Corrupt Project in RoboHelp 8

[ACGall]

Hi -- I am having major issues and am hoping someone can help.  I have been building a project for a year and we are launching this week.

Last week RoboHelp started crashing.  I would get two pop-ups (see attached) giving a memory error and RoboHelp would close.  I started saving every two seconds but RoboHelp continued to crash until it got to the point where I would open the project and it would give me the memory error.

I read on grainge.org about the important upgrade to 8.0.2 which we did (installing 8.0.1 first).  I followed his instructions (http://www.grainge.org/pages/authoring/opening/opening_projects.htm) but RoboHelp is still crashing.

First I renamed the .cpd and opened the .xpj.  I saw that many links were broken so I right-clicked, selected restore but nothing happened.

I read that if lots of files/folders are missing to follow the hhp instructions.  So I tried to open the hhp in RoboHelp and it asked me if I wanted to open the .xpj.  I said no and then I got those memory error popups again.  I went to open the .xpj but it is now missing.  I tried to open the hhp again but got the same results (memory error then it closes).

I do have a zip backup but am wondering what else I should try.

This is the worst possible time to have this happen because we are so close to launch.  Will I have to go back to a zip backup from 1-2 weeks ago before I started having issues?

Any help you can provide is greatly appreciated!

[Peter Grainge]

I am wondering if you have published a webhelp output into the source folder. Is that your output and does that ring any alarm bells?

Extract the zip backup and see if that opens cleanly.

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@petergrainge

[ACGall]

Hi Peter -- Thanks for your speedy reply!  I really appreciate your assistance in helping me troubleshoot this problem.

I publish to the default (My RoboHelp Projects\ProjectFolder\!SSL!\WebHelp).  Then I copy everything under WebHelp to the webserver.  Should I be publishing to a different directory?

I am unzipping my backup now and am going to reboot and see what happens.

Since I have been working in the project for a year there is a great deal of unused materials (images, swfs, etc.).  Is there an easy way to clean that up?  For example, in Captivate I can go to the Library select what is unused and delete it.  Does RoboHelp have a similar feature?

-- Aimee

[ACGall]

This is not looking good.

I unzipped, rebooted, and brought up the project.  There are a great deal of broken links so I tried to right-click and restore but nothing happens.

I went to one of the folders that had a missing topic.  I right-clicked to import, selected the file (from the RoboHelp root, not from the !SSL!\WebHelp folder) and got the "memory could not be written" pop-up error and RoboHelp closed.

[Peter Grainge]

Open one of the sample projects.

You will find the samples at

C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe RoboHelp 8\RoboHTML\Samples\en_US

or

C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Technical Communication Suite 2\Adobe RoboHelp 8\RoboHTML\Samples\en_US

If they exhibit the same problem, then it's your installation but I think it more likely this is project related. Unless the test gives problems, how big is the RH7 zip file and how big would the RH8 version be if zipped? (After removing anything that my be in the !SSL! folder

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@petergrainge

[ACGall]

I was able to open the sample project and import one of the missing HTML files that was crashing when I had my main project open.

So it looks like it is project related.

The project was created in RoboHelp 8 and it is 153 MB zipped up (I excluded what is in the SSL folder).  As I mentioned, there is a lot of old unused images and swf files so in reality it should be much smaller than this.

I have zipped it up on a regular basis.  Is my only option to go back to before I was having problems and re-import from the SSL folder any html files I created since the non-corrupted zip?

This is rough because I made changes to many existing topics so I have no idea what changes did or did not make it in.

What do you advise?

[Peter Grainge]

Re-import from the SSL? Is that what you have been doing as if it is, then that is likely the cause of your trouble. You must always import source files, not output, they are very different.

I would start with a find and replace tool such as FAR from Helpware (the best and with a good trial period) or BKReplaceEm (not such a nice interface but free).

Open an output file and a source file (the same topic if you can identify that) and you will see they are very different. Identify something unique in an output file. Some like <script type="text/javascript" language="javascript1.2" src="whtopic.js"></script> for example. Do a search for that in your source files and you will have a list of output files that are in your source.

Then roll your sleeves up and start replacing those files in Windows Explorer. You must replace with source files from the same version.

Then hopefully open the project in RH.

Make sure you have backups all the way.

The other option is to identify the files you modified in the source by looking at the modified date in Windows Explorer. But then are you looking at source or output?

Poke around a bit and see what you can identify. Post back if you want to check your thinking.

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@petergrainge

[ACGall]

I had tried to import from the main RoboHelp root folder (and not what is in SSL).  I wasn't sure if the files in SSL would be a more "pure" html.

