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Answered

Question mark icon instead of space in chm after RH Upgrade 2022 version

Forum|Forum|1 year ago
June 7, 2024
17 replies
8409 views

After upgrading to RH 2022.4.179, we have some spaces, apostrophes, and other random areas that are showing as the triangle with the question mark. We checked and the Window OS is set to English and the Preset Output is set to English. These are old .chm files that we continually update. We also looked at the HTML and there is nothing in there to indicate a problem. Examples attached.

Correct answer Peter Grainge

I'm pretty sure it will be an issue with all of them but you can select mutiple files in the Contents panel, right click and remove the layout in Properties there. It still won't be a quick job but it will be quicker. Obviously you only need to do that in projects you have to generate before we hear more.

You could also use any tool to find the topic layout line in the header section of the topics.

Adding the footer content to a snippet seems to work OK.

The snippet code would be something like this with the name of your footer.

and you could use a find of

</body>

with a replace of

That seemed to work but do back up first.

________________________________________________________

My site www.grainge.org includes many free Authoring and RoboHelp resources that may be of help.

Peter Grainge

Community Expert

Would someone kindly post all the characters that have caused them a problem?

________________________________________________________

My site www.grainge.org includes many free Authoring and RoboHelp resources that may be of help.

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K

KdaleCaptivate

Participant

Hey, this is also Kdale2 bcz I somehow messed up my account and haven't had time to fix it or merge accts since my work emails and companies merged (send help) Ugh... Anyway, we encountered this with the copyright symbol, apostrophe, dash, and extra space. There might have been other symbols/punctuation marks that I didn't catch.

As a temporary fix, we removed the copyright that we had as a footer in each help topic by removing it from Layout. When we removed it, it seemed to fix the issue. It's been a while since I did it myself, so here's what one of my writers told me she did to remove the footer and fix the issue: "For the Output, you select None in the Topic Layout (and I've also been setting Language to English (US) because I read originally that would fix it but it didn't). Then you select all topics in the project, select the ellipses on any topic to display the Multiple selection (whatever the name is) and then set Topic Layout and Language to Default (which is now None). Sometimes it takes a while to save All topics. Then, regenerate with no footer. "

Peter Grainge

Community Expert

I am assured it will be in Update 5.

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Peter Grainge

Community Expert

Update 5 has not been released yet.

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K

Kdale2Author

Known Participant

just checking in. I guess still no fix for this. 😞

Jeff_Coatsworth

Community Expert

@Kdale2 You'd see an announcement when Patch 5 comes out.

Peter Grainge

Community Expert

The issue is still being looked at.

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Brad30090183d0hz

Participating Frequently

Just wanted to mention that if you do downgrade versions, and your project uses variables, the variables and variable sets will be wiped out and you will need to rebuild them.

Peter Grainge

Community Expert

@Brad30090183d0hz Thank you for posting that. I was concerned that might happen, it's useful you have confirmed that.

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Peter Grainge

Community Expert

Update. The cause is some incorrect encoding but any fix is delayed by the need to check whether there is any impact elsewhere. If you want to revert to Update 3, it can be downloaded from https://helpx.adobe.com/robohelp/kb/robohelp-downloads.html

There will be a further update by the end of next week.

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Peter Grainge

Community Expert

Thinking about this some more, I would be hoping for the good outcome but planning for the worst case whereby the fix is not available by the date required. Let me emphasise that Adobe are fully aware of the urgency for everyone. As I explained earlier, they cannot give a date until they know the cause of the problem.

My steps would be:-

Uninstall RoboHelp on one machine and reinstall the Update 3 version. If you don't still have the Update 3 installer Support should be able to provide it or post here and I will speak to Adobe about how to get that version.
Create a copy of the project and run that on the Update 3 machine to see how it goes.

If it goes OK, continue working on Update 4 machines and repeat the above when you have to generate. Only use Update 3 for generation.
If it does not go well, then look at using Snippets instead. I hear what people say but it's the only solution I am seeing pending the required fix.

I emphasis that is how I would approach it based on my knowledge of what I work on. It's for anyone reading this to decide if they think it is the right strategy for them.

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Brad30090183d0hz

Participating Frequently

If you can get a link to the installer for the previous version, I can try this. Thanks.

Peter Grainge

Community Expert

I have asked but I suggest you also ask Support as it may have to come from them.

See https://helpx.adobe.com/contact/enterprise-support.other.html#robohelp for your Adobe Support options. The email link tcssup@adobe.com is recommended as it reaches a team dedicated to Technical Communication Suite products including RoboHelp.

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Peter Grainge

Community Expert

The issue is being worked on but right now 13 June the cause has not been identified. Adobe will keep me updated but it might not be until the end of next week. Then it all depends on whether it is a file that can be reissued or if a full update is required.

The only temporary fix I can suggest is as stated.

Rename the topic layout so that topics do not apply it.
Set the preset to None.

My tests indicate that makes all characters work.

@Brad30090183d0hz First of all what is your timescale for needing the fix?

If that is not inline with what Adobe can do, Snippets can have variables so a "variable set" should allow you to use different images. Adobe will be advising me how to do that shortly. I hate put it this bluntly but it might be the only option. It's not the outcome anyone wants but it's down to how soon they find the issue and the solution it requires.

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Brad30090183d0hz

Participating Frequently

Thanks for following up on this Peter, and for keeping us informed.

Our target date is June 30th, so hopefully that is enough time for the fix.

Jeff_Coatsworth

Community Expert

@Brad30090183d0hz I wouldn't hold your breath for a patch by that date, but you may get a workaround that works better for your situation by then.

Peter Grainge

Community Expert

I hope to learn more tomorrow and will update this thread then. Depending on what I learn, let's see if we can come up with some solution if it is not as quick a fix as you need.

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Brad30090183d0hz

Participating Frequently

Unfortunately those workarounds won't work for us. We use the headers in the templates as well, and have conditional code there to show/hide product logos as needed. It's not feasible to manually change hundreds of topics, only to change tthem back after a fix arrives. We're really hoping for a quick fix.

Peter Grainge

Community Expert

Wild thought but if you rename your topic layout file outside of RoboHelp, the generation process won't be able to find it.

UPDATE 2 - This does work for Topic Layouts linked to a topic. For Topic Layouts linked to a preset it does not work but there you simply deselect the layout.

________________________________________________________
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K

Kdale2Author

Known Participant

Hey @Peter Grainge , we really hesitate to use Snippets as they've given us problems in the past. I'm not sure what to do right now. Any idea how long we are looking at for Adobe to address this? Is it days, weeks, months typically? I know it's for outdated chm files, but I'm sure there are still a lot of them out there like ours.

Peter Grainge

Community Expert

It all depends on what is needed to fix the problem. Until they find that it's not possible to say how long.

I would give a Snippet a try, it is only one and they're working OK now to the best of my knowledge.

________________________________________________________
My site www.grainge.org includes many free Authoring and RoboHelp resources that may be of help.

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