Project very slow to restore broken links

[Guest]

Good morning! I have 12 RH projects that I work on weekly. A lot of updates come from Word files and over the course of the week the .cpd file in most of them gets large. So I rename it and rebuild it launching the .xpj file. I often end up with a number of broken links, but they can be quickly restored with Tools/Restore Links. Except for 1. This project is a new file that is the result of separating it from another project. I carefully recreated the folder structure and imported all the topics. The project runs fine. But when I rebuild its .cpd file the resulting broken links take 30-40 seconds a piece to restore...since there are hundreds and hundreds of broken links...this is not good. They all restore, nothing is truly missing...but where can I look to see what the problem is? My other projects, the links restore like popcorn and I can stack keystrokes and let it work. This one is miserable.

There are no framesets...no video, nothing fancy. This is just html text with a fair number of popup graphic images, normal graphics and baggage files. Some files restore quickly so its not universal....but it takes over an hour to put this project back together when the others just fly.

We're still on RH 5.0 but have 7.0 in the building to test. Is there anything specific I can look for in a topic that would explain this behavior? I'm really stumped on this one...it just doesn't act like the others! The project has 2600 files so this can be painful. All suggestions are welcomed! I have a page full of file names I notice 'hang'...but when I look at them I don't see anything different. ???

[Amebr-ke0mH4]

I've noticed that sometimes the *.fpj files in each directory either aren't always updated when you add new files or get blanked. I don't know why. This results in all the "lost" files.

If you are using source control, you could have a look at earlier versions, find one that contains (mostly) correct data, and either re-import the hopefully few remaining problem files, or manually add them in to the appropriate file. The layout of the file is pretty easy to follow, so minimal risk involved. If you do the re-import, I'd then check to make sure the files have been added to the fpj.

[Guest]

Thanks for the reply. We are not using source control and I've never looked inside a .fpj file but will do that. So...I'm looking to see that the folder contents match the listing in the .fpj file for that folder. If not, can I manually edit them without damaging the project? Thanks again for your help!

[Amebr-ke0mH4]

As long as you are familiar with the concepts of HTML/XML coding it's really easy. If you aren't, it'll look a little scary at first. I'll post some examples to hopefully help. Make sure you have RoboHelp closed, and I think you may also need to delete the cpd file before opening the project again (I think it remembers some of this stuff and will wipe out your changes).

The fpj lists all folders and files in a directory. So for example, this directory contains one subfolder and one topic:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="windows-1252"?>
<rhpml majorversion="1" minorversion="0">
<folders>
<folder>
<name>Samples</name>
</folder>
</folders>
<topics>
<topic>
<name>Viewing_the_Log.htm</name>
<comments></comments>
<frameset>0</frameset>
</topic>
</topics>
</rhpml>

If there aren't any subfolders, it should be like this:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="windows-1252"?>
<rhpml majorversion="1" minorversion="0">
<folders/>
<topics>
<topic>
<name>Viewing_the_Log.htm</name>
<comments></comments>
<frameset>0</frameset>
</topic>
</topics>
</rhpml>

The main thing is to ensure you get the tag pairs correct. If you are a bit concerned about getting it wrong, re-importing (rather than restoring) all the topics "should" add them into the fpj files correctly.

(fingers crossed that the code displays properly... )

[Guest]

Thanks so much for this answer! I believe you have hit the nail on the head - I checked the .fpj of the first file that 'hung' and sure enough, it was 'empty' even though there were 10 files in the folder. I will copy a 'good one' into Notepad to get the format and look for the trouble makers. Thanks again for taking the time & trouble to document all of this!!! Take care!