Series of Memory could not be read then RoboHelp ABENDs

[oldschool9]

Getting a series of 4 Dialog boxes indicating that Instruction at xxx referenced memory at xxxx could not be "read."

Then, the RoboHelp Application dies.

This happen when I try regenerating the Glossary HotSpots for my project.


This was working fine, before... but now this. The project is approximately 900k, and has a large glossary and about 59 topics at present divided into about 15 books within the project.

[RoboColum_n_]

Hi oldschool9 and welcome to the RH forums. Can you confirm what you mean by "regenerating the glossary hotspots"? Are you referring to the compile process when you generate your HTML help? You could also tell us whether your project os on a network. If so, move it off to your hard drive and hope that it is not corrupted. RH on a network drive don't like each other at all. The size of your project shouldn't be a problem. Many of us have projects much bigger than this. Come back to us with a little more detail and we'll see if we can help further.

[oldschool9]

Hi... And, thank you for the reply.


OS is Win2K SP4. No network drives involved... And, aside from the use of fairly standard Computer manual indicators of < xxx > to contain command parameters, and the obligatory [ xxx ] for command options... But, this is where the RED Boxes have shown up each time, regardless of the exact position. I do not believe there is anything unique about the basic construction of the files.

I am using input from pdf files which I copy/paste, along with inputs from .doc files (less so, than pdf files). That along with information I am manually adding/editing.

I have added a number of topics, some of which have diagrams in the form of jpg or bmp files.

One of the odd items surrounding this is that when the rebuild of the Glossary Hotspots (using the Hotspot Wizard)... there are RED highlighted boxes containing some of my text. eg. <p(RED box starts)/aort>(RED box ends).

So, I would make changes to that text thinking I could work around whatever it was "catching" on.... and the exact symptom would move elsewhere.

During one of my last attempts yesterday, I even got one "--kadov_tag" in a RED box. And, I have absolutely no idea what is triggering that. As the Glossary Hotspot Wizard "rolls" through each of the html files it updates its date/time... so I have been able to locate where it is "hanging" each time. But, it has not even been consistently in the same file.

In terms of the process to generate the .chm file... that is still working, except my Hotpspots are incomplete.

I have also noticed that the RED box phenom is present in "some" (not all) Hotspots in the finished .chm product.

Thank you for the guidance...

oldschool9...

[RoboWizard]

Hi oldschool9

Colum has made some excellent points. Here are some additional thoughts.

Wow. Yours is a toughie! When I first saw the term "Red box", I was thinking possibly WebHelp output and possibly sucking WebHelp generated pages back into project files. Recovery from that little issue is described at this link. But you go on to say .CHM!

Then I have another possible thought that maybe it's something to do with a specific glossary term. But I understood you to say that it also seems to occur at random spots with different terms?

Cheers... Rick

[oldschool9]

The random aspect is related to what file, and the specific location within the WYSIWYG file... the only consistency is that (so far) it has always been within one of the < xxx > areas. And, to make things stranger still... the process throws some odd characters (mainly "/a") into the file.

I have tried to workaround it, by modifying the < xxx > to add spaces, change the characters I use from lower to UPPER case.

Thank you for the feed back...

oldschool9

[RoboColum_n_]

So if I hear you right, if you remove the <xxx> areas the glossary hotspot generation works OK? If so, could you try creating a new project and add a <xxx> area and generate the hotspots. What happens there? If the same result, I can only suggest that there is something in the imported PDF/Word files that is causing this behaviour but you say you only copy/paste. Are you referring to the actual text/image here? What does the truecode look like after it has been pasted?

[oldschool9]

No... No matter what I do it stops.... and the RoboHelp Application stops dead in its tracks; I have to restart it each time.

Have not yet tried creating a new project... I have some pretty serious deadlines on this project. I had a thought that perhaps there is not enough elbow room on my laptop for the process, so I am pruning it now. Then, I will try again.

Thx...

oldschool9

[oldschool9]

Ok... it does not appear to be related to SWAP space... have 2.5G worth and application still ABENDs with the same memory errors.

[oldschool9]

Is there any way to delete files used in the build process, without deleting actual project files?...

Not sure if anyone knows where I am going here... just a thought that perhaps some file used in the build is corrupt.

[RoboColum_n_]

TBH if the build files used to create your CHM are corrupt you have little option but to uninstall and reinstall RH but I don't suspect that to be the case. Is it at all possible that someone could have imported a webhelp output file as RIck suggested? Was this project ever generated as webhelp? As you can tell I'm slightly clutching the perverbial straw but hey if you don't ask.....

[oldschool9]

Never a WEB Help...

But, this is interesting. I just took a chance and deleted one of the "offending" glossary entries. Then, I tried to rebuild the Glossary Hotspots using the Wizard.

It predictably failed once again... same memory error.

But, when I looked at the WYSIWYG of the page where the term was used.... the hotspot still was there referring to the glossary term I had deleted.

Is there a file of these Glossary Hotspots which I might delete and try again?...


Thx... oldschool9

[oldschool9]

Ok... I may have an answer.

Seems a file with a .ldb (Access) extension was gen'd during my builds. My last build a few minutes ago had no such file.

I found some characters such as < > in the glossary, which appear to have created some sort of cumulative effect in my TrueCode files. Generally indicated with many many repetitions of some text from the Glossary.

I removed the < > characters from the Glossary, and went over every page of WYSIWYG to view the "HotSpot" Glossary term for virtually every entry.

I am giving up for the night, but will make backup copies of everything tomorrow before I try to re-generate the Glossary HotSpots.

Will report back again... as soon as I know whether this is a fix, or a distraction.


Thx... oldschool9

[Peter Grainge]

If it is of any help to you, the LDB file is one that is created while an Access database is in use. RH is underpinned by an Access database, the CPD file in the current version, MPJ before that. A normal Access database has the extension MDB.

The LDB is deleted, or should be, when the database is closed.

For what that may be worth.

[oldschool9]

Well... Went over every Glossary Hotspot to clear up any which might be at fault in this scenario... (took hours to do).

And, just re-ran the Hotspot Wizard with the same memory errors as the result... I am at, or at least close, to my limits here.

It appears that it might actually be an application issue.


Anyone have any other thoughts on the subject?...

oldschool9