary and the dock video card to work as a secondary.  This allows my laptop screen to stay on and not require a hot dock.  It also allows RoboHelp to open properly.  There must be something in RH8 that was not happy about running from the secondary video card set as primary.  It has been working perfectly for years this way but I guess some windows update changed that now.

This is a very nice setup though, a dell laptop in a d-dock with a pci dual video card.  It allows the laptop screen plus another monitor off the dvi port on back of the dock, plus 2 more monitors off the dual video card allowing 4 monitors.  It sounds like a lot but it allows me to use the laptop for email and helpdesk calls while using on monitor for solidworks, another with robohelp, and the 4th with photoshop, word and sometimes illustrator.

Anyway, my system works better than ever and RH8 seems to be working normally now.  I think that there was a windows update the other day that started this whole problem rolling.  A rather odd solution to a nonstandard setup.  I wish our IT guys would have told me about this BIOS setting.  They are just trying to keep their heads above water while a few of us are pushing our computers to the maximum of their capabilities and they don't want to use their resources to really fix our problems.  They would rather reformat our drives and load the last image that worked to solve problems.  Brutal.

[Rasterdan2U]

One additional note, the DVI connection on the back of my docking station was also causing some problems with RH8.  Once i switched my display from the DVI to VGA, it seems to be working with all displays.