RH8 has broken all links to all photos on top of corrupting our manual.

[Rasterdan2U]

Thousands of links to every photo in our entire book are gone.  Topics are a few lines long rather than 10 to 20 instruction steps.  I am looking for a backup now.  I am considering rolling back to RH7.  We had no problem with RH7.  We will call Adobe for support at this point.  Just when we felt like we were getting ahead, we actually opened our topics just to find a little text one photo box that is empty and ... NOTHING.  I was wondering why the project zipped up to 220Mb when it should be 550Mb.  All of the photos are in the folder, just no links.  This is the worst possible thing at a critical moment.  Unbelievable.

Great, just great.    errr

[Peter Grainge]

You do realise you will have to roll back to the last version of the project that was produced in RH7? Any work done since upgrading would have to be lost. RH8 code cannot be read by RH7, at least that is the theory. I haven't tried but I would be surprised if it worked.

It's too late here for me to do anything practical now but if you want to zip a copy of the project and send it via one of the sites on my contact page, I will take a look but it will probably not be until evening tomorrow (UK time).

The recent bug did not give anyone problems with broken links of this type. If all the photos are in the folder, how can the zip size have dropped? That does not make sense.

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[Rasterdan2U]

Peter,

I would really like to let you have a look and your offer is quite gracious however there is a lot of sensitive information contained within the document and I can't allow this out of the house.  I understand that going back to RH7 would mean that we would have a lot to cut and paste but it still is an option at the moment.

I am going to pay for some support from Adobe and see if we can solve the problem.  If not, i may see if there is a time where i can share my screen with you using our Adobe Connect.  There is a local UK number for conferenceing.  Then i can show you the problem and or show you any files that you need without giving out the entire project.  It would be interesting to get some feedback on the book from an experienced person.  I am sure there are probably better ways of doing some things but overall our book is pretty good.  The service guys like it and the third party guys think it is fantastic so it can't be too bad.

I will enter a solution to the thread if we solve the problem for the benefit of others.  Since i am dead in the water, I am going to unzip one of my safety backups and try the 802 update (deleting the cpd file before opening the project).  I can always uninstall and reload from scratch if we still have problems.  I made a list in the other thread that i can follow to restore my system.

Is there a way to import my global variables to a previous saved backup within the RoboHelp version.  I have just entered over 800 global variables and if i can get a previously saved version running, i would like to import those rather than re-keying them.

Thanks

dv

[Rasterdan2U]

I unzipped a previously working version from RH801, installed the 802 update.  Deleted the .cpd file.  opened the project outside of version control and the same problem exists that occured when we opened after the RH802 automatic update, a large chunk of my book dissapeared from the project manager.  So the problem does not have to do with the .cpd file.  It has to do with the code in RH802 and something in my project coming from RH7.

I would still caution people from updating to 8.0.2.  Especially if they have a large project that has come from a previous version of RH.  If they have loads of time to waste troubleshooting the update and why it killed their project, then what the heck, give it a go.

Now i am off to uninstall RH8 so i can reinstall and get back to the 8.0.1 version.  I wish i was back on RH7!

[Peter Grainge]

Seeing your screen is not the same as poking around a project on a machine where you know the installation and have various tools available. Adobe will most likely want to see the project if they are going to help. If you want a reference from the RoboHelp Product Manager, I am sure I can get one.

Nobody is saying the problem is the CPD alone. The problem is the CPD getting out of sync with the FPJ files. I suspect that applying 802 is just revealing the problem that exists in 801 but is not showing itself. I have said before and will say again, without fixing this problem in 802, you are going to hit problems somewhere along the line. You are the only person advising not to install 802, the fact that everyone else who has installed has ended their problems must be telling you something.

When you uninstall 802, that only uninstalls the patch so you are immediately back to 801.

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[Rasterdan2U]

As I am working my way through some troubleshooting on my own while on the phone waiting for Adobe support, I have determined that it is the deleting of the .cpd file that is what is damaging our project. Once this file is deleted, opening the project complains about the globalvariable.apj file and then when opening the project, the chunk of the project is gone.

