Can WE 7 failure cause RH9 corruption/crashing?

[gsmichaels]

Moved a complex child/master proj. from RH8 to RH9. Created new, single proj. to hold all child/master topics. During process, Windows Explorer  (WE) closed itself repeatedly.  Just as proj. was completed, all broken links removed, proj. crashed. Adobe Support had me delete project .xpj and .cpd  files. Opened hhp file > regenerated project.  

More crashes. Adobe support had me create new proj and import files. Successfully stabilized and finalized new Javelina Help in single RH project. Still experiencing WE auto-closures and RH crashes. Corrected prior failure to enable Clear Proj Cashe check box in Tools > Options >General tab. Following crashes, Proj Master > HTML Files folder is empty; TOC empty. All topics listed as broken links and appear in WE7 view. Adobe support had me remove xpj and cpd. Recovered topics. Still, Project Manager and TOC topics organization lost within folders. This proj size is 56 MB with 2328 files/203 folders.

Moved to new proj entirely (Claims Pricing). Continual WE auto-closures. Import several topics to new proj, two w/ dup file names. Delete one of the dup. files from Proj. Manager. Project crashed. Reopened proj. It crashed again in less than 30 minutes. This proj size is 5.31 MB with 110 files/8 folders.

IT assures me that all system min. requirements have been met. Projects contain virtually no image files.

IT is at a loss to explain WE auto-closures and RH9 crash events or continuing proj. corruption. Per IT:

We rebuild built Glenns old machine, several times, with various OS versions. We’ve replaced Glenns machine with new hardware and rebuilt that as well. We are pretty stumped.

[Peter Grainge]

There is a thread somewhere on these forums that I think covers this. I am trying to find it.

Do you also have RoboSource Control installed?

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[gsmichaels]

I am not currently using robosource. It is not installed at this time.

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

[Peter Grainge]

I found the thread I was thinking of and it was RoboHelp 8 and RoboSource Control related. However refer your IT to Item 28 at http://www.grainge.org/pages/authoring/rh8/using_rh8.htm. It may just prompt a thought.

Another "solution" that was found was turning off various services. See Item 26 for that.

Sorry I couldn't find anything better.

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[gsmichaels]

I'll forward this info promptly and let you know. Many thanks, as always, for your insights and efforts.

[gsmichaels]

The responsible IT guy checked and responded as follows:

None of these files exist on your machine, I believe these are directly related to RoboSource Control, not Robo Help.

I followed up by requesting that he review the solution that involved disabling all non-MicroSoft Services in the Sys Config > Services tab. His response was: 

" Our systems are pretty straight forward and don’t really contain services we don’t require.  Sounds to me, that if this truly is an issue w/ RH9 & Win7, that we should get Adobe support involved."

What he didn't know was that I was in touch w/ Adobe Support last week and got nowhere. 

"I am consulting this case but there is no way that the project corrupt

Without making any changes because it’s really hard to figure out

Why it is corrupting the project again and again and this only happened

With this project. I suggest you to work on this project and take a backup

Once you finish your work and if you will face the same issue please let us know."

To which I responded thus (and never heard anything more):

Please note that I generated and published the project’s contents successfully at 11:39 AM on 5/27/11.

Four minutes later I zipped the project up.

When I came back to the office yesterday (5/31/11), both the original project and the zipped version of that project exhibited the issues that prompted me to call you. All Project Manager HTML files were missing and all listed TOC topics appeared to be disconnected/missing, as well.

Is it possible that the very process of generating and or publishing the project created the issue I am concerned about? Could the process of zipping the file have created the issue?

[Peter Grainge]

None of these files exist on your machine, I believe these are directly related to RoboSource Control, not Robo Help.

I realised those DLLs would not be on your machine but my thinking was that in your environment there might be something similar that IT could investigate.

" Our systems are pretty straight forward and don’t really contain services we don’t require.  Sounds to me, that if this truly is an issue w/ RH9 & Win7, that we should get Adobe support involved."

