"Page cannot be displayed" after publishing

[Colette_M_]

RoboHelp 8.02, WebHelp output, all files on local drive

I have a project of approx 1000 topics. After the most recent publishing, several topics, maybe 10, show "page cannot be displayed" whenever you try to access them using various methods - TOC, Index, hyperlinks, etc.  The files are definitely in the project and display fine when generated. The problem only appears once published to the server.  We've tried the project on multiple computers with the same results and this is a project we've worked with for a long time on the same server. I even removed all the files from the server and republished.  I have deleted the cpd file in hopes that might fix it but it did not - instead it gave me many, many broken links.  I removed one of the problem topics and re-added it but that did not fix it. I deleted the TOC page and re-added it but none of these resolved the problem. I am not sure what else to look for to attempt to troubleshoot the issue.  We have also experienced intermittent issues with images coming over when we import Word docs - this seemed to begin once we upgraded to version 8 - not sure if this might be related.  It is as if publishing does not copy all the files since it works fine when generated. Any suggestions of what may be causing the problem and how to resolve it short of rebuilding the entire proejct?

Thanks.

[perttime]

Just ideas... I am not quite sure how RH8 handles things like this...

Do the file names in the links in the .hhc, .hhk, .hhp,  etc. files match the real file names you can see in Windows Explorer? Discrepansies like spaces instead of underscores, or the other way round could do it.

Do you have spaces in the file names? There have been problems with that, previously, so the projects I am handling DO NOT have space characters in file names.

Recently I found some "hidden" Visual Source Safe system files among topic files and they were turning underscores into spaces in file names.

[Colette_M_]

Thanks for the response.  Are you saying that there should be .hhc, .hhk, .hhp, etc. files for each topic?  If so, where would you find those files?  The only files I see with those extensions are the project files and my project name is a single word, so I would think that is probably not it.  I might also mention that so far, the files that do not display are files that have been in the project for awhile and not just added.  One of the files is one that we regularly add text to, but the file itself has been in the project for nearly 3 years. I don't know if that tidbit matters or not.  Is there an explanation somewhere that lists the various RoboHelp file types and what they do/control that would help with troubleshooting?

Thanks!

[Captiv8r]

Hi Colette

Are you saying that there should be .hhc, .hhk, .hhp, etc. files for each topic?

Those are project files and you would not see one for each topic. There is one (maybe more, depending on what you are doing) for each project.

One thing you may wish to try is to enable the "Use lowercase file names" option in your SSL recipe.

After you do this, generate and publish again.

Cheers... Rick

Helpful and Handy Links RoboHelp Wish Form/Bug Reporting Form Begin learning RoboHelp HTML 7 or 8 moments from now - $24.95! Adobe Certified RoboHelp HTML Training SorcererStone Blog RoboHelp eBooks

[Colette_M_]

Thanks Rick.  That did not do the trick however. I have retrieved a backup from last week when things were working correctly, republished and am still having the same issue with pages not displaying.  I have looked at the files on the server and the "missing" files are there.  When I access the files via ftp and attempt  to open one of the .htm files in question, I get the following error:

The XML page cannot be displayed

Cannot view XML input using style sheet. Please correct the error and then click the Refresh button, or try again later.

The server did not understand the request, or the request was invalid. Error processing resource 'http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtm...

We only use a few different templates and they all use the same style sheet. Most of our files display fine, but of course, one of the most commonly used files does not.

If anyone has other suggestions, it would be greatly aprpeciated.

Thanks - Colette

[perttime]

Just guessing again as I have not seen anything just like that.

Sounds like something in your files is trying to access a resource that is not available or valid for your help. It could be something that you do not need/want. Maybe it was carried over when importing the page from somewhere?

Can you compare a project resource HTML file that works with a file that doesn't (in raw HTML/XML), looking for any unexpected references at the top before the <body> section?

[Peter Grainge]

Google "The XML page cannot be displayed"

The post on Ironside (no 2 in my results) looked promising but against that, this is only happening with some topics.

You have checked case is correct and is the same in both link (in the HTML view) and the target file?

Also have you tried creating a new topic with a slightly different name but the same content? Try that for one page and don't forget to change the links.

---

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[Colette_M_]

Thanks all for your suggestions.  We're back in business after trying many things and having absolutely no help from Adobe's support folks. To help others that may encounter a similar situation here's what we did. Most of our topics are imported Word docs. Initially I tried reimporting the htm files from previous backups and still had the same issue. I then tried re-importing the Word doc and that resolved the issue.  I still don't know what caused certain topics to suddenly stop working and am keeping an eye on things.

[Peter Grainge]

Check the meta tags in the rogue topics and the good ones. I have seen that cause problems with Printed Documentation, maybe there's something like that. If not, try a file compare of both source and output to see if that finds anything relevant.

---

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge