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Question

RH 7 Project Closes Unexpectedly

Forum|Forum|16 years ago
July 21, 2009
2 replies
784 views

Hi All.

We have a group of three writing in RH7 HTML. We have a project that closes unxpectedly after opening it. We are working on our local drives to do all editing, then backing up to the network drive (via WinZip) after completion.

When we click on the .xpj file to open the problem project, RH opens, then mysteriously closes. (This is true locally and on the network. We've tried it both ways.) It does not give an error message, it just closes.

Note that this problem only happens to two of the three of us. The writer who worked on the project last and saved the changes to the network is still able to open the project normally. However, all three of us need to be able to work on this project, so we need to find a solution to this problem.

This problem only occurs with this project. We are able to open and work on all other projects without difficulty.

Thanks in advance to anyone who might have some insight about our problem.

TW

HTML

This topic has been closed for replies.

T

TrustwriterAuthor

Known Participant

OK. I "clobbered" (i.e., deleted) the CPD file, then reopened the project by opening the .xpj file. Now my project opens but it was missing most of the topics. However, I was able to fix that by importing them. So now things appear to be working fine after a bit of reassembly. I will have our other writers to make sure they are able to open the project without trouble. I am hopeful. Thanks to you and Colum for your prompt replies!

TW

Peter Grainge

Community Expert

Underpinning RH is an Access database and that creates an LDB file while you are using it. That gets deleted when you close the project. Even if it does not, Access will create a new one on reopening so it should not affect anything when working locally.

You say you are putting zip files on the network. We have done that without issue by zipping the project from machine 1, adding YYMMDD to the zip name and putting the zip on the network. Next author trashes or renames the last copy they worked on and then takes that zip and extracts it. Works as sweet as can be. It might be worth checking after extracting a zip to a different machine that there is no LDB before you open the project.

As longer as you only have have one person working on it and strictly observe the procedure, that should be sufficient.

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

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RoboColum_n_

Legend

Are you using a source control application? If not, I suspect that may be at the heart of your problem. Everytime you open a RH project the author is updating files behind the scenes and a lock is put on them whilst they are editing. If you are then backing up to a shared location, those files could be copied over changes made by the other authors. If you want to insist on using this approach you will have to look long and hard at which authors are allowed to update files like the TOC, Index, XPJ etc whilst others are using the project. You'll also need control over what files are backed up to the network and by whom. If this sounds like a nightmare to police, a source control application is designed specifically to make instances like this easy peasy.

Read the RoboColum(n).

T

TrustwriterAuthor

Known Participant

No. We are not using a source control application. We have discussed this but the Powers That Be aren't ready to make that change for us. However, when I open the project file, I am working locally, and the original author is no longer working on the project. We make sure that this is the case by communicating amongst ourselves before opening any projects.

In this case, I know the other author was not in the project the same time as I was. So, that still leaves me with the question about why the project closes unexpectedly. Again, we have many other projects and this is the only one with this particular problem. Anyone have additional ideas?

TW

Captiv8r

Legend

Hi there

Obviously this particular project has issues. But you knew that already.

First try locating and clobbering the .CPD file.

If that fails, see if you have a ProjectName.HHP file. If you do, try opening the project using that file.

Are ANY of you able to open it up? Is the only backup on the Network and now it's possibly corrupt as well? If so, perhaps you can coax your LAN Administrators to restore it from a day or two (or however long ago you feel it is worthwhile) where it works again.

Short of that, the only other option I can think of is to create a new project and begin importing content from the errant project.

Cheers... Rick

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