Fatal Error when Compiling

[Guest]

I have just upgraded from RH6 to RH7 and since then I have not been able to compile my .chm file.

I have been using RH7 to open a RH6 project and the update to 7 seems to all go okay. But when I come to compile the single source layout it ends in an error and I can't open the .chm.

The error I get is as below, but with lots more lines about gifs:

quote:

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HHC3004 Warning
Picture.gif
The HTML tag “|\&^$£*&(*_><@:-,..’;)*((*”&*…etc” is not a valid HTML tag (it does not begin with an alphanumeric character).

Fatal Error: Enexpected error from Microsoft HTML Compiler.
Finished compiling HTMLHEKO in 21 sec(s)

Compilation complete.

---

I'm completely at a loss and getting very fed up with RoboHelp. Any ideas would be much appreciated.

Thanks.

[Peter Grainge]

Haven't seen that but wondering if it is related to a bug that was identified and patched. After installing and before upgrading, did you apply the update? If not, do that and upgrade again from a backup.

[Guest]

Hmmm, I tried that and updated to 7.0.1, but I still have the same problem.

I had one PC with RH6 on and then had the free trial of RH7 on another PC. Initially I put the upgrade of RH7 on the second PC but then deactivated it and put it on the RH6 PC. Maybe this has all got a bit too much and I should uninstall and start again.

[AdamXT2]

Some of us get seemingly random (and often debilitating) compilation crashes, but I've never gotten an error message.

[Peter Grainge]

Any clues in the Output view?

[Guest]

I never get to see the output. When it's finished compiling I click on 'View Result' but nothing happens. It gets confused then and when I try and compile again, it thinks the output is open somewhere and won't let me.

I'm just going to to try Adobe Tech Support this morning. I'll let you know how it goes...

[RoboColum_n_]

Hi ThermoBob.
Peter is referring to the panel you can display when you compile which displays messages during the compile process. Click View > Outout View and then compile.

[Guest]

Ah yes, that's where I see the error I quoted above. Other than that there are no error messages - without that the only symptom would be that nothing would happen when I click 'View Results'.

[RoboColum_n_]

Can you run a test and create a new project, create a single topic and import the picture.gif file. Compile and tell us if it works. If it does, compare the truecode for the image between the two projects and post any differences.

[Guest]

I've created a new project in RH7 and imported a few HTML file from my original project.

When I compile, I still get the error message about the GIFs (below), but not the fatal error and I can view the result.

Maybe it's a problem with the GIFs?

quote:

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HHC3004: Warning:
ACTIONS_shg.gif :
The HTML tag "¿ýsÚÃàÛþ×åòñ‡€æÚ&/b–ù–8ÎÍæ`‡»Ã!î‚´™Œg—”;Ouv–..." is not a valid HTML tag (it does not begin with an alphanumeric character).

---

[RoboColum_n_]

I see you are using image maps and that the name has an underscore in it. Remove that as it is an invalid character.

[Guest]

I see.

Trying that in this new project I've created I still get:

quote:

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CTIONSshg.gif
HHC3004: Warning:
ACTIONSshg.gif :
The HTML tag "äùùã c=ëmÛ¨ñÔ®_nªs“Æú›Ë%»|tÒe³ï”́³_{õÕË~vɱÓÝò..." is not a valid HTML tag (it does not begin with an alphanumeric character).

HHC3004: Warning:
ACTIONSshg.gif :
The HTML tag "Ħ‘9.HÑ…Ž0#ÎñŠø+:vkTÇœbÏ,n,\àþĦøåG{ⲎÕl–×)..." is not a valid HTML tag (it does not begin with an alphanumeric character).

HHC3004: Warning:
ACTIONSshg.gif :
The HTML tag "¿ýsÚÃàÛþ×åòñ‡€æÚ&/b–ù–8ÎÍæ`‡»Ã!î‚´™Œg—”;Ouv–..." is not a valid HTML tag (it does not begin with an alphanumeric character).

ehlpdhtm.js
Processing keywords...
Generating full-text search data...
Compacting file system...
Compile time: 0 minutes, 1 second

14 Topics
1 Local link
0 Internet links
0 Graphics

Created c:\..\Desktop\Test\!SSL!\Microsoft_HTML_Help\Test.chm, 55,368 bytes

Compression decreased file by 109,421 bytes.

Finished compiling HTMLHELP in 3 sec(s)

Compilation complete.

---

[RoboColum_n_]

Just a minute. Have you upgraded a Winhelp file here? I think you have as .SHG files are the old winhelp file extensions for image maps. That could be the issue here. Try recreating the image map in the affected topic using the right click Insert Image Map menu item and see if that helps.

[AdamXT2]

As a possible other issue, make sure that your project isn't in a deep folder path; try moving the project folder so that it is directly inside the C: folder, then try compiling again.

[Guest]

Wow. I've got it sorted now! Thanks for all your suggestions. All it was was that the folder was too deep. Recently I had been working from a folder on my desk top, and now I've moved it back to C: it compiles okay.

It seems a bit clunky if RoboHelp can't handle that. I was just about to reply to my Adobe tech support email and I'll tell them what happened. I had a very efficient response from them incidently.

Thanks again.

[RoboColum_n_]

You should NEVER have your source files anywhere else but a hard drive. RH uses an Access database which are well known to be prone to problems when run over a network. Chances are it was this that was causing the problem.

[Guest]

Certainly a lesson learnt. It was only on my desktop though, so still on my C: drive and only a few levels deeper than C:.

[RoboWizard]

Hi ThermoBob

You said: It was only on my desktop though, so still on my C: drive and only a few levels deeper than C:.

Are you absolutely certain of that? If you are working in a corporate environment, it's entirely possible that your IT folks have enabled what is known as "Roving Profiles". In this situation, the Desktop follows you around and you may log into any PC on the network. And if that's the case, guess where your project is stored? On the server!

Food for thought... Rick

[Guest]

Yeah, I thought there could be something like that, but as far as I can tell, my desktop is C:\Documents and Settings\Bob\Desktop\

Or is it just made to look like that?

[Captiv8r]

Hi again

No, if that's the path you are seeing, you are probably okay that it's local.

Cheers... Rick