Looks like I have lots of work ahead of me.

Any thoughts as to why this might have happened?

[Peter Grainge]

IF you have output files in the source, there are two likely causes. The first is you imported them, the other is you published back into your project. In the latter case, unused files apart, all your files in the source would be output files.

First thing is to determine that the problem is output files are in the source. If the problem is something else and the source file are source files, then creating the same folders in a new project and then importing the topics folder by folder might work. Keep closing and reopening to make sure that each batch of imports has not reintroduced the problem.

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@petergrainge

[ACGall]

Thanks for spending so much time on this with me.  I just want to be sure I understand what you are saying.

When I create folders/files through RoboHelp, it automatically puts them in "My RoboHelp Projects\MyProject".  Are these folders/files what you are referring to as the "source"?

When I publish, I publish to "My RoboHelp Projects\MyProject\!SSL\WebHelp" which was the default.  Is this what you are referring to as "output"?

And since the WebHelp folder is under the main Project, are you considering that my output files are in the source?

Thanks for clarifying.  Just want to be sure I understand.

[Peter Grainge]

That opens another possibility. Yes My RoboHelp Projects is the default but it is not necessarily a good one. The paths can get deep and cause other issues. I would move the project to something like C:\ProjectName.

The files in that folder and its subfolders are you source, with the exception of what is in !SSL! Those are you output folders and files and that is where you generate the output to - !SSL!\MyWebHelp for example. RH stops you generating back into the source. However, at the end of the wizard you can specify a location to which you want to publish and RH does not stop you publishing back into C:\ProjectName and totally wrecking your project.

Please bear in mind that so far you have not identified that you do have output files in your source. Right click a few files in Windows Explorer and open them in Notepad.

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@petergrainge

[ACGall]

Gotcha.  I will move everything to C:/ and keep my Robo Project files separate from my output SSL files.

I did a search and I haven't found any output files in the main source folder(s).  I know I have never published to a location other than the SSL\WebHelp so it seems that is clean.

Should I delete the .cdp file before starting the clean-up?

Since I have to go through and figure out what has changed anyway -- would it be best to start from scratch?  Should I create a new project, create the folder structure and import each topic from the corrupted project (I have 180 topics)?

I guess I would also need to import the Glossary, Skin, Master Pages, etc.

After launch, I am to train a new hire (who has no experience in RoboHelp) to take over maintenance so I can move on to other projects.  I want to be sure I leave the project in the best possible state.

Let me know what you think is the right way to proceed.

Thanks.

[Peter Grainge]

I am not sure you are following the distinction between generate and publish. You generate to the folder specified in the first field of the first page of the wizard, as I indicated earlier. You typically then publish to a server but you may publish elsewhere. First let's establish do you just generate or do you generate AND publish.

Also if you do not have any output files in the source, then what cleaning up are you doing as the theory for the error message was output files in the source and if there aren't any, that ends that line of attack.

That said, as you only have 180 topics, I think I would go straight to creating those folders in a new project and importing. However, I would pause at various points and close and reopen the project to make sure you can without error.

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@petergrainge

[ACGall]

Sorry for my confusion.  On the first page of the publish wizard, I select the output folder (which is the SSL\WebHelp folder) and generate the site to that folder.  I do not have a server set up to directly publish from RoboHelp.

I have the webserver mapped as a drive on my computer so I simply copy all of the files under SSL\Webhelp and paste them into the webserver folder.

I think I will just buckle down and recreate an entirely new project by importing all of the individual html files.  It just seems so unstable right now and I would hate to leave my clients with something that is not perfect.

I will let you know how it goes if you are interested.

Thank you again for all of your assistance.  I really appreciate your feedback on this issue.

[Peter Grainge]

Yes do let us know that the rebuild has worked OK.

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@petergrainge

[ACGall]

Hi Peter -- I re-created the entire site and it went well.  I created a new folder "C:\MyRoboProjects" and under that created one for MyProject and another for MyProjectOutput.

Luckily, I was able to import just about everything from my corrupted project.

There were a few broken links that I had to restore and I had to import my PDFs into Baggage Files.

One thing I noticed when I was importing is that in every folder, there were my .htm files with what I named them and then at least that many additional .htm files with names such as rlt1F25.htm, rlt12DC.htm, rlt27F8.htm, etc.  I opened them up and it seemed they were duplicates of my named files.

Do you know what these rlt*.htm files are and why RoboHelp would have created them?

[Peter Grainge]

They get created when you preview a topic and should be deleted automatically. It's quite safe to delete them yourself. Glad all is well now.

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@petergrainge