RoboHelp 8 blow-up with right-click on TOC item

[Dave56]

Fellow Forum Foragers,

I would like to know if anyone else has had this problem or knows of a solution.  When I have the TOC pod open and I right-click on a TOC book or page, Robo shuts down and gives me the standard "send error report to Bill" message.  I am apparently trying to do something that I'm not supposed to do, and i usually do it when I am humming along on other work.  Obviously the big headache hear is the loss of any unsaved work when Robo goes to lunch like this.  Any suggestions?

~Dave

[RoboColum_n_]

Hi Dave.

I've not heard of this problem. Can you give us a better idea of how you are using your TOC pod. Is it pinned in the margin and displayed when you hover over it or docked inside the RH window. Also is it just one TOC book you are getting the problem on? Perhaps if we knew this we could try and narrow down the issue.

---

• Read the RoboColum(n) for a tips, tricks and musings on the Technical Communication Suite products.
• Follow the RoboColum(n) on Twitter

[Dave56]

Thanks for responding, Colum. I use my TOC docked inside the RH window.

In the projects I work on, I often ad topics initially that need to be

books later with additional topics underneath. When this has occurred

it has been because I have right-clicked a TOC item before reminding

myself that it causes Robo to crash. Here is the visual.

~Dave

[Guest]

Hi Dave,

I have the same problem with one of my projects. I had copied the TOC files from another project instead of creating them from inside RH (and I modified the .xpj file manually so as RH would know the TOCs were there).

Now right-clicking anywhere in the TOC pod crashes RH (whether the pod is docked or floating). Any new TOC I create (properly) does the same.

Deleting the .cpd file has no effect.

When I created the project I was trying to save time: I did create the project and import all the files properly, but copied and pasted all the .hhc, .apj and .ssl files from another project.  Did you by any chance do the same thing?

C.

[Captiv8r]

Hi there

Note that RoboHelp 8 changes the file structure of the TOC, Index, Glossary and many other files. The structure is a new XML format. So it's not too surprising to me that if one were to simply copy another TOC or whatever from another project that maybe was older and just wholesale replace it in the folder that it would maybe make RoboHelp gag.

What is surprising here is that you report that you created a totally fresh TOC and are seeing the same behavior.

If you create an entirely new project do you see a crash with the TOC or does it seem to work properly?

Cheers... Rick

Helpful and Handy Links RoboHelp Wish Form/Bug Reporting Form Begin learning RoboHelp HTML 7 or 8 within the day - $24.95! Adobe Certified RoboHelp HTML Training SorcerStone Blog RoboHelp eBooks

[Dave56]

Thanks very much TW_75 and Rick for your responses.

I inherited this project with the job, so I am not sure how the TOC was created originally.  When I began working on it, our client had us use RoboInfo to publish to their intranet and internet sites (I create eManuals for a large organization and I'm required to work in one of their buildings on their equipment).  Last year they decided to upgrade to RH8, so I converted all the exisiting projects at that time.  Since then I have created three new projects which do not have the problem with the TOC.  In fact, after poking around a bit more I realized that only the two oldest projects (which also happen to be the two largest) have the TOC crash issue.  It seems obvious now, thanks to the two of you, that the conversion may be the culprit.  I don't remember having a crash issue when the projects were still RoboInfo.

By the way, my prior response included a cryptic reference to "here's the visual".  I replied to Mr. McAndrew through email, which apparently dropped the "visual" from my post (sorry for the missing screen shot Colum).  For the sake of full disclosure, said visual is now attached.

[Guest]

Hi Rick,

Both projects were created with RH 8.0.2. The one I copied the files from does work. A brand new project works fine too.

Obviously something somewhere is missing.

C.

[LisaR18]

So, what's the fix for this problem? We're having the problem in one of our three of our help projects -- two of them work fine -- and all are five years old and were built in RH5. It almost sounds from this thread like you have to rebuild the project, but that's not possible for us to do. We have monthly releases and don't have time to devote to rebuilding this particular help project -- the busiest of the lot. Has Adobe come out with a fix for this issue? I find it hard to believe that so few people are having the same problem.

