RoboHelp HTML 10 is taking one of my topic files and copying it multiple times.

[Guest]

I am using RoboHelp HTML 10 to update a reference project with about 1,500 topics in it. Today, I created a new topic with several internal bookmark links. I have edited this topic file several times and saved it without any problems but late today, when I wanted to save the file and close the project, RH gave me an error message about the file name being too long and the TOC reference was too long. This error message repeated over and over so I used Task Manager to kill RH and I rebooted my PC.  When I got RH running again, I discovered 40 copies of the topic file listed in the Project Manager window.  Each file name is a unique creation made up of the original topic file name and one or more of the internal links. Here is a sample of the names:

Ultimate_Data_Display.htm (topic file with several bookmarks)

Ultimate_Data_Display.htm#View_Data (no .htm suffix - when I open one of these files using NotePad, the file contains an exact copy of the original html code)

Ultimate_Data_Display.htm#View_Data#Detailed_View

Ultimate_Data_Display.htm#View_Data#Detailed_View#Summary_View

The file names get longer and longer until the 260-? character limit is reached.

RH appears to be parsing the topic file, pulling out the bookmark code, concatenating various bits together and then saving copies of the original file under these new names. Perhaps this is occuring because of some interaction between RH and the version control system we are using.  However, I don't know what version control system we have. I have a "source folder" on my local desktop and RH is doing some type of checking in and checking out of all the files that I work on.

Any suggestions on how to stop this problem would be great, as I have several new topic files to create over the next few work-days.

[Peter Grainge]

This is a new one on me.

Have you tried deleting the CPD file and then working on the project?

Where is the project located?

Does your working environment have a backup tool running all the time, such as Memeo?

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[Guest]

Thank you, Peter. I didn't know about the CPD file.  I will ask my team leader about it. The day after I posted my original msg, I showed my team lead and he has access to version control (in an internal Microsoft Sharepoint site) and he deleted the created files. I have not had the problem again ... (fingers crossed).

[Guest]

Hi,

I faced the same issue when I used sharepoint for the version control. I have discovered that the following might be the issues:

• Reference to bookmarks that no longer exist – You can identify such bookmarks from the topic created by the application and seen in the Topic list. You can remove the project from the version control (you cannot delete that topic unless you remove it from the version control), delete all references to the problematic bookmark in the main topic, delete the extra topic,  and add to the version control again.

• Long bookmark names – Reduce the number of characters in the bookmark name till the point that on save the new topic is not created.

These 2 helped me solve my problem. Hope it helps somebody else as well.