Robohelp is crashing/v. slow, does it have a memory/topic limit?

[Guest]

I have previously been using Robohelp 8 and have just upgraded to version 9. I found that my version 8 would often crash and most of the time I would have to force the program to close as I couldn't do anything.

I also kept on receiving an error saying out of memory when I was trying to edit topics within the project.

I just upgraded to version 9 as I also upgraded my pc to windows 7 64bit so wanted a version of robohelp that was compatible with this. I was also hoping this would help with the regular crashes. However, as I was upgrading my project, it hovered on not responding for around 15mins and I wasn't able to do anything.

My project has over 6000 topics most with multiple images in them.

I think that it is crashing as it is a 32bit software and is therefore reaching its memory limit as I have such a large number of topics. Is this correct? Does it come as a 64bit version seeing as it is compatible with 64bit (this is what I was hoping for when I upgraded)?

[Peter Grainge]

RoboHelp 9 is designed to work on a 64 bit system. It sounds to me as if the problem is more related to the size your project both in terms of the number of topics and the number of imaqes. I had some large projects and have found that after say four or five thousand topics, performance can tail off. A partial solution is to regularly delete the CPD file but probably the time has come to split the project and create merged help. Done properly your users will not be aware of it and you will have smaller projects.

I went through this with someone else and after they split a project with fewer topics but many thousands of images, they found things worked as expected.

I haven't seen anyone report an Out of Memory problem which makes me wonder if there is some other factor at play. You may get a Memory Exception message but that is usually related to have imported output files into RoboHelp without cleaning them up. The sign of that is red squares in the topics.

Is your project on your local drive? Have you tried doing some work on one of the supplied sample projects to see if that works OK.

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[Guest]

I have thought of splitting the project into smaller projects, but I have links between topics and wasn't sure if this was possible if the project was split up? If it is possible can I create a link to a specific part of the topic?

I haven't had a message that says memory exception before, however it has crashed when importing word documents and when it does it put the red squares in the topics, but not always.

I mainly got the out of memory message when I was trying to insert a related topics button into a topic.

The project is on my local c drive. And yes I have played around a very small amount with the robohelp 9 sample projects but I have not managed to crash it, which makes me think that it is my particular project?

When you say it is designed to work on a 64bit system does that mean the software is actually a 64bit version? I asked Adobe Tech Support and they came back to me and said it is a 32bit version but is able to run on a 64bit OS.

[Peter Grainge]

Links to specific parts of a document are created using bookmarks. How to split a project is described in the Merged Help topics on my site. It is not a five minute task.

What you are saying though makes me wonder if size is the real cause.

I can't help you with the Word imports causing red squares, New one on me. Importing though is also covered on my site.

Also I don't use Related Topics so perhaps someone else can help on that.

What Adobe told you is correct. That's why I described the compatibility as "designed to work on a 64 bit system" rather than "is a 64 bit program". Others are using RH9 on 64 bit systems without these problems and what you have described does seem to point to your project rather than RoboHelp itself.

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

Very little software is 64-bit optimized.

[Guest]

Does the fact that the software crashes and says it's not responding at 2GB memory have any importance/relation to the limitations of 32bit software?

Otherwise what could be wrong with my project to cause Robohelp to be regularly crashing?

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

You've got a 64 bit machine & you're only running with 2GB RAM? I'd be throwing more RAM at the problem. Also, you don't mention where on your local hard drive is your project - hopefully it's nice and close to the root c:\ drive - like in c:\projects\{project_name]\

[Guest]

I have 16GB of RAM on the machine but it only seems to be accessing 2GB before it crashes. I did manage to reach a max of 3.25GB but by this time it had completely crashed and I wasn't able to do anything.

my project is located on the c drive under the my robohelp projects folder

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

Ok, that should be fine - there will be a limit to how much memory a 32 bit app will address (see Error7103's posts in the FM forum about this), but the more memory available, the happier apps are. Are you running much else at the same time as RH? Are you using source control at all?

And yeah, even though that's the default location for RH projects, it's not "best practices" - the shorter the path, the better.

[Guest]

I just rechecked the memory usage and I realised that it was actually crashing at only 200MB which suggests it must be something to do with my project and not the software at all??

I'm not using source control and only have a few standard things running like email and internet nothing that is putting particular stress on the machine.

As I have said previously my project is over 6000 topics with a large majority of these containing multiple images. The project works well when I have generated it as a webhelp layout, I am only experiencing problems when creating the project in robohelp. It often even crashes when I am only trying to open a topic from the TOC?!

[Peter Grainge]

Let's go back to assuming the project size is the issue for a while.

Create a backup copy of your project somewhere safe. I suggest a zip file so that you cannot accidentally open it and work on it.

Create two copies of the project and trash the first half of the topics in one and the second half in the other. Ignore all warnings about broken links and the end of the world being nigh.

Do some test work on both halves and see if there is any improvement.

Also do you have a second machine you could work on?

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[Guest]

I have now split the project in half and been working in both of them a little bit. I have noticed a small difference but very marginal. These projects are still quite large at just over 3000 topics each.

I do not have second machine with windows 7 and robohelp 9 on it... although I do have a second windows xp machine I could use? That one also has robohelp 8 on it if that helps in anyway? This is the one my project was initially created on.

I have now started adding more topics but as you suggested I have created a them in new projcet and am going to merge the projects together when complete.

However, it still concerns me that the first project is over 6000 topics and is therefore quite slow if I need to make any changes to this. Also, will this project being so large and running slow have an affect on any other projects that I create in Robohelp? I preferably do not want to split this project up.

[Peter Grainge]

You cannot go back to RoboHelp 8 but you could put 9 on that machine. Deactivate it when you have finished.

The slow running only affects you when working. It should not affect the outputs.

Nonetheless, it does look like something is still wrong. I would consider moving the project from the My RoboHelp Projects as that is within your user profile and we have seen problems caused by that, albeit different problems.

After that I would consider a further split. My suspicion is it could still be the number of images.

How big is the full project if zipped up without any outputs in it?