RH 10 is suddenly flickering between pagination and displaying

[ktbFL]

I am trying to work on a topic, but RH 10 is "flickering"... the lower right hand corner status (at the very bottom of the PM pane)  is flickering between "Pagination" and "Displaying".  The font and font size is flickering, and the Paragraph and Character Styles pod list is flickering from "Normal" thru the list and then back to "Normal" in a split second.  I cannot work in the topic...This seems to be happening no matter what topics I'm in... as well as if I create a new topic.

I did some PM organization of images and topics... and it was fine until then.  I have made all the updates I can find, restarted my system, uninstalled and reinstalled RH and reapplied the updates.

What the heck is going on?  HELP!

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

Is it behaving the same way with one of the sample projects?

[ktbFL]

i haven't tried that, but will on Monday! 

Thanks!

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

Might give you an idea if it’s your project or your RH install.

[ktbFL]

ok... it was definitely something specific to the project that was causing this... and most likely related to a specific topic.  After narrowing down that the issue was project-specific, I closed the project and deleted the cpd file - reopened the project - and so far so good. 

But if anyone has any ideas of what it was that I might have done that cause the problem, please let me know - so that i can try not to repeat that!

Thanks, Jeff!

[Captiv8r]

Hi there

I'd be shocked (and very skeptical) if someone were to pop in and say something like: It happened because you had... (insert reason here).

The thing is, there are a multitude of things that could be done to a project to cause this or that kind of a result. So all we can do is really guess at things.

So having said that, here's some food for thought.

When you work with RoboHelp, lots and lots of files are involved that track different aspects of the project. The main project database exists as a "ProjectName.XPJ" file. And another database exists as a "ProjectName.CPD" file. I do believe I've noticed that RoboHelp will sort of "flicker" as it attempts to ensure these two files are in sync. Sometimes we find that the .CPD becomes corrupt and will need to be deleted. When we delete it, as RoboHelp opens the project with the missing CPD, it sees the CPD is missing and sets about baking up a fresh one. And that process can cause the flickering as the database is rebuilt. How long it may take and you would see this would vary depending on the complexity of your project.

Not sure if it helps or not, but perhaps it explains why you are seeing what you are seeing.

Cheers... Rick

[ktbFL]

Thanks, Rick... that DOES help and confirms my corrective action and why it

worked.

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

Of course, one way to solve/prevent is to turn on the setting that clears the .cpd file each time you open the project (then it bakes a fresh one for you)

[Captiv8r]

While that can certainly be tried, my guess is that all it would end up doing is making the problem worse as well as persistent, because the flickering occurs because of RoboHelp madly trying to update links and whatnot in the assorted databases.

Cheers... Rick