Keep Getting Adobe RoboHelp 9 has stopped working Message

[Guest]

I am running on Windows 7 Professional, SP1, 4GB RAM, 64-bit OS, with Administrative privileges using Adobe RoboHelp version 9.0.1.232. I am creating projects on my C drive and linking them to Word 2010 docx files that are on the network then generating them as AIR files for testing purposes at this point. Each linked document is a technical manual (with a TOC and index) having anywhere between 100 and 1000 pages. The plan is to create a project for each of the 20 manuals then link them together and generate a Master Project as an AIR file to distribute to our customers. The manuals contain flowcharts, bullets, numbered lists, images, tables, hyperlinks, etc with approximately 100 custom styles defined in one Normal.dotm file. Only defined styles are used in each of the manuals and all manuals use the same Normal.dotm file. Each custom style is linked to a corresponding style in a custom RoboHelp css file used by all RH projects. 

I have a default project that is used to create each separate project which includes a linked docx file that contains each of the custom styles so I do not have to link each Word style to the corresponding RH style every time I create a project for a different manual. My process is this: create project, link docx file, change Properties to create new TOC, Index, Glossary, Generate the linked document, Update linked document (when applicable), generate the AIR file, then update the Word document (in Word) as necessary. I then Update the linked document in RH and generate the AIR file again....and keep doing that until it looks good.  So far, I have successfully created projects for 11 manuals with projects ranging in size from 20 to 50 MB. So I know the problem is not my styles, etc.

My problem is this....I will sometimes get the message 'Adobe RoboHelp 9 has stopped working. A problem caused the program to stop working correctly. Windows will close the program and notify you if a solution is available'. Sometimes, I will get the message when the manual has been updated in Word and I select Update in RoboHelp while other times it occurs when I am first getting the project set up. Right now, I am getting this message when I select Generate for the linked manual. I checked my application log file and see that I am getting an EventID 1000, Task Category 100 error. The manual is 477 pages/7.6 MB and the RoboHelp project is 42 MB and has only two really small flowcharts.  I have successfully created a project for this manual a couple times before after updating the Word document for things I saw in the AIR file, but when I selected Update in RH, I would get the message and the project was then corrupt so I had to start over. I know it is not an installation problem because I can then open another project and it works fine.

Things I have tried without success: copied the linked manual to my C drive to remove the network aspect. Closed all other applications so only the Word document and RoboHelp are open. My experience has been that in most cases, RoboHelp is happier when I have the manual I am working with open in Word but have also tried it without Word running. I have tried creating the project on the root of C instead of in my folder. Tried it when no one else was on the network (5 am). In one case, I pulled out a chapter that was about 50 pages of flowcharts - which fixed that one. All our flowcharts are inserted into borderless tables as metafiles so they are not free-floating.

Any help anyone could give me as to why this is happening or what I can do differently so as to prevent this from happening would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you!

Kathi

[Peter Grainge]

Have you tried the old expedient of deleting the CPD file and reopening the project. With the sort of work you are doing, it could have got seriously bloated.

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[Guest]

Yes, after reading one of your posts the other day, I did try that....it

did not help. I also tried creating the project with that checkbox

selected - that resulted in my default linked document being removed so I

had to manually set each of my 100 styles over again in RH.  I just tried

it again in the most recently created one and I still get the message. The

CPD file I just deleted was 1.1MB btw...

Kathi Powers

Quality Assurance Analyst / Editor

HarrisData

[Peter Grainge]

Ouch. Deleting the CPD is normally a very safe process nowadays so I wonder if the problem is related to what is causing the crash in the first place?

Have you tested other projects for this crashing, the idea being to pin it squarely on either the project or the installation? I suspect the project in this instance. Maybe opening one of the sample projects and do some work in that to see what happens.

If it should prove to be the installation, you could try uninstalling and reinstalling but otherwise I think it is back to getting Adobe to identify those codes.

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[Guest]

Yes, I am able to open other projects and update them fine. Every project is identical except for what document is linked and the project name.

I am unclear as to why uninstalling and reinstalling would help given that other projects are OK.... though sometimes they work one time and the next, they don't. Oh, another thing I tried that I forgot to mention before was that I checked for any missing updates to RH and installed one I did not have.

I do not understand what you mean by 'getting Adobe to identify those codes'. Are you talking about the application errors or something else?

thanks...

