Inspiring

Answered

RH2020: Generating Output Hangs RoboHelp

Forum|Forum|5 years ago
August 14, 2020
26 replies
1198 views

I upgraded from RH2019 (Re-imagined) to RH 2020.0.156 and I can no longer generate my HTML5 output. Selecting Generate in any of my output presets causes the RH screen to go completely white and hang. From that state, while I can still see the menus, selecting Help | Restart RoboHelp does nothing. Ditto for clicking the X icon. I have to close it through the Taskbar or Task Manager.

Output presets

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Correct answer Jeff_Coatsworth

Try creating a new (not copied) preset & see how that behaves.

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S

Singlewire Tech WriterAuthor

Inspiring

This is continuing to happen. Rebilding the presets is no longer working. I've rebuilt two. I was able to generate the first one. The second one continues to either hang or make the screen go white. Initially, closing RH helped. That did not work for the second preset.

Peter Grainge

Community Expert

Sounds like you need to recreate them. You only need to close and reopen if it sticks at Starting Generation.

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S

Singlewire Tech WriterAuthor

Inspiring

Thank you, Jeff and Peter. Restarting RH and selecting my new preset worked. So, I should recreate my eight presets, close RH, and open it again?

Peter Grainge

Community Expert

There's a known issue there. Close RoboHelp and restart it. This time it should generate using the new preset.

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S

Singlewire Tech WriterAuthor

Inspiring

That also did not work, although it hung in a different way.

As directed, I created a brand new preset using all of the same settings as one of my existing presets. This time, selecting Generate still caused RH to hang, but instead of the screen going white, the pop-up progress box just endlessly spun on "Starting generation..."

lost in RH.

Inspiring

The hanging "Starting Generation" is still a problem. (RH 2020, v.7, c.7)

I know of two causes:

Spaces within a file name (Even with Edit > Preferences > Require underscores disabled.)
Redirects from the TOC (links that point outside the project): Remove, Generate to test, and then rebuild the links.

Scenario: Upgraded from RH 2017 to SP 2020. All projects worked fine, but then gradually decided to fail (perpetual "Starting Generation). Started with RH 2020 v. 6, and continues with v. 7.46.

Errant Spaces: Going through hundreds of files to look for a misplaced space can strangle the eyeballs. But finding that errant space within a filename usually fixes the "Starting Generation" hangup. It helps to use various methods, including View > Show > (unenable Topics by title). Search for topic names, snippets, images, etc. (everything). Using various Reports provides other views that might be easier on the eyeballs, along with Show in Explorer (search for *.* to view files outside the folders). Recommendation: After finding the fix, enable the underscore requirement under Edit > Preferences.

TOC: Althought the output view (user's html viewpoint) shows a little box with a diagnal icon to indicate links pointing outside the project, the icons look identical within the RH TOC, so this may require more time with many files.
However, removing the outgoing links solved the generation problem in multiple projects (with all spaces removed from filenames). Test to ensure it works, and then re-add the links. The project I'm working on now worked fine yesterday, but then failed without explanation. Removing the redirects, testing, and then readding solved the problem.

New Preset? It may not hurt, but it didn't solve my problem. Perhaps for others. Make sure presets are set correctly (glossary name, if present, and TOC name display in the preset Content fields). I tried creating a new preset with multiple projects. Each time, I still had to locate the errant spaces or TOC redirect to solve the issue.

Hope this helps someone: Spaces & TOC Outside links

lost in RH.

Inspiring

Two more projects failed.
We had tried new presets. We had tried deleting and adding new presets from within RH. No luck.

Here's what worked:
From File Explorer, navigate to the project's "Publish" folder. Delete the .preset file(s).
Then from RoboHelp, add the new preset. That worked for multiple projects.

(both had been upgraded from RH2017 to RH2020)

Jeff_Coatsworth

Correct answer

Community Expert

Try creating a new (not copied) preset & see how that behaves.

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