I appreciate any advice. With right-clicking being such an ingrained habit for us, it's frustrating to have the project crash.

Thanks,

Lisa

[RoboColum_n_]

Hi Lisa.

Rather than rebuilding the entire project, maybe you could try rebuilding just the TOC. Just a thought.

---

• Read the RoboColum(n) for a tips, tricks and musings on the Technical Communication Suite products.
• Follow the RoboColum(n) on Twitter

[Dave56]

Lisa,

I have never found a fix for this issue, and to my knowledge Adobe has not addressed it. I tried Colum's suggestion of rebuilding the TOC - to no avail. It might work for you, though. I just try to suppress the urge to right click a TOC item . . .

~Dave

[LisaR18]

Column and Dave,

Thank you for your responses. Sometime after this weekend's release, I may go ahead and try rebuilding the TOC to see if that improves things. If not, I guess we'll just have to continue suppressing the urge to right-click. I suppose Adobe considers this to be a minor issue, but I do hope they fix it sometime.

Thanks again for your responses,

Lisa

[Gravenstein]

I ran into this recently myself. I don't know *exactly* what fixed it, but replacing a bunch of the apj files, ssl files, pss file, etc., (and deleting cpd so that RH wouldn't choke on the updated files), made the problem stop. It did NOT require a change to the TOC itself.

Incidentally, the TOC problem started after I'd done a project recovery from the hhp file, so I had older versions of the above files that were still working OK.

HTH,

G

[LisaR18]

Hi Gravenstein,

We have our RH8 set to automatically delete the CPD file everytime we launch a help project. When you say you replaced a bunch of the apj files, ssl files, pss file, etc., how exactly did you replace them? And can replacing them be done when we have our help project on a server using VSS and use get files and check-in/check-out functionality?

Incidentally, and I'm not sure if this is related, but this particular help project also has the strange habit of automatically checking out the XPJ every time you launch the project and get files. Our other two help projects don't do this. We have gotten into the habit of checking the XPJ file back in right away before we begin working, or else others on the team will have a hard time rebuilding their CPD file if they access the help project with the XPJ already checked out by someone else. We've actually had this problem for quite a while (with RH6, before we upgraded to RH8). Not sure if this is related, but thought I better offer up the information in case it is.

Thanks,

Lisa

[Gravenstein]

Hi Lisa--

OK, so you're covered on the cpd part. 🙂  It's been a month or so, but as I recall, I did some before/after file compares on those files using a text editor. Anyplace I saw a suspicious difference, I replaced the file with the older version. I deleted the pss file, as it will get rebuilt anyway. The other files I just swapped in Windows.

I never did pinpoint where the problem was, but I'd be looking at the xpj file, the ssl files, and the apj files (esp. rhvariable, rhbuildtag, rhlayout, rhsnippet, and rhtemplate), in particular. Do you know when the problem started? If so, then you might be able to look at some dates in source control for these files to see if there are unexplained file updates.

I'd encourage you to experiment with a *copy* of the project that is removed from source control.

G.

[LisaR18]

Hi Gravenstein,

Thanks so much for your more detailed response. I will take your advice on comparing files in a copy of the project and see what happens. The TOC issue started once we upgraded to RH8 in April/May. The XPJ file issue has been going on for a couple of years.

Many thanks again!

Lisa

[Guest]

Hi all,

Just in case that can help someone, I'll explain what fixed the problem for me. (Sheairs, I wasn't getting the error message you're getting, so your problem is probably different.)

The problem was that, for some reason, what was referenced as the default layout in the xpj file was invalid. It said "Default Topic.htm" instead of something like "WebHelp" - which of course made no sense. When I checked, there was indeed no layout marked as "Primary Layout" in the Single Source Layouts pod. Setting one of my layouts as the primary layout fixed the problem.

I must thank Gravenstein for pointing me in the right direction. Following one of her posts I tried deleting some of the configuration files, and noticed that the problem was fixed when I deleted rhlayout.apj. I looked inside this file but saw nothing obviously wrong with it. Then, once I had opened my project again and seen that it worked, I noticed that the xpj file had changed: when RH created a new rhlayout.apj, it also set a valid default layout.

