Troubleshooting 404 errors discovered through dynaTrace

[doctechwriter]

I'm using RoboHelp 9.0.2.271 on a Windows 7 64-bit machine to generate a WebHelp project. Everything appears to be fine in the source files and in the output files when I test locally and/or in a build.

I received a message from development that they used something called dynaTrace to test for errors in the build. They sent a list of seven 404 errors logged by the application. The list looks similar the attached screenshot of two (fake) examples.

When I look at the folder where I deliver the output files to development, I see all of the files that are listed under the URI column and the Referrer column, with only a few exceptions for two of the entries. I'm not familiar with troubleshooting the help in this manner and was hoping someone else can shed some light. There are no apparent broken links in the project.

In case these details are helpful, I work exclusively on my hard drive when using RoboHelp. I store the source files through Tortoise SVN. I deliver the output (WebHelp) files to development by copying the contents of my WebHelp folder from my local output folder and pasting them to a location on the network for development to retreive.

Thanks for any help!

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

Can’t make out your screenshot, but a 404 is a page not found – have a look at the pages they’re reporting and see if there is any dead/broken links in them.

[doctechwriter]

Thanks, Jeff. When I went to the pages listed in the Referrer column (btw - you may be able to click the image in my message to zoom in on it), and then located the files listed in the URI column, something odd happened. When I double clicked the applicable link in the RoboHelp project, everything looked set up correctly. However, some of the images didn't appear correctly when I used the "View Selected Item" (glasses) icon to view them. So then I opened the link again in the project, navigated to the exact same graphic, and then it seemed to reload the image. I'm sure this isn't making much sense. I vaguely remember a bug from years ago that caused this to happen (where after upgrading, certain images lost their links), so maybe that's at play. This is a large, inherited project. They're going to run dynaTrace on the updated files in the morning, so I'll know then if "re-linking" the images fixed the issues. Fingers crossed.

[doctechwriter]

Adding some updates in case any of this rings a bell for anyone. Development did another build last night and ran dynaTrace again. The graphics I re-linked yesterday no longer appear as missing. However, in today's report, additional graphics appeared to be missing (that didn't show up in yesterday's report). One was in a topic that was impacted yesterday for a different graphic (which didn't appear as an issue yesterday). Another one was in a different topic that was not impacted before. Again, when I open RoboHelp and look at the topics and images, they appear to be linked properly. I am not familiar with how dynaTrace actually tests for missing files. RoboHelp shows no broken links or missing images. Not sure yet if it makes a difference, but most of these "missing" images are located within expanding hotspots.

I did find some info on the one file that showed up yesterday and today. The /test/testhelp/contentlist.xml file is missing from the /test-samplesite/test/whskin_mbars.htm referring page. From what I understand, this file is only needed when DUCC is used in a project. We are not using DUCC in this project.

http://forums.adobe.com/thread/914941

If anyone has any insights, let me know. Thanks for listening.

[Peter Grainge]

So it is only that DynaTrace is giving a false report?

If so, it seems to be an issue for their forums as Rh is doing its job.

I haven't seen anyone else report this.

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[Andreas_Grabner]

Hi. I dont think dynaTrace is giving false reports as it reports on the actual HTTP Response Code seen in the App Server.

But - as Peter suggested - maybe something you want to follow up with on our Compuware APM Community Forum - http://community.compuwareapm.com

[doctechwriter]

Thanks, Andreas. I agree-- I don't think dynaTrace is giving false reports. The mystery with contentlist.xml has since been solved. (It's not needed since our project doesn't use DUCC, but a script still looks for it.) In the case of the missing images, when I looked at the source files in RoboHelp, the links to the images appeared to be set up correctly on the Image dialog. However, "...some of the images didn't appear correctly when I used the "View Selected Item" (glasses) icon to view them..." (These were not as immediately apparent since they were inside expanding dropdowns. This project has hundreds if not thousands of expanding dropdowns that contain field definitions, and some of the graphics were inside those.) Anyway, the since the images appear as missing in the output (even though they are in the project and seem properly linked), I believe it is a RoboHelp issue. In my hurry while troubleshooting the issue, I did a poor job of explaining it. I have since found some other posts where images have randomly lost their links (and where simply opening the Image window and clicking OK (even without navigating to re-link the same graphic) temporarily fixes the seemingly broken link. I'm currently trying some of the workarounds listed in those other posts. Thanks for your input and time, everyone. I'll carry on my research in other related posts.

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

You should be able to quickly prove or disprove a broken link on an image by checking your output (not your source RH files) to verify what’s being produced.

[Peter Grainge]

My answer was based on the understanding that all the images were present. I hope the other threads help. If any one thread provides the answer, it would be helpful if you could post a link to it here.

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge