RH Classic 2019: On specific user machine, clicking on CS help link is opening the UI again in new window.

Forum|Forum|1 day ago
May 7, 2026
2 replies
17 views

On a random machine, clicking CS help from any page opens a new window and the UI is opened again in a newly launched window instead of the Help doc.
On debugging, it is found that the randomly generated UI installation ID of this machine has the string 'bc-' in it. Due to this, the code below, present in .htm files, opens an incorrect URL when the CS link is clicked.

if (window.gbWhTopic)
{
var strUrl = decodeURI(document.location.href);
var bc = 0;
var n = strUrl.toLowerCase().indexOf("bc-");
if(n != -1)

{ document.location.replace(strUrl.substring(0, n)); bc = strUrl.substring(n+3); }

The UI installation ID is 937ade1c-baad-4ae7-babc-c42fdd218d78

We need find some way so that the var n = strUrl.toLowerCase().indexOf("bc-"); does not match the randomly generated installation ID.
The installation ID is generated at the time of UI installation and cannot be changed.

Peter Grainge

Community Expert

Maybe I am still misunderstanding but I think you are using a method of calling other than how Adobe recommend. The issue is thus with that method. I’m sorry but beyond my coding ability.

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

Use the menu (bottom right) to mark the Best Answer or Highlight particularly useful replies. Found the answer elsewhere? Share it here.

Peter Grainge

Community Expert

I don’t think you will get much help here as none of the regular supporters work with this sort of code. There is some information on my site about calling help at https://www.grainge.org/RoboHelp_Tour/rh2019/outputs/rh2019_calling_csh_help.htm and that makes me think the code above is created by yourselves.

The fact that it happens on one machine only points more to something about that machine than the code.

Given your version is old, Adobe Support is not an option. Maybe a forum geared more towards developers than RoboHelp users?

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

Use the menu (bottom right) to mark the Best Answer or Highlight particularly useful replies. Found the answer elsewhere? Share it here.

S

s_wengAuthor

Known Participant

Thanks, Peter.

It seems my question was not very clear. Let me explain it differently.

The above code is automatically added to all generated HTML output files whenever we generate HTML output.

In our UI integration, a separate code generator creates a random, unique ID, which are assigned to certain UI pages and are mapped with our help system for CS Help.

The issue is with this line:

var n = strUrl.toLowerCase().indexOf("bc-");

Since the code searches for the string "bc-", it is unintentionally matching part of randomly generated UUIDs, such as:

937ade1c-baad-4ae7-babc-c42fdd218d78

Because of this accidental match, the same UI page keeps opening while viewing the CS Help from the UI.

Unfortunately, we have no control over how these UUIDs are generated, so they can contain any character combination. Also, modifying hundreds of generated HTML files manually before creating a build just to change this "bc-" logic is not a practical solution.

We are therefore looking for a permanent workaround or cleaner fix for this issue. If anyone has suggestions, they would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks once again!

Jeff_Coatsworth

Community Expert

“The above code is automatically added to all generated HTML output files whenever we generate HTML output.” - how and why? There’s no need to do anything with the topic files except assign a MapID and topic alias. Use the method described on Peter’s site to invoke the CSH.

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