RH8 crashing after opening project

Hello.
I'm making some progress fixing my problem with some help from tech support and just wanted to check in.
First of all, I still had RH X5 files on my computer and had to do a lot of clean up in the registry.
I also uninstalled RH8 and reinstalled it.
After that, I deleted the .xpj & .cpd files and opened the project from the .hhp file.
Voila, now I'm in the project again.
The same "illegal character" messages that I received before start showing up and I'm making note of the file names.
So, now I can see in the topic list that there is no style sheet assigned to the problem topics. As it turns out, many of my file names are too long. So I shortened them and reapplied default.css.

Although I still have concerns. First of all, I have numerous files that have names that are longer than 25 characters and they are not being complained about (yet). A few of the files being complained about did NOT have names over 25 chars. A couple had borders around special verbiage, which I deleted and was then able to re-apply the style sheet again. One file I couldn't have anything wrong with it, so I just deleted it and created it again. So it seems to be a bit of a mixed bag. So I'm working through this.
Do you think I should start going through the project and rename all the long file names? Wow, what a job, there's tons!! I wonder why RH allows long names to be created in the first place if it's a problem? I wasn't even aware that it was a problem until today.....

Still some problems are lingering....
My old primary layout appears to be missing. When I compiled the chosed layout was WebHelp, which I don't use. I use HTML Help and when I open HTML Help from Single Source Layouts, it is not the one that I was using before the problem cropped up. All the rest of my special printed documentation layouts are also missing.
Is there a way that I can find them in an older copy of the project and copy them over? I don't have a clue.
Also, I was using conditional text, but when I open the pod, it looks like the conditional text names that I created are gone. Although I see the colored hash marks in the topics. Can I copy them over from an older copy of the same project? Again, not sure how I would do that.

I'd appreciate any tips anybody could give me. Thanks!
-Deb

Hello.
It appears that only this one project is behaving badly.
I've opened other projects after having this problem and so far so good.

I should mention that I believe that the original error messages that I was receiving prior to the project crashing are invalid messages.
The topics that the error messages were referencing have been untouched for months. There were also many messages, so many that I got tired of clicking OK on each one and turned the messages off. I
If there was a legitimate problem with the file, I think I should have received the message after the last time I worked on the topic or after working on it and compiling--not several months later.

Unless my files are corrupt for some other reason.

-Deb

Can you create a new project or open one of the sample projects? Can you add topics to them?

I am totally in a pickle here.
This project is getting ready to release and now I can't even try to investigate because it crashes before I get a chance to do anything.
Wish I took a screenshot of the error message and darn if I didn't.

I remember that once a while ago I received a similar message about a topic having illegal characters and when I looked at it, I realized that my usual style sheet (nothing fancy, just default.css)was not applied to that particular topic because the fonts were different. So I reapplied the style sheet and all was OK. Maybe my style sheets got screwed up but that doesn't seem serious enough to crash RH.

So now I am no longer getting the messages when I open the project because I selected the checkbox to silence them.
Is there a way to "unsilence" the message in the registry so I can maybe get a screenshot before it crashes?

Before the project crashes, everything seems normal. It is just opening like any project opens. In the status bar, is Ready. Then, in Project Manager, I right-clicked on the TOC and selected Edit and crash!
I opened it again, got the Ready in the status bar and tried to click on an HTML file in Project Manager and crash again!
So it seems to be crashing as soon as I attempt to do anything.

I need some guidance on what to do next.
Please let me know if I more info is needed and I'll try to provide it.
Thanks!
-Deb

I am totally in a pickle here.
This project is getting ready to release and now I can't even try to investigate because it crashes before I get a chance to do anything.
Wish I took a screenshot of the error message and darn if I didn't.

I remember that once a while ago I received a similar message about a topic having illegal characters and when I looked at it, I realized that my usual style sheet (nothing fancy, just default.css)was not applied to that particular topic because the fonts were different. So I reapplied the style sheet and all was OK. Maybe my style sheets got screwed up but that doesn't seem serious enough to crash RH.

So now I am no longer getting the messages when I open the project because I selected the checkbox to silence them.
Is there a way to "unsilence" the message in the registry so I can maybe get a screenshot before it crashes?

Before the project crashes, everything seems normal. It is just opening like any project opens. In the status bar, is Ready. Then, in Project Manager, I right-clicked on the TOC and selected Edit and crash!
I opened it again, got the Ready in the status bar and tried to click on an HTML file in Project Manager and crash again!
So it seems to be crashing as soon as I attempt to do anything.

I need some guidance on what to do next.
Please let me know if I more info is needed and I'll try to provide it.
Thanks!
-Deb