RH Quirk (Part 2)

[V_Jordan]

Was working in one topic this morning entering edits. Finished edits and moved to another topic. When I moved to the other topic, the right pane appeared totally white -- no text at all. Tried double-clicking other topics but had the same result. (Had only been working in the app for 30-40 minutes). Closed and reopened the project file, and things appeared OK.

Twenty minutes later the same thing occurred.

[RoboColum_n_]

Is your project source on a network drive? If so, move it off and see if the same behaviour occurs. It may also be some conflicting anti-virus software scanning an incoming email?

[Guest]

I have had this problem once or twice where as I was working, topics started going blank in the right pane when I switched from one to another. I work from my hard drive, Windows XP SP2, RoboHelp 6.0.

I did the same thing--closed the project and reopened, and topics showed up again. I don't think they started disappearing again as they did for V Jordan, at least not in the same day.

[V_Jordan]

The project file is actually on my C:\ drive.

[Peter Grainge]

Me too! Can't nail the little critter but something causes this to happen, sometimes several times a day and then days with no trouble.

So far close the project and reopen it is the only solution.

[V_Jordan]

OK, glad to know I'm not in this alone. Thanks!

[HKabaker]

Is it only when you have opened the topic from the RH TOC pane (but not always)?

[V_Jordan]

Yes, that's correct.

[johndaigle]

Hi, V Jordan,
You didn't mention what version of RoboHelp?

This "screen refresh" (?) bug has been around at least since RoboHelp X3. I get to see it a lot because out of a 3-day class with 10 students in a training lab there are always one or two reports of this problem. I have never been able to figure out the cause. Often the students are following me along and doing the exact same thing on the exact configured computers.

The only known solution is to reboot RoboHelp (not the OS). To my knowledge in all these years there has been no loss of data, it's simply a pain in the neck.

One interesting thing (maybe Rick will chime in) is that I don't remember getting this since RoboHelp 6? I don't know if I've just been lucky, or they finally squashed the bug.

BTW, Harvey - I could be wrong, but I "think" this is a different bug than you mentioned. I think X4 had the Save glitch, wherein you could indeed lose data. But I believe that one went away in X5. The "ghost" topic pane that V Jordan mentions, was certainly alive and well in X5.

Thanx for bringing it up. Though I have not encountered it, the RoboHelp 7 beta team needs to be on the lookout for this.
John

[HKabaker]

This is an old bug from long ago, and I thought it was gone.

It depends on whether you have checked the option to always save before closing, or ask before saving, I think. I can't find it right now.

The answer is
never open a topic from the left-hand pane, or
save the open topic (or the whole project) first, then open another from the left, or
close the topic before opening another from the left pane. Depending on the setting, you may need to save it, if you haven't done so before closing it, before opening another topic from the left.

As I recall, the original bug resulted in losing all contents from the unsaved topic, not just messing up the display.


Harvey

[V_Jordan]

Yes, I did experience this issue in RH6. My apologies for not including the version number. I haven't experienced a loss of data (thankfully), but have seen this quite a bit over the last couple weeks.

Thanks Harvey and John!

[Captiv8r]

Hi all

Rick here, chiming in from the Will Rogers World Airport in the wonderful and scenic South Oklahoma City.

I too have experienced this (sorry John, even in 6) through the years. I've got nothing but a gut feeling to go on here, but I've always thought it was something attributed to system resources (or, more accurately, lack thereof). I'm not a developer, and I didn't stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night, so I can't claim to be one. However, I am aware that sometimes applications have issues with memory management and something called a "Memory leak" may occur. And this is what I've always just sort of in the back of my twisted little mind considered may be going on.

Happy Friday all... Rick

[Peter Grainge]

I didn't experience it until RH6!

I know I've heard that developer and Holiday Inn one somewhere. Tell it again for us Brits.

[Captiv8r]

Hi all

Ahhhh yes. Forgot that not everyone would pick up on that.

Here in the US, Holiday Inn Express has several commercials with different settings. The implication being that if you stay at a Holiday Inn Express, you are smarter than the average bear. For example:

In one, a group of people are taking off in a helicopter. As they are taking off, the person piloting the helicopter is asked if he is the pilot. He replies, no, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night! In another, the scene is an operating room. The surrounding nurses and doctors are exclaiming something like "That was an amazing job, doctor. How did you learn that? (something like that) and again a reply of: I'm not really a doctor, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night! Some of them are really quite funny!

I poked around briefly and here is a link to one of them: Holiday Inn Express ad

Cheers all... Rick

[johndaigle]

BTW, Rick. Best wishes on your daughter's wedding!
Sorry, they don't have a champagne smilie.
john

[Gravenstein]

A tip of the hat to all the Holiday Inn Smarty-Pants, and congrats to the father of the bride!

We've run into this RH problem every so often with X5, and from what you've said, it sounds like we'll see it again in RH6. I just generally tell people to reboot their pc when the RH display starts acting up. It may not always be necessary, but it's cheap insurance, because often enough when the display starts to act funny, other problems start cropping up as well.

G

[Peter Grainge]

Are you perhaps thinking of a different bug, the one where if you had the AutoSave when Closing prompt ticked? That resulted in a loss of data.

[HKabaker]

Not to throw any cold water on Rick's celebration --

I defer to Peter's suggestion that in my mind I was mating two different bugs. Just think of the offspring that might result!

Can anyone confirm that this does or does not happen if you save the current topic before opening another topic from the left?

H

[Guest]

H,

I don't know about if you do save, but I just caught myself moving between topics out of the Project pane without saving, and my topics are still showing up. So, at the least, not saving before moving to a different topic isn't necessarily a cause, at least not 100%. I probably move between topics without saving first (maybe not the best practice) a few times most days, and I have encountered the blank topic problem only a couple of times. It's been long enough since it happened to me that I don't remember exactly what I did or didn't do when I saw the problem.

V Jordan,

Your RH Quirk Part 1 post talks about changes not showing up when you open topics out of the TOC pane. Have you had the blank topic problem when working out of the TOC pane? Now that I think of it, I open topics out of the TOC pane every great once in a while, and maybe this corresponded with the white screen... can't remember...

--Ben