Lucky I have the old version of the .cpd file. I am going to try opening the .cpd file and poke around to see what is different if possible.

[Peter Grainge]

I have been speaking to the Product Manager and one of the developers today to formulate some instructions that I will be writing up when I get home in an hour or so. Then I will be getting them verified but because of time zones that part will not be done until tomorrow.

However, they involve applying 802 and repairing the project which is what I have consistenly said. I can't see how Support will have any other process as ultimately they will have to refer to the people I have spoken with.

I'll leave it up to you. I can let you have the unverified procedures offline as I don't want to post them until they have been checked or you can wait for Support to get back to you.

If you are adamant that it is the CPD that is breaking things rather than revealing the truth, then maybe you will feel more comfortable with the reply from Support. I will be interested to learn what they tell you.

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[Rasterdan2U]

Peter,

I have been diving into things a bit deeper after reading some things on your site.

#1 - the .fpj file in the folder where things are disappearing is part of the problem. That file only has one folder in the file where there should be many. We have a good version of that file from a previous version of the project.

#2 - the global variables that are missing we determined exist in an apj file but also exist in the .cpd file. After opening the .cpd file I see many things. Deleting this looks like a bad idea. For some reason, when the update occurred, our global variables disappeared and the size of the folder in the .apj went from 62Kb down to zero. We have a good version of that file as well.

#3 - If we delete the .cpd file, where will RoboHelp get the information to recreate the global variables and folder structure? Can we take the 8.0.2 .cpd file and cut and paste from the old file into the new file to recover?

We definitely want to get 8.0.2 working but we also have a deliverable deadline. I have enlisted a colleague at the office who works on this project with me to test things on a different computer off the network as a test bed. This way, he can attempt to resolve the update issue without killing our live project.

dv

[Peter Grainge]

Sounds like we are on the same hymn sheet.

#1 - The problem is that the CPD and FPJ are out of sync. They get that way because of the bug. The patch does not fix them being out of sync, you have to do that. What the patch does do is stop it happening again after the repair. When you open with 802 you are getting the FPJ information and that is corrupt so you get the broken links that have to be repaired. If you want to cheat in a good copy from a previous version, it may work but that is entirely at your own risk. If you want the unverified procedures today, you can have them by emailing me via my site. They should be verified tomorrow.

#2 and 3 - Variables should not be affected but you can get those in later. The CPD is only a cache, hence being able to trash it. The information to rebuild it comes from various sources including the APJ files. See my Opening Projects article. Let's see if there is a problem first. If there is, take a backup of the repaired project as is before doing anything more. Then try replacing the file with a good one or using the method I have suggested. Backup, backup, backup as you try things on this one.

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[Rasterdan2U]

We may have a solution to the problem.

We moved our project to another computer with RH802. Took a good version of the .apj file that previously damaged and placed in into the correct location in the project. This version has a valid rhvariable.apj file which contains my 800+ global variables. We also left the .cpd file intact and opened the project in 8.0.2 and it seems to be working.

I am currently taking our working 8.0.1 project out of version control (a 2 hour process over the VPN/internet). Brutal. Then we are going to put this 8.0.2 version into version control. We both will apply the 8.02 update. Then pull new copies of the project from version control. This should give us both working versions of the 8.0.2 project.

Knowing what the all of the various files do makes it a lot easier to understand why our project was killed by the update and how to repair. Luckily we had working versions of the .apj files that we could cut and past the important content to the new file.

Your page was helpful and got us looking in the right direction but it was a very painful process and this whole adventure cost us valuable days at a critical moment. We are going to take a much more cautious approach to future updates from Adobe. If they come at a non critical time, we will probably wait until we have time to recover from any problems. Otherwise, we will have to discuss, look at the forum for problems others are having with the update (if any), and then weigh the advantages to taking the update. I hope we don't have to go through this type of fire drill again.

I appreciate your attention to our problem and willingness to help.

