Project hang: 1 second on 3 seconds donut of death RH9

[Margaret_Becker]

My large project has become unusable after deleting cpd file.

My cpd file was becoming quite large (15MB) and my project was slowing down, so I deleted the CPD file and reopened RH9 to regenerate the file. This normally takes about 60-90 minutes, but this time I let it run overnight. Now it is acting like it is still working on this update. When I open the project, I can work fine for about 30 seconds. Then I get an alternating cursor arrow and wait cursor (donut of death): one second for arrow and 3 seconds for donut. This makes it impossible to work.

The CPD file is about 3MB now.

The status bar alternates between "Ready" and "Loading topic list..."

This is a large-ish project with hundreds of topics, images, and snippets, but it has worked fine up until now.

Does anybody have any ideas?

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

Where is this project located & how many topics? 60-90 minutes seems really long!

[Margaret_Becker]

It's all local to my own hard drive.

Windows 7 RH9

2289 topics

1087 snippets

2341 images

Compiled CHM = 19MB

[Margaret_Becker]

This problem started when I applied Conditional Build Tags to 10 topics. It went away when I removed them.

[Peter Grainge]

With a copy of the project, try deleting both the CPD and PSS files, then reopening it.

You will lose any build expressions not in a layout but you will not lose any tags or tagging.

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[Margaret_Becker]

OK. For a while I thought this problem had gone away, but now it is back.

I have started a new project and have imported my topics folder by folder to try to get a clean project.

There are no build tags this time.

I have deleted the CPD and PSS files about a hundred times with no success.

I am at my wit's end now and don't know what else to try.

Any ideas?

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

Is it misbehaving on the sample projects? If it is, then you know it's something with your install or environment; if it isn't, then it's to do with something in your project.

[Margaret_Becker]

I'm sure it is something in the project because I have another project that I'm working on that does not have this problem. I just haven't been able to figure out what the problem is.

[Willam_van_Weelden]

Could some of your topics be corrupted? I've had a problem with some topics that would crash RoboHelp because half of the HTML somehow was deleted from the topics.

Did the problem occur after importing a specific topic?

Greet,

Willam

[Margaret_Becker]

No. There is no specific topic. This starts to happen as soon as I open the project. I don't know an easy way to find a corrupted topic.

This project has: 2289 topics and 1087 snippets.

The Web version of the project can be viewed at www.rhino3d.com/5/help if you are interested.

~Margaret

[Willam_van_Weelden]

Mmmh, now I'm confused.

Are you able to run the W3C compliance on all topics? Just filter errors, cause you will be drowned in notices. This allows you to identify some problems in your topics rather fast.

Are there any topics from older RoboHelp versions present in your project? I doubt this has anyting to do with the problem, but I'm running out of ideas.

Could it be that you have very long file paths in your project. Or that the absolute file path of topics exceeds 255 characters?

By the way: The SWF in your Web version doesn't work on Firefox 6, but it works in Internet Explorer. Error message in console:

img_and_video_div is undefined

    var video_div = img_and_video_div.childNodes[1];

Greet,

Willam

[Margaret_Becker]

I will try the W3C compliance. I have not done that.

About 60% of the topics are from the previous version, but all topics have been changed quite a bit since then.

I have no long paths.

And yes, I know that Firefox 6 does not support the swf files.

Thanks

~Margaret

[Margaret_Becker]

Well, I'm bummed. After a long back and forth with RoboHelp technical support (Case #182754879), where they were able to reproduce the problem, they have told me,

"... it seems that the issue can only be rectified by removing RHSnippet.apj and Rhino V5.cpd and then adding snippets in a set of 20.

However, if .CPD File is removed again , then it may cause the issue to occur again.

But, you may avoid removing it again."

The suggested process takes up most of the day and I already found that laughable solution for myself.

Now I cannot even add folders to my project without creating a serious hang up.

Needless to say, I am very unhappy with this answer. Since I have 11 translators who have to deal with the project, the chances that someone will delete their CPD file are pretty high.

Now that my project is unusable in its current state, I'm going to convert all the snippets to text (a giant PITA).

Thanks for listening.

~Margaret

[Peter Grainge]

Are you willing to share this project with me? If you are, send it as instructed on my Contact page.

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[Margaret_Becker]

Thank you, Peter,

I am happy to share. Download from:

### Link removed after downloading ###

The file is about 50MB.

To see the problem, rename the .CPD file, so RoboHelp will create a new one. Don't delete it as you might want to restore it.

Open the project and play around for a few minutes. It sometimes takes about 5 minutes for the problem to manifest itself. I don't know exactly what triggers it.

~Margaret

[Peter Grainge]

Margaret

I have removed the link as I have downloaded the file. I will look at it tomorrow.

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[Peter Grainge]

Margaret

I have spent several hours on this. The good news I seem to have found a way of making the project stable, the bad news is I haven't really identified a reason.

The first attempt was to split the project and trash half the topics in each. No change. That also ruled out the problem being a topic.

Then I tried deleting the snippets in one half. It is not as bad as you feared as RoboHelp does give the option of converting them to text as it deletes. However, seeing the way you are using them, it was a poor option. It did however seem to confirm that somehow the snippets were the problem, or part of it at least.

After various other attempts I tried using the HHP file to open the project. When RoboHelp asked if I wanted to use the existing XPJ file, I clicked No. Opening the project that way once seems to have stablised things but I have not done any further testing to see that everything else is working. I have opened the project several times since via the XPJ and no sign yet of the problem.

That did make me suspect a problem in the XPJ file but the content is the same now as when it was playing up!

See if you get the same result. Do let me know.

---

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[Margaret_Becker]

When I start the project from the HHP file, there are no snippets in the project. I have to re-import them in groups of about 20. This takes just about all day.

~Margaret

[Peter Grainge]

I have just tested again on a second machine. In both cases I opened the project using the HHP and clicking No when asked if I wanted to use the XPJ file.

The snippets are still there and I checked the properties of one at random to see what topics it was used in. I checked one of those and it was still in the topic along with others.

I did lose them if I also deleted the CPD file and then opened using the HHP. I suspect that is the trick. Let me know.

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@petergrainge

[Peter Grainge]

Margaret

Did you get my direct email?

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[Margaret_Becker]

Sorry, I did not get your direct email.

~Margaret

[Margaret_Becker]

Well, I would call this the "problem" not the "trick."  As you know deleting the CPD file is one of the first fixes for problems with a help project. But deleting the CPD file is EXACTLY what caused this whole problem in the first place. I can't guarantee that one of my downstream translators won't delete the CPD file and then lose all the snippets and possibly not even notice, since RH gives no warning when snippets are missing.

RH does not properly rebuild the CPD file.

Snippets have to be reimported in batches small enough for computer memory to handle. This process takes pretty much all day with the number of snippets I am using.

~Margaret

[Peter Grainge]

It would help me if you would check your spam to see if my email went there. If it did, I need to sort that out. The email was to ask again for the link to the project to share it with Adobe.

I cannot verify this right now but if I recall properly after opening via the HHP with the CPD still in place, the project was then stable (with snippets) but more importantly I think that in one test I then deleted the CPD and opened again via the XPJ and all was well. In other words, open once via the HHP but with a CPD file still in place and you may find it is OK.

I know it does not make sense but neither does the problem.

Please try that and post back. I can check again tomorrow.

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@petergrainge

[Peter Grainge]

Margaret

Please check you get my emailed reply.

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[Margaret_Becker]

Yep!