So, this is my story

HTH, C.

[av_gchale]

I realize the last post to this topic was more than a year ago, but I thought I would reply with the resolution to my problem. I actually had two problems:

1. When opening a help project, the XPJ file would automatically get checked out in Visual SourceSafe.
2. When right-clicking an item in the TOC, RoboHelp would crash.

These problems were identified in this topic by my predecessor, LisaR18. I was ultimately able to fix both problems by setting a layout in the Single Source Layouts pod as the primary layout.

[John_Ala__3PG_]

Just so everyone knows, this issue still exists in RH2015.

[Peter Grainge]

John

This thread is now seven years old and if this was a general issue, there would be a stack more posts about it. I'm happy to work with you if that would help.

The first thing I would be doing is opening one of the supplied sample projects to establish whether this is a general problem for you or project specific. Also do you have more than one project where this occurs?

Click Open on the RoboHelp Starter page and then click Samples in the ribbon on the left.

Please try that and post back.

---

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring information

@petergrainge

[John_Ala__3PG_]

Hi Peter,

You helped me out a few years ago and your site is a stable for our team. I was able to resolve my issue by setting a default SSL. But I wanted to prove this is an issue so did the following:

1. Launch RH2015
2. Open sample project Policies and Procedures
3. Right-click in TOC and observe that the context menu opens
4. Attempt to delete the primary output SSL and got error message stating you can't delete the primary
5. Close the project
6. Delete the .cpd file
7. Delete the Microsoft HTML Help.ssl file
8. Open the .pss file in Notepad
9. Delete the lines that define the Microsoft HTML Help ssl
10. Save the .pss
11. Open the rhlayout.apj in Notepad
12. Delete the layout section for Microsoft HTML Help
13. Save the .apj file
14. Set all files to Read only (this is the normal state because of TFS version control)   
15. Allow RH to make the .xpj writable   
16. Confirm that none of the SSLs are indicated to be the Primary output
17. Right-click on the TOC
18. Watch RH crash

(Step 7-13 simulate the versioning error I think occurred when one team member tried to check out the project when some files were locked by another member who had renamed an SSL)

The conditions are specific to a team using version control and one member updated the SSLs and left the right files locked. Granted it is not a common condition but as you can see it is reproducible.

[Peter Grainge]

I am not a user of version control, mercifully, but am I misunderstanding that the root of the problem is someone renaming and leaving the files locked?

---

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring information

@petergrainge

[John_Ala__3PG_]

In this case that is what happened. More regular occurrence than I would like, RH has a tendency to not get all the files checked in. RH2015 is better about it than RH11 but it still happens. Some kind of communication fail between RH and TFS that does not trigger any alert. So if you neglect to check the file status prior to opening a project you can get undesirable results.

[Peter Grainge]

User errors are just that but if RoboHelp is not doing something it should, then report it.

Please follow this link to report bugs and request features. The more people who do so, the higher it gets prioritised.

https://tracker.adobe.com

---

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring information

@petergrainge

[Amebr]

A policy I instated at a previous workplace was to delete the cpd before opening a project, then manually Get Latest All.

We found that because the cpd file stores information about the local copy, I wouldn't see files added/renamed/deleted by my co-worker and they wouldn't see similar changes I had made. Then the Get Latest All (wording will vary) ensured all source controlled files were available locally.

(As one project would take an hour to become usable after deleting the cpd, we dedicated a single writer to that project, except in extraordinary circumstances.)

I'm pretty sure I reported it, but that was about 3 bug tracking systems ago...

HTH.

[John_Ala__3PG_]

HTH,

We also have a policy of doing an Advanced, Get latest, with Overwrite local files selected before working on a project. We have assigned projects but we have to back each other up due to volume and PTO. I really wish RH talked to TFS directly instead of using the MSSCCI. The way the message boxes for check in and out function is a pain. We have the delete cache when opening project turned on which deletes the .cpd.