Generate Crash with Conditional Build Tags

[AdamXT2]

I've experienced many crashes while generating HTML help with RoboHelp 7, always about 3/4 through the "updating" process. This may have been due to long folder names...I remember that RH 5 crashed consistently when generating into deep folders.

Now I'm exploring the incredible single-sourcing capabilities of RH 7.01.001, using variables, snippets, single source layouts, and conditional build tags. All is fine until I try to apply conditional build tags to graphics within frames; then the "updating" crashes begin to occur during generation.

I've seen that many other people have had similar problems in this forum, and that the culprit may be something to do with having tags in certain frames.

Has anybody narrowed down exactly what you SHOULDN'T do when applying conditional build tags? Are there work-arounds? I'd like to avoid future crashes and also maximize these (otherwise) great features.

Cheers,
Adam.

[RaGoe]

Hi Adam,

first of all, I've got no solution but the same problem and want to "reanimate" this topic ;-)

Compiling with build tag expression causes a crash while updating, compiling without expression works fine.
I checked a lot of otions (long folder names, frames, ...) but had no success.
The project uses only one conditional build tag "Intern" and the expression is "NOT Intern".
I applied the build tag to some topics and some texts (no graphics).
The project has 2600 Files in 170 folders, I use RH 7.02.001, OS is Windows Vista.
Any ideas?

Greetings
Ralf

[Peter Grainge]

Is your project on a network (other than under source control)? I doubt that is it as it would affect both builds but need to rule it out.

Take a copy of the project and work on that to identify the problem.

1] Close the project. Trash the CPD file. Reopen and try again.

2] If that fails try removing the tags from a number of topics until it stops crashing. That should identify the problem topic(s).

Post back at that stage.

[RaGoe]

Hi Peter,

its a local project, no network, no source control.
I'll proceed thes tests and post the result.

Greetings
Ralf

[RaGoe]

Hi Peter,

I made the tests you advised. Deleting the CPD file was'nt successful.
The I removed step by step all build tags from the topics, but nothing changed.
At least there was no build tag at all, only the conditional text was defined. RH was still crashing.
Then I removed the conditional text from the project and it compiled. After that I defined again a conditional text
"private" an applied the condition "NOT private" for compilation... and RH freezed. And there was no topic where I used this tag.
Then I tested with all my projects, the same effect occured everywhere.
Then I created some new projects with some dummy topics and it workt properly.
It seems to me that this problem occurs with my projects i created with older RH versions and converted to RH7.
But i'm absolutely not sure. Perhaps somebody else can proof this too.

Greetings
Ralf

[Peter Grainge]

Look in the meta tags. Any reference to a Word document there? If there is, post that line and the one above and below.

If not, what is the size of one of these projects zipped up? Do not send it until requested.

[RaGoe]

Hi Peter,

> Any reference to a Word document there?
No.
>what is the size of one of these projects zipped up?
~1.8 MB

Greetings
Ralf

[Peter Grainge]

Get my email address from the Contact menu on my site.

Go to http://transferbigfiles.com and enter that address and browse to the zipped file. It's free and you don't have to register.

[Peter Grainge]

Got the file OK, will look later.

I only found that site recently. Did it work easily on your side?

[Peter Grainge]

If you delete titel_formedit.htm from the project, it compiles with a build expression.

Try recreating that topic in stages.

[RaGoe]

Hi Peter,

> I only found that site recently. Did it work easily on your side?

Worked fine, I had no problems.

> If you delete titel_formedit.htm from the project, it compiles with a build expression.
> Try recreating that topic in stages.

Wow, you're great! It worked!
I kept on testing to find out what part of the topic causes the problem.
In the table there was a splitted cell (as far as I can remember, the table once was created with an other
application, not RH). If I merge these two parts again, the "update" process runs without freezing RH.
I'd say the problem ist solved.
Thank you very much for your support.

Greetings
Ralf

[hemtya]

Hi Peter,

I am having the same issue.

History: A large project with several conditional tags - worked fine in RH6. When upgraded to RH8 the conditional tags freezes the webhelp generation with msvrc80.dll error. Works fine in RH8 without applying conditional tags, but I HAVE to apply the tags. All other projects have no problem with conditional tags - just this one crashes.

Read all (well, almost all) your suggestions on this. Incorrect table format seems to be the cluprit. What do you suggest? How do I locate the illformed table? It is a large project.

The size of the zipped project is 63 MB.

Help please!

I looked at your snippet on this. My project:

(a) contains conditional tags

(b) does not seem to have any <td_null> tags.

What are my options now?

Hemtya

Message was edited by: hemtya

[michelewrites]

I'm having this problem, too, and I'm a little unclear on how to solve it.

Michele

[Peter Grainge]

Michele

Welcome to the forum.

There are many suggestions in this three year old thread but you don't tell us which ones you have tried or even which version of RoboHelp you are using.

If your problem is with understanding the suggestions, say so and we'll try to help you.

---

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[michelewrites]

I'm using Robohelp 8 on Windows 7. The project is converted (using a third-party conversion) from Flare. It's in Turkish.

I don't get any error messages. The project just fails to generate when the conditional tag is used. Since I didn't know what was causing the problem, I looked at length of file names first - some of them are long and include characters that I knew were probably problematic, so I addressed that first. Then I tried creating a new project and importing the files in a few at a time. When I knew the file names were not the problem (or no longer the only problem, more likely), I discovered this conditional text issue in the forum and low and behold, the project generated when I turned off the conditional build. I have another project related to it with similar conditions that generates fine even with the conditional build, so I don't think it's the language settings or anything on my computer. I looked for the <td_null> tag, but didn't find that in any files.

I have tried trashing the CPD file and reopening the project.

My client wants me to go ahead and turn in the project without the conditional build, but if you have ideas of how to solve it, that would be greatly appreciated. I have to keep a very close eye on the amount of time I spend on this.

Thanks,

Michele

[Peter Grainge]

First try one of the solutions above...

try removing the tags from a number of topics until it stops crashing. That should identify the problem topic(s).

If that fails, it's time for a solution that will require more time.

Create two copies of the project and generate both. If one fails you have started to identify where the problem is.

Create two copies of the problem half and repeat the process.

Continue until you find the problem topic(s).

It doesn't take as long as you might think and you just ignore broken link reports.

---

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[michelewrites]

What I actually tried first was this.

1. I made a copy of the project.

2. I removed all of the topics with the conditional build tag.

The project still crashed when using the condition, but not when leaving the condition as none.

So, in the copy project, I removed all topics but one. It didn't crash with or without the conditional build. So I started importing the topics back in one or a few at a time. At this point, I still haven't identified a problem topic, but I noticed something else that is very problematic. Even though it's not crashing with the few topics either with or without the conditional build, the conditional text that is supposed to not be included is actually showing in the final output.

If I remove the attribute and then reapply it, then it doesn't show in the final output. Having to reapply the text in each topic is not really a good option, as there are many topics, and this problem is cropping up for this project being translated into multiple languages for several RoboHelp workers. So now it seems like we need to identify the problem topic and figure out how to get the conditional text to generate properly.

Thanks for any insight you might have on this!

Michele

[Peter Grainge]

Do any of the tags have spaces?

Create a new tag and apply that to a topic and to some text in another topic. Does that get excluded?

---

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge