Created an Index and now the TOC has disappeared on the RH Server

[jdcyclone1]

I've posted about this before and haven't really gotten an answer that solves our issues. This morning my co-worker created a help system using FlashHelp Pro, published it out to the RoboHelp Server...it appeared fine. She hadn't created an index yet, so she went back into RoboHelp and created the index. When she posted her files back to the RH Server, the TOC is now gone. The Contents pane is there, just no content The scroll bar acts like it's going to load but disappears. We tried republishing, emptying the Temporary Internet Files, yelling at the computer...nothing.

After much investigation we noticed that RoboHelp Server adds a bunch of entries after your .htm file in the address bar. This effectively turns the reporting functions of RH Server on and off. Here is an example: http://server/robo/projects_fhpro/projectname/file.htm#>>prj=Example Project>>cap=Example Project>>pbs=toc|ndx|nls|gls>>pdb=toc>>pot=>>pan=0

When you remove those additions from the address the TOC appears again in her project.

Therefore it tells me that RoboHelp is messing with something in the stuff it puts into the address.

Any clue what is going on? This has happened to three people pretty randomly now, and I'm getting annoyed by it.

If you have the answer I'm looking for, you are officially my hero!!

[johndaigle]

Make sure "Mark of the Web" is turned off and let me know if that helps.
john

[Gayres]

I'm having this same problem.

How do I turn off the "mark of the web"?

[johndaigle]

Hi Gayres and welcome to the Forums!
I'm testing this now myself, but meanwhile to answer your question, the "mark of the web" check box is located on the publishing wizard of WebHelp or FlashHelp (Pro) first dialog box under "Additional Options" at the bottom of the dialog.
I'll be reporting my results later today.
Thanx
john

[Gayres]

Thanks for the welcome -- and for the speedy reply.

I'm thinking that we're running very different versions of RoboHelp; I'm using X5 with WebHelp Pro and I don't see a publishing wizard, a web admin, or any of the chack boxes you're all talking about.

Still, I seem to have lost my table of contents nevertheless...

[johndaigle]

OK, I found this in a knowledge base Tech Note:

(Edited for brevity)
When FlashHelp is served from a Windows 2003 Server with IIS 6.0 installed, the navigation components are not displayed.

Solution
This is caused by the MIME type on the server, restricting access to the skin file. This can be fixed in one of two ways.

Solution 1
In IIS, in the MIME types, add FHS as Text/Plain. After adding FHS as Text/Plain, restart IIS.

I cut it off there. Here is the URL to the full text of the Tech Note.
http://www.adobe.com/go/rb_70163

Also, you definitely will want to make sure your Web Administrator has "turned on" Microsoft Indexing Services" on the IIS server machine.
john

[jdcyclone1]

John,
Unfortunately I have bad news. It still doesn't work. After adding the MIME type and starting the Indexing Service, the only way to make my TOC return is still to put a checkmark in the Automatically Merge Projects box, if that's not checked the TOC is not populated, and as soon as I put a checkmark in that box and re-publish, back it comes.

[jdcyclone1]

I thought I would add something else to the craziness. If I uncheck the Merge Projects box, I can get the TOC to reappear if I go to publish my help system and change the window setting to <None> instead of a custom one. I checked all of the settings on my custom window and nothing on there merits making the TOC dissapear. I'm thoroughly confused.

It makes it even harder when I can find these things that trigger my problem, but am not a programmer, so I really have no context to say..."Oh, it's such and such causing this....duh!!" I'm failing to see connections between any of this.

Maybe if you can run this thread by one of the RH programmers or at least Vivek or Akshay, maybe they can enlighten us a bit.

[jdcyclone1]

Disregard my last post...that stuff didn't work AT ALL! I was accidentally looking at a version of my help on the server that the address ended at .htm instead of adding all of the extras. It fooled me. My final determination is that the ONLY way for me to retrieve my TOC is to go into the Web Admin, delete the project, check the Merge Similar Projects box, and then republish. This is the ONLY way that works for me to resolve this issue!?!?!

[jdcyclone1 · Accepted solution]

My question has been answered!! RoboHelp Server dislikes spaces in your project names, so if you have any spaces then replace them with underscores or take them out all together. I actually went into the project folder on my local drive and had to rename my project file with an underscore to make this work. After republishing to the server....BOOM...the Table of Contents is back. I've missed it greatly, but we're once again reunited

[jdcyclone1]

John-
I tried the Mark of the Web test, and it still didn't appear. BUT, I had a suspicion about the Automatically Merge Projects of Same Type check box in the Web Admin. It had NOT been checked previously, and my co-worker only had one help project, but I decided to put a check mark in the box to tell it to merge similar types anyway. I deleted her previous FlashHelpPro project and had her re-publish. Guess what...the TOC magically returned!!

I actually had one of my projects TOC's disappear yesterday, and I thought I did something with the Merge Projects box, but wasn't 100% sure. Now I am!

Do you think this is a bug that should be reported??

[jdcyclone1]

I unchecked the box, since we don't want to merge all of our projects, and now when I refresh the project it makes the TOC disappear again. Recheck the box and it's back!?!?!?! Craziness.

[johndaigle]

You are welcome to report, but I will be talking to some Adobe folks and mention this as well. If I learn anything new I'll report. Thanx for helping test this.

Couple of questions:
Not that it matters, but how many projects do you have on the server? Is there a mixture of WebHelp Pro and FlashHelp Pro? You can have a mixture, but only one type will be included in the search results if you use the Automatically Merge feature.
john

[johndaigle]

Also, what browser are you testing in and does that browser have the latest Flash Player and permissions to view Flash, etc.? Just trying to isolate this.

[jdcyclone1]

You can go ahead and let the Adobe folks know, just let me know what they say.

There are two projects on that server, one FlashHelp Pro, and one WebHelp Pro. Since we couldn't get the TOC to appear on the FlashHelp project, I told my co-worker just to output a WebHelp Pro and we'll have to live with it until next release.

I tried it in IE7, FireFox 2.0.0.13, and Opera 9.26 all with latest Flash Player and permissions to view Flash.

You might want to mention to Adobe the fact that you can also make the TOC return by removing the extra stuff from the address bar (everything after the *.htm). There is some connection there apparently.

The TOC appears just fine if the same project is published to your local drive.

Therefore, it leads me to believe it's probably a RH Server issue.

[johndaigle]

Yes, Gayres. X5 is almost 6 years old and was created by the old eHelp company before Macromedia and Adobe bought it. X5 does not have the "mark of the web" choice in the dialog. This was introduced with Adobe RoboHelp 6. FlashHelp (Pro) support was added in the latest RoboHelp 7 release. Yours may be a completely different issue. I'll try and get back to you on this, not sure it'll be today.
Thanx
john

[Gayres]

John,

Thanks for the info. Any help with my disappearing TOC would be appreciated.

Cheers!

[RoboColum_n_]

Hi jdcyclone1.
Whilst I'm glad you got things working I'd strongly advise you not to use underscores or any other special characters either.