Kathi

[Peter Grainge]

I said "if it should prove to be the installation" that reinstalling could be an option. So far we haven't established that. In the first paragraph you say other projects are fine but in the second paragraph you say sometimes they work or sometimes they don't, so they are not really fine. That could still be an installation problem that sometimes causes grief and other times is fine or it could be that all your projects have the same problem that intermittently cause grief. Is it frequent enough that working on a sample project would likely cause the problem if it is caused by the installation?

As to codes, in your first post you said "I checked my application log file and see that I am getting an EventID 1000, Task Category 100 error." I cannot say they will help Adobe but hopefully they will.

My inclination is something in your projects as you should not have had that CPD problem. Maybe copy another project and then trash the CPD in the copy to see if that problem repeats. If it does, that too points to something in the projects as deleting the CPD should be harmless.

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[Guest]

My inclination is that it is something in the projects or in the manuals being linked that is the culprit because that is where the consistency lies - projects were created identically and manuals all follow identical formats. The problem typically only occurs after the project has been successfully created and the manual is subsequently updated and I am syncing the manual in RH so I can generate a new AIR file. This is the first time the project has consistently corrupted every time I try to generate the Word document after linking it in RH. This makes little sense to me since it generated fine a couple weeks ago and I did nothing special when I updated it in Word yet when I tried to update it in RH, that is when it originally corrupted. The bottom line is that I cannot 100% trust that any project I run will work the next time. I end up just crossing my fingers and hoping for the best.

My problems seemed to start once I went to RH9 (from RH8) because we had upgraded from MS Office 2003 to the 2010 version and I needed 9 for the docx extension. Like I said, it is not all the time - I can be beating my head against the wall getting one of the projects to work, then create 3 more projects that have no problems and then the next one leaves me wanting to throw my PC through a window....

Deleting the CPD does not corrupt the project, it just removes my default linked document that allows me to circumvent linking the styles individually for that project. Once I have a manual linked and I remove the CPD, it just creates a new one. What I am saying is that if I delete the CPD file, it does not prevent the project from corrupting nor does it make the corrupted project viable again.

thanks!

Kathi

[Peter Grainge]

I know you want to work with docx but please test by going back to doc with RoboHelp 9. Because of a different problem I dealt with, I am wondering if it is the docx format that is the problem. If you can establish the same document works in doc format but not docx with the same version of RoboHelp, whilst it is not what you want, at least we will have nailed where the problem is.

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[Guest]

I saved the manual as a .doc file, created a project and linked that one. It still didn't work - same message....

[Peter Grainge]

If you agree, that seems to point the finger at the upgraded version RoboHelp as when using a doc file that is the only difference from what you were doing before.

I believe the process was changed in RoboHelp 9 so that may be the cause. There is only one other thing I can suggest before saying I think this is one where you will have to take it up with Tech Support.

Instead of relying on an existing document, link to a document and get all your settings as you want. Before you then actually create the link so that the document shows in Project Manager, export the settings. Next time you start a project, instead of having a document already linked, use Import Settings to bring in all the mappings etc.

I don't think 8 allowed you to export the settings but 9 does.

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[Guest]

I have solved my immediate problem - I started deleting one chapter at a time to isolate if the problem was somewhere in the manual. Once I pinned down the chapter, I looked at the sections, one of which included a flowchart and numbered elements correlating to the flowchart. We use ListNum codes at the end of our numbered lists and this one had dropped down to a separate line. Once I reworded so it was on the same line with the text, the document generated fine in RoboHelp. 

So, I guess the possibility exists that the complexity of our documents may be responsible at least in part for some of my issues. I guess I will just have to keep an eye on it for now.

Thanks Peter for all your help. I really appreciate it!

Kathi

[Peter Grainge]

But RoboHelp 8 handled it.

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[Guest]

I don't know that...I was first introduced to the product in version RH8 and used it primarily as a test vehicle to figure out how to get our styles and formating to work in an AIR file. I started by importing a good cross-section of our various types of documents and through trial-and-error, figured out how to make it work. My priorities changed so the manuals never made it into RH8 and by the time I got back to it, it became necessary to link documents instead, we were on Office 2010, and needed RH9. So, my Test projects all worked in RH8 but what is going into RH9 is the actual documentation now.

You are correct that RH8 did not allow you to export - nor did it allow you to edit conversion settings on the project level. Those were defects I reported to Adobe that were fixed for RH9.

thanks!

Kathi