I am not saying they are services that are not required, simply that you disable them to see if that changes things. If that makes a difference, then it will be possible to investigate why.

All Project Manager HTML files were missing and all listed TOC topics appeared to be disconnected/missing, as well.
Is it possible that the very process of generating and or publishing the project created the issue I am concerned about? Could the process of zipping the file have created the issue?

Losing files like that was an issue with RoboHelp 8 and a critical patch was issued. I have not seen any further reports of that since, other than people who had not applied the patch. You went straight from 7 to 9 so it would not affect you. I have never seen zipping cause problems except where people have tried to work on the project within the zip or just dragged the files out rather than use Extract.

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1. Please open one of the sample projects and work on that for a little while doing whatever would invoke this problem. Click Open on the RoboHelp Starter page and then click Samples in the ribbon on the left.
2. Please confirm the project is on your hard disk. Hopefully Adobe already checked that but need to be sure.
3. Can you install RoboHelp 9 on another machine to confirm you get the same behaviour there? The trial version will be fine.
4. Please also confirm you have service release 901 installed, although I don't think there is anything in that related to this.

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

[gsmichaels]

• 1. I understood, initially, that you didn't anticipate the dlls to be in my system. I'm afraid that the minds of my (likely overwhelmed) IT colleagues might not be quite as "flexible" in this regard.

• 2. You make a good point with regard to the test and I will ask that IT try that out.

• 3. Correction. I was using RH8 and converted to RH9.  Also, shortly after getting WE 7, I did inadvertantly try to open extracted RH files not realizing that they were actually zipped. The configuration of the display confused me. However, I didn't repeat the mistake with my large project --which I subsequently rebuilt as a new project. Nor did I repeat the mistake with my newer, smaller project.

Re your

#1. Will give it a try.

#2: Oh, yes. Everything is on my hard drive. I learned that lesson what seems like eons ago.

#3: IT is installing RH9 and WE7 on my manager's machine today.    

#4:  Yes. I have 9.01.232 installed. Updates install automatically.

It is a special person who will take the time to help another - or many others - address what appear to intractable issues, again and again. You and your like-minded associates are "virtual" Good Samaritans.

Consider yourself appreciated.

[Peter Grainge]

Sorry my mistake about 7, you did say converting from 8. If you did not apply the 802 patch, it is possible the damage was done there.

There are instructions on my site about fixing that in 8 and I suspect the same repair can be undertaken in 9. Can you clarify whether or not the crashing is just related to when you work on this project, on RoboHelp generally or whatever you are doing?

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@petergrainge

[gsmichaels]

I've had two, possibly related issues. WE 7 is inclined to close itself repeatedly. RH9 has crashed repeatedly, since IT upgraded my system from the prior version of Windows Explorer and installed RH9.

The former seems to auto-close, often but not always, shortly after changes to file and folder names made in WE 7, but not necessarily to RH9-related content.

RH9 periodically crashes after WE 7 auto-closes, but not always. Sometimes it crashes when I attempt to delete content (such as a  tag for a missing gif), that was imported from another project. It has crashed after I renamed or deleted folders/files in the Project Manager. It has also crashed for no reason obvious to me.

This has occurred in two different, unrelated RH9 projects, one large and one small.

I can live with crashing. I cannot live with the fact that resurrection of the project - involving deletion or removal of the xpj and cpd - results the loss of all Project Manager and TOC formatting I have so laboriously created.

I would note that the last version of RH8 that I used was up-to-date as regards releases.

[Amebr]

Hi, this isn't really pertinent to the problem, but what is Windows Explorer 7?

[Peter Grainge]

I took it to mean Windows Explorer in Windows 7.

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[Peter Grainge]

Were it not for the fact that your machine has been rebuilt, I would suspect a corrupted profile. It is possible that in rebuilding your machine IT kept restoring your profile so it might be worth checking they did not.

Either way, it's worth try the trial version of RoboHelp 9 on another machine.

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge