Conditional build tags in RH 9.0.2.217 GONE WILD!

[KatharynBine]

Hello forum!

A help project in RH 9.0.2.217 is having problems with conditional build tags. Five CBTs but two of them in particular are being applied apparently by RoboHELP. Seems like every new day, when editing a topic, a different build tag starts populating itself. Can edit the topic in HTML view and all's fine, but when the view is switched to Design view, conditional build tags are applied throughout the topic.

We were using RH9 until last week when the issue started. Installed the 9.0.1 and 9.0.2 patches, and the problem stopped for two days, but now it is back. RH9 now is also spontaneously adding bold and italics to text.

It's now proceeding with adding bold text and italic text to the project.

Reported to Adobe yesterday as bug # 3752233, but I do not have a really warm fuzzy feeling that we'll get a response in the next week.

What I really need to know:

1. Why is this occurring?

2. How do we make it stop occurring? Vaibhav at the Adobe chat sales recommends that we re-install RH 9 because he suspects that something has become defective. He is not able to be more specific, though, and that makes me nervous because the 9.0.1 patch was released to address this defect.

3. How do I keep this from spreading to other projects, because it just cropped up in a previously "uninfected" project?

I'm working on a business case to upgrade, since I know RH9 is two versions back.

Appreciate your assistance!

[Peter Grainge]

Please do not duplicate posts. I have just replied to your other post only to then find this post with more information. Clearly what I have posted there is not the answer.

I'm not sure 902 can be applied without 901 having been installed but I guess that is one possibility. I have not seen any other report of the problem recurring after applying the patch but I think you had to manually clean up.

Why chat to Sales rather than Tech Support?

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[KatharynBine]

Per direction, not continuing conversation on post at http://forums.adobe.com/message/6346585#6346585.

We determined that the sequence of events was as follows:

Installed 9.0.

Download RoboHelp 9.0.2 update. ( Applicable for RoboHelp Version - 9.0.0.228 & 9.0.1.232)

So the 9.0.1 update was NOT installed before the 9.0.2 update was installed, and we now know why problems continued. The human error occurred because the computer had one of those two versions (RH 9.0.0.228 & 9.0.1.232) installed. The download page fails to state that both the 9.0.1 AND the 9.0.2 updates must be installed. The web page at http://www.adobe.com/support/robohelp/downloads.html should be updated to state that plainly. Believe me, I am super happy that the problem is so simply fixed and it's all in our control.

So: tell us, what is the correct sequence? Is it the following?

Install RH 9

Install RH 9.0.1

Install 9.0.2 update for RH version 9.0.0.228 & 9.0.1.232

Install 9.0.2 update for RH 9.0.1.262

Or is it sufficient to just install ONE of the 9.0.2 updates? We would love to get it right this time. I really appreciate your clarification.

[Peter Grainge]

Rather than wait for me to check whether 902 contained 901, let's assume it did not.

First install 901 and then go to the Help menu to see what your build number is. Based on that, apply the appropriate 902 patch. It is important to get the right one.

Let me know if that works.

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[KatharynBine]

Based on a conversation with Vikas at tech support, the correction for the conditional build tag defect is present ONLY in the 9.0.1 update, not in either of the 9.0.2 updates. (Vikas has been fantastic, by the way.)

And that is the question. After installing RH 9 and the 9.0.1 patch, the version number is now 9.0.1.232.

I'd think that the next step would be to install the patch shown as Download RoboHelp 9.0.2 update. ( Applicable for RoboHelp Version - 9.0.0.228 & 9.0.1.232) on the page at http://www.adobe.com/support/robohelp/downloads.html. Is that accurate?

[KatharynBine]

Vikas indicates that as our version number is 9.0.1.232, we proceed only with the update shown as "Download RoboHelp 9.0.2 update. ( Applicable for RoboHelp Version - 9.0.0.228 & 9.0.1.232)" on the page at http://www.adobe.com/support/robohelp/downloads.html.

[Peter Grainge]

Thanks for updating with that information.

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[KatharynBine]

Result has failed. Version number is now 9.0.2.271. Tech writer reports that the page she spent two days removing build tags from is now covered with erroneous build tags.

Will report back once we meet up with tech support to review.

[Peter Grainge]

Open one of the sample projects and see if it occurs there. What you open will be in the user profile. A fresh copy can be taken from Program Files if that does go wrong.

Something else has to be at play here as everyone has found that 901 stops the problem occurring. It does not fix past occurrences of the problem and I suspect if the project is cleaned up again, that will be the end of it. First though play with a sample and see what happens. Then clean up a page or two in the main project and see if it is then stable. I think it will be.

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[Peter Grainge]

Put another way, I think the previous clean up went wrong when the project was closed rather than when it was reopened.

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[KatharynBine]

Thank you for your assistance. After spending six hours with Adobe technical support today attempting to fix this issue, we are giving up on RH 9 and the repair packs. Our local firewall is not compatible with Adobe's approach for permitting downloads and installation of plug-ins (including for Adobe Connect, which was a real kick in the knees). Let me say again: Vikas has been and continues to be great assistance and has done everything we could think to do. Our local IT person did what they could. We are simply at a point where we absolutely need to switch from trying to diagnose a problem and fix it, though, to getting our work done.

Our current approach is to install the RH 11 30-day trial edition and run the project to see whether the problem recurs. We're running into different but smaller problems, but they are ones we have more control to address. This looks like a more promising approach. I'll post an update once we have another development.

[Peter Grainge]

If you still have a copy of the cleaned up project, try that in Rh11.

The forums will be down for an extended period at 6pm PST for maintenance.

Contact me via my site if you need to. Note I am on UK time and may not

have good access on Friday.

[Gravenstein]

I don't know if this is relevant to your situation, but here is something that I have observed about CBTs. If a topic contains a build tag that is not represented in the project itself, problems can occur. This situation typically occurs when a topic is imported from one project into another. Eventually, the orphan CBT starts replicating itself inside the topic. I don't know what the trigger is, but it seems to happen repeatedly.

You can end up with something that looks like this (or worse):

<meta name="build tags" content="orphantag,orphantag,orphantag,orphantag,orphantag,orphantag,orphantag" />

Then after a while, the topic starts acting squirrelly.

Removing the bogus tag from the topic fixes the problem. If there are a bunch of them, sometimes you can fix it easily by adding the bogus tag to the project, then deleting it, but that doesn't always work.

HTH,

G

[KatharynBine]

Checking on this. Thank you!

Kathy Bine