RoboHelp 11 search stopped working

Forum|Forum|7 years ago
May 7, 2018
3 replies
2071 views

Hello, I have RoboHelp 11 and have been publishing for years without issues. The last time I published the search stopped working completely. I found a discussion from several years ago that suggested I delete the .CHD file and republish. I deleted the .CHD file and that didn't do anything but break all my links. Any other suggestions? Thank you,

WebHelp

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TechWriterKat2

Inspiring

Keith, what version of Windows were you running when you installed MSXML 4.0 SP3 and it fixed your problem?

K

Keith_dk

Known Participant

Thanks for the input guys, but unfortunately this hasn't solved the issue.

I have compared the outputs between an earlier HTML5 output version (which works) and the latest one, where the Search function has stopped working.

In the whxdata directory, the version that works contains a large number of package_<n>_xml.js and topictable_<n>_xml.js files.

But in the latest output all these files are missing.

Can anyone tell me why they are not there, how to create them again, and will this help resolve my problem?

A

Amebr

Community Expert

Try generating to a different folder. It could be that *something* has the folder open, therefore nothing can be written to it. For example, if your antivirus is scanning the folder, it might lock it. If generating to a different folder works, that could indicate you need to investigate your antivirus or other applications. (I think there are applications that can tell you what is locking files or folders, but I haven't used any of them.)

K

Keith_dk

Known Participant

Hi Amebr,

Tried your suggestion (no antivirus and new folder), but to no avail - still no search function available.

Can anyone tell me if the search function is a file in the Robohelp source or is a file created when generating the output. And, if one is generated, what is it called? Can it be edited manually?

Any new suggestions to what the cause of this problem could be?

Thanks.

Jeff_Coatsworth

Community Expert

Are you sure that you're not just running into browser security issues? There have been a number of tweaks needed to keep up with changes in browsers that break help produced by RH.

K

Keith_dk

Known Participant

I have just run in to exactly the same problem.

All my outputs have a working search function until now. I can see the following status message in the Output View window

"Finished processing full-text search data in 0 sec(s)"

So I guess some process isn't running properly. But which process? Do I need to update one or more *.js scripts?

And in answer to your question about it being a browser setting - no it is not because my previous output still works as before.

Peter Grainge

Community Expert

Sorry but I don't still have 11 on any machine.

See this link and look at Item 5. Snippets It details a number of issues with RoboHelp 11 and browsers and a has a link to a fix.

If that doesn't help I'm not sure what to suggest. I don't still have 11 installed but I just tested an output created in 2017 with just the standard updates applied, then opened it in IE11 where the only change was to the security settings to allow the help to run locally. All working correctly.

There's a merged help demo on my site. Try generating with that and see if that works OK. It was created in an old version but opening each project in any later version will upgrade it.

Merged WebHelp and HTML5 Help

See www.grainge.org for free RoboHelp and Authoring information.