RH7 Eats Snippets

[Guest]

Is anyone else having trouble with the Snippet pod? I can create Snippets and insert them in topics no problem, but when I close the project, RH7 deletes all of the snippets out of the Snippet pod. The references in the topics remain, and the HTS file remains in the project's root directory, but the Snippet pod is empty.

[Guest]

Haven't seen that. I am using a few snippets, and I like them so much I am looking for reasons to create more. They have been behaving like little angels!!!

By any chance, is your project residing on a network? That is a BIG no-no.

[Guest]

No, the project is on my c: drive. I have a folder called RoboHelp, and all of my projects are in that folder.

This project was created with RH5, converted to RH6, and now converted to RH7. The project has been around since 2005 but that shouldn't matter since this is a brand new feature.

[Guest]

no, I doubt that the project heritage matters at all - my projects have been around since 2003ish.

Can you see if the same problem exists in another project? Open up one of the sample projects, for example, create and use a few snippets and see if they get blown away...

[Guest]

Hmmm...All ten of my existing projects behave this way. I created a new project, and the snippets work just fine.

What I did notice is that the new project creates an entry in the rhsnippet.apj file as it should but with the existing projects there is no entry in the rhsnippet.apj file. The file is not write protected. Very strange.

[Peter Grainge]

Try copying a rhsnippet.apj file across.

[Guest]

peter, you read my mind. I was stumped, but feeling adventurous enough to suggest the very same.

wouldn't hurt, by the way, to make a backup of your project environment as it is now before you start troubleshooting.

[Guest]

I tried that. I imported the snippet from the new project into the old project and I copied the rhsnippet.apj file across. The imported snippet works beautifully. If I then try to create a new snippet in the old project, it still doesn't write to the rhsnippet.apj file. I did check the xpj files to be sure the reference to the rhsnippet.apj file was the same in both projects. Very strange.

[Peter Grainge]

Create a copy of one of your projects. Generate a CHM output. Delete the CPD and XPJ files and use the HHP to reopen it. Do the snippets then play nicely?

[Guest · Accepted solution]

I made a back up copy of the project and renamed the CPD file so it had an extension of .bak. I reopened the project and now the snippets are playing nicely. I tried this with another project and that fixed the problem.

I wish Adobe would get rid of the CPD file. It always causes so much wierdness.

Thanks for the help.

[Captiv8r]

Hi southwinds

I wish Adobe would get rid of the CPD file.

I stand to be corrected here, but if they did that, you would probably hear a nice whooshing sound as any reporting capability vanished.

I'm not 100% sure, but I believe the reports are genned from the .CPD file (which probably explains why it's still around).

Cheers... Rick

[Pet3689]

Wow, this really works!!! This is wonderful.

Rick, please accept a virtual dinner-in-a-nice-restaurant as a sign of my gratitude! You are the best!

I did not realize that RH7HTML would simply re-build the missing CPD file, without loosing information.

Is there any logic to deleting the CPD file (and also the XPJ file) to recover from strange problems? Is this simply a last resort? Or is it a good remedy for all sorts of odd behavior?

Interestingly, this did not fix my problem with the A^ character prepended to many special characters if Microsoft HTML Help > Optimize CHM File Size is enabled. But that is another story entirely of course.

[Peter Grainge]

Pet3689

See Opening Projects on my site. That covers what gets lost when you trash the CPD. Trashing it causes it to be rebuilt from various internal files and that process can correct errors that have got into the CPD.

[Emma_SDL]

I am having a similar problem with snippets however mine is in a multi-author environment. We have three authors and we are using RoboSource Control. Sometimes one author can't see any of the snippets while another author can when they have the Robohelp project open. The snippets do exist on the server that RoboSource Control is on and on the hard drive when they are downloaded. The only solution that I have found to make the snippets display is to delete all of the RoboHelp project files from your hard drive and download it again RoboSource. This is not hard to do but more rather annoying because sometimes we have to do that 4 or 5 times in a day.

I have read your solution – “Create a copy of one of your projects. Generate a CHM output. Delete the CPD and XPJ files and use the HHP to reopen it.”

How would you do that though when the project is on RoboSource Control. I don't when to mess up the connection to RoboSource Control. Would I need to actually delete the XPJ off of the server to do this?

Thanks,
Emma

[RoboColum_n_]

Hi Emma.
I don't use RSC preferring to use a third party solution but I'd have thought that as long as you check out and check in to/from the same location that it shouldn't matter. So if you follow the advice, just make sure you copy the files back to the original location.