RoboHelp 9 crashes during the publish of a project

[Guest]

Greetings friends,

I am in a serious bind. I have a project that was created in Robohelp 9. I started encountering crashes on the evening of Jan 30th when attempting to publish the project.

I have been working in this same project without issue for 3 months without issue. I suspect the issue is related to some topics that were updated or created on that day.

Here is what I have tried:

1. I am able to successfully publish other projects

2. I was able publish the project in question earlier in the day. From modified times, I can deduce the batch of topics that may be involved.

The problem is there are 32 topics.

3. I have evaluated each of the 32 topics, seeing an earlier thread that referenced potential issues with tables. I did find 2 topics where the table looked a bit odd. I edited the properties on the tables and saved the topics. The issue persisted.

4. For grins, I checked the properties on the tables in each topic to be sure they matched the format in known-good topics.

5. I have tried renaming the project's .cpd file - based on other posts- the same issue occurs.

6. The project is pretty good size, so recreating it is NOT an option.

So I am stuck!

I have some questions to try to resolve this:

1. I noted in another thread that a user with a similar issue was able to publish via command line. Any suggestions on the string to use?

2. Is there a way to test this project by removing the suspect topics, then readding them one-at-a-time - aside from manually re-creating the topic in RH, then copy/paste from the original?

Any suggestions on how to achieve this goal?

3. Are there any debugging/compiling tools available to help troubleshoot this type of error? This seems like a fairly common error where topic formatting can cause trouble. It would SEEM logical that a tool would exist.

I thank you all in advance for your consideration on this!

Thanks again.

Eric Buterbaugh

Newforma, Inc.

[Peter Grainge]

Eric

Just picking up on your second Point 2.

Create a tag called Test.

Apply it to all 32 topics.

Publish an output that has a build tag that excludes anything with the Test tag.

Assuming that generates, remove the tag from a batch of topics at a time, or even one at a time.

Should narrow it down.

---

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[Willam_van_Weelden]

Hi,

In addition to Peter's advice, try to run the W3C validation in your project. Check for any errors. Some errors choke the RH generation and it can help you to quickly identify whether there are any problems with the HTML syntax in specific topics.

Greet,

Willam

[Guest]

Greetings Willam,

Good to chat with you again.

Thank you for the suggestion for the W3C Validator. I located it here: http://validator.w3.org/check

I am still in the process of running it on all the suspect topics, but I did find this in one of the topics. This seems to me to be just the type of issue that could cause this, though I am disappointed that RoboHelp does not offer any better error-handling around this.

I’ll continue testing according to your suggestion and will post my results.

Cheers,

Eric

Validation Output: 2 Errors

1. Line 69, Column 19: document type does not allow element "ul" here; assuming missing "li" start-tag

1. Line 79, Column 7: end tag for "li" omitted, but OMITTAG NO was specified

</ul>

✉<http://validator.w3.org/feedback.html?uri=;errmsg_id=70#errormsg>

You may have neglected to close an element, or perhaps you meant to "self-close" an element, that is, ending it with "/>" instead of ">".

1. Line 69, Column 4: start tag was here

<ul type="disc"

[Guest]

Hi Willam,

I just discovered a validation tool for W3C in Robohelp. I’ll give that a run to see if that provides any more useful info.

Thanks.

Eric

[Guest]

Hi Peter,

The W3C validation caught errors in 2 topics. I cleaned the errors then re ran the validator and the topics were clear. When I attempted to publish the crash occurred.

I like the logic of your suggestion.

Could you provide some direction on accomplishing this as this is new to me. Additionally, I am not familiar with the option to “Publish an output that has a build tag that excludes anything with the Test tag”. That option sounds a lot better than deleting the topics and testing ☺

Thanks,

Eric

[Peter Grainge]

To create the tag, right click a topic to which it is to be applied and click the options shown.

In this screen click New and create a tag called Exclude.

OK that and the tag is created and applied to that topic.

To apply to the others, open the Topic List pod and select them. (Use the CTRL key to make multiple selections)

Right click, select Properties and apply the tag in the Advanced tab.

Open the layout and go to Content.

Click Define to open the window shown. Exclude will be listed. Click the arrow to move it to the right. Generate the help.

With those topics excluded, it should all generate OK, in theory.

---

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[Guest]

Thanks Peter for the quick reply!

I’ll give this a shot now and will post my progress.

Eric

[Guest]

Hi Peter,

I have followed the procedure that you provided and still get the crash.

I expanded the process beyond the suspect topics and the crash occurs.

As a final test, I added the tag to all of the topics, then removed the tag from 1 topic and then ran the Publish and the crash occurs.

Perhaps Idid not follow the procedure correctly? To confirm, the tag added is a Topic-level tags, NOT Content-level tags. Is this correct?

I am stumped at this point ☹

I have run the W3C validation test and do not receive any errors. There a messages and warnings –interestingly they are occurring on topics that are quite old.

Not sure where else to go….

Thanks.

Eric

[Peter Grainge]

Where to go? Home?