I will make a final reply once we get this working in RSC.

Thanks

dv

[Peter Grainge]

Glad you are making some real progress. Normally applying updates is something that people consider carefully at a critical phase but this one was an exception. If you did not apply it, you were more likely to hit trouble than if you did. If you did apply it, there was a risk of hitting trouble as you did. However, that was the lesser risk.

Do back up that repaired project before it gets even a sniff of source control.

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[Rasterdan2U]

In order for my global variables to be read, I had to open the .cpd file in MS Access. I cut and pasted from a working file on a previous version.

There are other serious issues, none of our style sheets came over so we only have a generic default which has effected every file in our document. Currently there are 439 topics in the report list. This sounds rather small. I thought we had a little over 1000 topics. While it looks like everything is there I am very concerned.

I am not looking forward to remaking our style sheets and reformatting every topic. I can feel my blood pressure going up again.

dv

[Peter Grainge]

Stay calm.

I don't know how you have encountered the CSS issue as nothing in the bug would affect that. However it should be as simple as getting a copy of the CSS into the project root folder and then selecting all topics in Topic List. RIght click and you can apply the CSS to all topics in one go.

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[Rasterdan2U]

We are having sync problem between each of our computers and the robosource project.

My project doesn't have any of the style sheets but has all of the variables.

My colleague has all of the styles but only half of the variables.

He took our project and put it into version control, then each of us pulled the new data from RSC. So, why do we have differences in our local copies of the project?

I think there is still some bug either with RH8 or RSC3.1 or the way they are communicating between each other.

It is a real mess, who compiles for the final output, the one with the correct styles or the one with all of the variables?

Also, when I pulled the entire project, none of the .pdf files in baggage came along.

I performed a repair to RSC before pulling the project because each time I installed the 802 update, it was necessary to repair the RSC program before it would see the server. Another strange item. Do the people writing the code test it with RSC before releasing?

dv

[Peter Grainge]

I would hope they do!

Now that we are into source control issues, I cannot help you. Would it not be better to get the project working outside source control and then check it in as a new project? I assume that can be done.

Can someone with source control knowledge come in here please?

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[Rasterdan2U]

That is what we did, we got the project working on a computer outside the network, then plugged into the network and put the project into source control. Then pulled the project onto each of our two different computers (each in different countries). Then we started noticing that things were different on each system.

I took his style sheet and it appears that my formatting is ok now. I don't think I had any style sheets which is why things looked strange. I manually pulled all of the .pdf files but I don't know if they will compile into the system.

Now I am going to edit his .cpd files so they match my global variables.

Why would his .cpd file be 5mb and my cpd be only 2mb? Should the projects not match exactly? We pulled them at the same time.

dv

[Peter Grainge]

Did you delete the local copies and then take new fresh copies?

I repeat that you are welcome to the procedures that have been drafted.

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[Rasterdan2U]

Yes, we both took entire new projects, we kept nothing of the old ones. We zipped them up and moved them to a different drive.

I will have a look at your procedures to see if we missed anything. It strangely seems to be working now. I am not sure if and how far out of sync we are, that will take some checking but it looks like it is running now. At least on my system.

I am keeping my fingers crossed.

dv

[Peter Grainge]

You'll have a job to check the procedures unless you email me offlist.

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[MergeThis]

The .cpd file is not even supposed to be in source control (nor are the .hhp, .ldb, and .pss files). These are specific to the local machine and/or languages and HTML Help compiles.

Good luck,

Leon

[Rasterdan2U]

Interesting. So far it looks like our project is running again. We have had to jump through some hoops to get it back but so far it looks like it is all there. Since we lost valuable days, we are forced to release the book in what ever condition it is in on Wednesday. Then in a week or two, release another update. This will give us time to check every page of the book.

Opening the .cpd file in MS Access helped us get our 1000+ global variables back and a little cut and paste to the .fpj files returned the missing topics to the Project Manager. We learned a lot and wish we didn't.

Cheers

dv