RH8; SLOW launch, error message, false launch, then freeze

[Guest]

• My RH 8.02.208 opens my project, by way of its familiar .xpj file, extremely slowly.  It has taken as long as approximately 3 minutes of an empty white field beneath the title bar only.
  

• The interface then appears with Project Manager/Project Set-up/Snippet, and Single Source Layouts at left, Output View below right, etc. I know these are my own GUI preferences, but I mention them because they give a tauntingly familiar appearance of things working.

However, this stage of the process also includes this dialog:

In case the image gets lost, the dialog reads: "Unable to open the file E:\0_Lyric_8pt0_RU1_20110308\$rhvariable$.htm." Obviously, all that drivel in the middle is my file path. Alas, I am unfamiliar with the meaning of "$rhvariable$.htm", but  I suspect I'll be finding out within the next few minutes in my research. (Note that I have followed a sacred rule I've been taught; never use anything other than an underscore in addition to alphanumeric characters.)

• I try humoring it by clicking OK, and the dialog goes away, but the display returns to that dopey blank white field. The next thing I have to do in the actual work of my project is to open a
  

The project is large, specifics below, but hardly the largest project anyone has ever created and maintained with RoboHelp.

[Captiv8r]

Hi there

The fact I see the path beginning with E seems to suggest the project is parked majestically on a network share and you are attempting to open it from there.

Likely that's the cause of the slowness. Perhaps consider copying the project to your local C drive and trying again?

Cheers... Rick

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[Guest]

And of course, don't worry....there was much more to that explanation, but one of the capricious gremlins of the internet saw fit to

impose an "Unexpected Error" when I attempted to post my update.

Unpleasantly, however, the *!@*&#* thing IS on a local drive. I wonder if it would be any better if it was on the system drive. Sheesh; should the mechanical/electronic/philosophical/ontological/cosmological distance between two drives in the same chassis make that much difference?

I certainly know better than to open one of these accursed projects from a network!

However, Rick, in the spirit of your reply, I will try moving it from one local drive to the other.

Thanks!

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

I'd be wondering a few things - where's the project located? (should always be on your local c:\ drive); what's your O/S and how much RAM do you have?; have you got RH set to delete the .cpd file upon opening the project?

[Amebr]

Can you find the $rhvariable$.htm file in Windows Explorer? If yes, perhaps try renaming it to see it that helps with opening the project. Maybe also check that the rhvariable.apj file is not blank.

[Guest]

Thank you all.

I never found the $rhvariable$.htm file, diligently though I looked.

I have moved the project folder from a second hard drive in my PC to the C drive (I never did try to operate it from the department server, knowing that would be suicidal.) Still no improvement when trying to use it from the system drive.

I don't have RoboHelp set to delete the .cpd file, because I didn't know you could do that! However, I do delete it manually, before every time I try to launch the project. No improvement there.

I have tried working from slightly different versions of the entire folder, going one day back a time, because a smart, highly trained little bird advise me to back up the project folder every time the project successfully produced a working .chm file. So, even though all those earlier folders contained unfinished editorial content, I know they were working, indicating that they contained no critical ingredients that had become corrupted.

There was no improvement trying to open the project from folders containing versions of the project that were certainly working.

There was also no improvement when our IT department installed RH, including the updates that brought it up to my precise version, on a completely pristine machine of their own, and tried opening the project from all of those same folders.

I know that, logically, this does indicate the likelihood of something wrong with the ingredients of my project folder(s). However, I can't figure out what, especially because they were working successfully the last time I worked on this project, this past September. (And then backed up the folders, unmolested, to our department server for safekeeping, before I copied them back to my machine to resume work.)

We are preparing to haul out The Big Guns.

Again, thank you all for your suggestions.

Message was edited by: Lew at Chyron, because this dopey form (form, not forum) decided to post my message before I was done, yet again.

[MergeThis]

What if you create the $rhvariable.htm$ file in Win Explorer (File, New, Text Document)? Would RH then be happy (or at least moderately content)?

What if your IT peeps have instituted a particularly aggressive anti-virus environment, since September? You might ask them to have the AV product ignore your RH folders.

So many questions, so few answers!

Leon

[Amebr]

Did you check if the rhvariable.apj file was blank? (Or missing entirely?)

[Guest]

Gosh; sorry if I never answered this!

I received a suggestion to delete almost all of my redundant Single Source Layouts, and that seems to have done the trick. RH8 now working well on a nice,  new, pristine, brawny Windows 7 system.

I apologize to everyone for leaving this thread open, perhaps drawing people's attention to it as Unanswered, unnecessarily. Closing it now. (Although about to post with ANOTHER problem!)

Thank you, everyone.

[Peter Grainge]

Lew

In another thread it was suggested it wasn't so much the number of layouts as the number of URLs within them. I have covered this in Snippets on my site.

---

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[Guest]

Huh...now that’s an interesting little subtlety. I’m assuming the term URL isn’t restricted to links to the outside internet?

In any case, this project has a truly small number of links to the outside world. Odd. (And of course a very, very large number of links between topics.)

Man, you must have flags of some sort monitoring the Forums. Just got another friendly response in very nearly real time.

This community is really a community. I love it.

Thank you, Peter.

cid:email_signature_sm2852.jpg

Lew Yedwab

Senior Technical Writer  |  Chyron

5 Hub Drive  |  Melville  |  NY  |  11747

w +1 631 845 3869  |

Skype: yeswab

"The Company the Whole World Watches"™

[Peter Grainge]

I'm referring to the locations to which the layouts publish.

---

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[Guest]

I invariably aim the output CHMs at my Desktop for simplicity of finding them and examining them in the real world outside of RoboHelp preview or anything like that. I give them destinations and names such as:

C:\Documents and Settings\lewis\Desktop\8pt0_RU1_201104121420.chm

The above is pasted directly from Output Folder and File Name dialog.

This has been working the last week or so. I have not actually been having start up trouble. I think I accidentally prodded everyone by acknowledging a final reply that was posted after the slow startup problem had been solved.

Of course, I’m having other problems now, but that’s for a different thread, which sadly, may be coming shortly.

Thanks!

Lew Yedwab

Senior Technical Writer | Chyron

5 Hub Drive | Melville | NY | 11747

w +1 631 845 3869 |

Skype: yeswab

"The Company the Whole World Watches"™