Yes I did mean you to apply the tag at topic level. What you have pretty much done is prove it it the process of publishing that has a problem, not what you are publishing. Not 100% ruling out but let's try something else first.

First I want to check we are definitely talking about publishing and not generating. Please post straight back if you are not aware of the difference.

Second, have you tried simply publishing to a different location? Your local hard disk will do.

---

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[Guest]

Hi Peter,

You have asked a fair question ☺

I have tested with both the Generate feature and the Publish Feature. Generate works fine, but RH crashes at the end of that process IF I choose the option to the Publish. I have also tried to use Publish and am prompted to Generate as the project is not up to date. Whether I elect to generate or not, I get the crash consistently on the Publish process.

Regarding the change of publish location, that is a good thought. I’ll need to double check, but I am pretty confident that the other projects are being published to the same file server. I’ll confirm.

Thanks,

Eric

[Guest]

Hi Peter,

I have tested per your suggestion by attempting to publish to a local folder on my computer. I get the exact same results.

Thanks for the suggestion. The issue seems less resource related and more project related as other projects publish successfully.

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

Ok, so the help generates fine, right? Where are you trying to copy the output to that's causing RH to choke? I'm assuming some web server. You have to remember that RH's internal FTP process isn't super robust because it's not RH's purpose to replace dedicated FTP software. Try taking the \!SSL\WebHelp\ folder contents and sending them to the web server using some other FTP software (lots of freebie ones out there - I'm sure you've got one kicking around). Does it choke now? If so, then it's got nothing to do with RH & something to do with where/how you're transferring it.

[Guest]

Hi Jeff,

Great thoughts. Peter had recommended earlier to change the publish location to a local drive on my computer, which I did and it still failed. Also, I have other projects that are published to that server and I tested them successfully today.

It really feels like something in this project.

Thanks,

Eric

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

Umm, generating & publishing are two different things - generating creates the help; publishing just copies it around to someplace else. Try to separate the two to see where things are falling down. It sounds like the generating is working; if manually publishing (FTPing) is working, then can you show us some screenshots (use the camera icon) of your publish settings in RH and the messages you're getting?

[Guest]

Hi Jeff,

Thanks for checking back so quickly!

Generating is definitely working as I have tested this and it completes. Just to add some clarity, when I make an edit to a topic, save, then click my WebHelp Pro layout > Publish, I am prompted to generate. Here is the precise wording in the dialog box: Webhelp Pro output is out of date. Would you like to generate before publishing?. I click Yes here and the generate process completes. Once the generate process completes, I get a dialog box prompting me to publish. When I click ok, the app crashes. AS a second test, I once again click Publish, but this time opt not to generate. Immediately, the app crashes.

I apologize if I wasn’t being clear earlier.

Cheers,

Eric

[Guest]

Here is the screenshot of the completion of the Generate process. As you will note, the dialog box prompts to move forward with the Publish process. The crash occurs almost instantly after I click to publish. If I click Done, the process completes gracefully.

[Guest]

One other helpful piece of info: at the end of the Generate Process, I click View to see the result. The web browser opens to that resource and I can see the online help. Here is the address from the browser:

file:///T:/Info_Exchange_Version9/Newforma_Info_Exchange_Help.htm

The T:/ is to a local file server and is easily accessible via Windows Explorer. I have verified today that I still have read/write/modify rights to the share and the project folder and have successfully published 2 other projects to that same parent folder (they have a unique folder under t:/).

[Captiv8r]

Hi there

I think this is the first mention we've seen of "WebHelp Pro".

So the question here is: Are you publishing to the RoboHelp Server?

Do you know what I'm referring to when asking this question?

Cheers... Rick

Helpful and Handy Links RoboHelp Wish Form/Bug Reporting Form Begin learning RoboHelp HTML 7, 8 or 9 within the day! Adobe Certified RoboHelp HTML Training SorcerStone Blog RoboHelp eBooks

[Guest]

Hey Rick,

I follow you. In a couple of minutes, I will send an image of the publish settings.

[Captiv8r]

Hello again

Publish Settings dialog likely won't be of much use until we first sort if you even HAVE RoboHelp Server purchased and installed. If not, there is no point in creating WebHelp Pro and that likely could be part of why you are having issues.

Cheers... Rick

Helpful and Handy Links RoboHelp Wish Form/Bug Reporting Form Begin learning RoboHelp HTML 7, 8 or 9 within the day! Adobe Certified RoboHelp HTML Training SorcerStone Blog RoboHelp eBooks

[Guest]

Hi Rick,

Good thoughts!

We definitely have Robohelp server. We are running 8.x on the server and 9.0 on the clients.

[Guest]

I'll need to work on the publish settings to see if I can publish to a different location. I think I was confusing the generate and publish locations earlier...my apologies.

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

Hold on - you seem to say in post #17 that the project is living on the T:\ drive of the server. Is that true? If so, that's a big no-no too.

[Guest]

Hi Jeff,

Could you elaborate on that point and suggest a best-practice. Interestingly, things had been working well until just 2 days ago. I'll capture some images shortly to give you the details of our configuration.

These are great questions!