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KHook
Known Participant
November 17, 2015
Question

error 404

  • November 17, 2015
  • 1 reply
  • 533 views

What does error 404 mean on my live website?  The project is in RoboHelp but the error shows up on the live site.

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1 reply

Community Expert
November 17, 2015

Here's a list of HTTP error codes.

List of HTTP status codes - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

And a page about 404 specifically.

HTTP 404 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Check that you typed the URL correctly and the files all exist on the web server.

And that you uploaded the output, not the source by accident.

Captiv8r
Legend
November 18, 2015

You will notice that in the WebHelp output settings there is an option for using lower case file names.

This option is something to consider enabling. Actually, I always recommend that it be enabled as it can save your bacon in many cases. Yours may be one such case.

Here's the deal. See that bit in parenthesis where it reads "Recommended for UNIX"?

Here's why that may be important. Maybe you have created a topic and named it "My_Favorite_Topic.htm". You know what its name is so there isn't much of a need to go hunt it down when linking to it. So you casually type my_favorite_topic.htm when creating the link. All is well when testing from your PC. And depending on the server, all may be well when testing from there if the server is a Windows server. But if the server is a UNIX server, you now have a broken link that will result in a 404 error when clicked.

See, Windows will never allow the following file names:

MyFile.htm

MYFile.htm

mYfIlE.htm

MYFILE.htm

I could go on and on with different variations but to Windows, there can only be one file that is named that way and it doesn't distinguish between upper and lower case characters. But UNIX is different that way. Each of those can exist side by side on a UNIX system.

That option for converting to lower case ensures that all links will work in the published output.

Cheers... Rick

KHook
KHookAuthor
Known Participant
November 18, 2015

Thank you for your reply.  I am still not sure what caused the problem but this is how I fixed it.  I deleted the html file and then imported it from my RoboHelp source file.  All is working now.