Error reading rhvariable.apj after RH9 crash

[rasterdan]

I was adding variables to RH9 on my Win XP 64 pc and RoboHelp crashed.  Not unexpected, RoboHelp crashes several times a day so I save often.  This time, when reopening my project, I get an Error reading rhvariable.apj <5>. 

My rhvariable.apj file is there with most of my work (currently over 600 variables) that I don't want to redo.  If I look at my variables, there are none shown in the editor.

How can I get my variables back without having to re-enter every one?  I have opened the file in notepad and it looks correct, no strange characters and the beginning and end of the file matches the variable files in other projects.  I also tried deleting the .cpd file and this had no effect.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks

dv

[Peter Grainge]

Do you mean Windows XP 64 bit? I don't think RoboHelp was ever supported on that OS and may well be why you are getting crashes.

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[rasterdan]

Is Win 7 64Bit OS supported?

[Peter Grainge]

Yes it is. I cannot be sure that your problems are caused by using an unsupported OS so I would install RoboHelp on a separate machine as a trial version to test first.

---

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[rasterdan]

Do you know if I can reimport or recover my rhvariables?

[rasterdan]

I attempted to open the .cpd file in MS Access and there are no variables.  I attempted to import the .apj file and it makes variable not Variables but most of my work is there.  I put it back in to the folder and reopened Robohelp but no variables.  There must be some other stored data somewhere.

Do you know how this works?

[Willam_van_Weelden]

Did you remove the CPD before opening the project again?

Greet,

Willam

[rasterdan · Accepted solution]

After a lot of trial and error, I managed to fix this problem myself.  The bottom line is that RoboHelp allows you to make a variable with no value but that is what prevented the rhvariable.apj file from being properly read.

Long story, I am in the process of entering almost a thousand variables which are part numbers for a new product.  Two of these variables did not have a part number yet so I left them blank.  RH9 did not complain or indicate this was invalid in any way.

After I launched RH9 and made one variable, I could see that the rhvariable file had my new entry.  So, I copied and pasted a variable from the old rhvariable file and then restarted RH9.  It showed up.  So I tried 10 variables, that worked.  Somewhere about 400 variables down the list were two variables with a name but no value.  So I entered the words "novalue" and everything was working.

If making a variable name and not having a value is a problem, then the software should not allow you to create this variable.  The only positive thing about this experience is that I understand more about how the .cpd file is created.

Thanks for attempting to help me though, I appreciate that effort. 

I did learn that my WinXP 64 OS is not supported and that gives me ammo to push my IT department for the upgrade.  Actually they down graded my new system from Win7. 

[Captiv8r]

Hi there

In hindsight, often everything makes sense. But to be fair, this is a situation that likely would be missed during a beta test. I just never would occur to me that I would want an empty variable. So I would never have considered that I should test for a situation whereby I declared a variable but didn't populate it. My thought pattern would be something along the lines of:

I need a variable for that aspect. I know it says X now but it could say Y later. In no event would I be creating something and think: SOMETHING will go here but I'm not sure what.

I suppose my thought would also make me take the following action in that latter scenario. If my variable will be empty, I might want to easily find it, so I'll populate it with XXX or ??? or some other odd string of characters that would make it stick out like a turkey in a punch bowl. That way if I used it and it wasn't looking right, I'd know to fix it ASAP.

Cheers... Rick

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[rasterdan]

We use 2 sets of numbers for our parts, one describes the physical location and the other describes the actual part being used at any given time.  This allows us to have a number that always points to an exact item like a pcb or cable.  We know we will always have a pcb or cable in a given location but if there are modifications then the part number changes.

So, when we create a book from scratch, I would want to have all of my physical numbers in place which we use as the NAME and the VALUE might not come along until much closer to release.  Sometimes I put NO VALUE so I can search or so they stick out but other items I would leave the physical number and not populate it into topics until an actual part number comes from engineering.  I can also scroll down the list of variables and easily see which parts are blank.  My blank numbers were not populated in any topics yet and I expect they won't be blank for much longer but, they have no value at the moment.  I will just have to not make the variable for these or if I want a place holder, use NO VALUE for the value.

Cheers,

dv

[Willam_van_Weelden]

Hi,

Can you use an XML tool to pinpoint the error? I use Notepad++ with the XML plugin. You can check the file and the tool will point you to the line in the document where the error occurred.

Greet,

Willam

[rasterdan]

Says No error detected