Hello,I am trying to upgrade a RoboHelp classic project to RH 2019 with new UI. WebHelp output hangs on "Indexing references" and never completes. I am able to generate WebHelp output in RoboHelp Classic 2019 UI.I saw related posts about this issue here and done the following things to resolve the issue.Used default css from a new project.Set all options under "select files to exclude from search."Changed skin.Still I am not able to generate WebHelp output. There is a suggestion from other post to remove image maps, but I am not sure If I have them in my project or how to remove them. One thing seems to work is - if I Create a new TOC and add only a couple of topics. But as soon as I add all topics, output won't generate.Any suggestions?Thanks.

Inspiring

Answered

RoboHelp 2019 New UI: WebHelp output hangs on "Indexing references"

Forum|Forum|5 years ago
July 15, 2020
16 replies
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Hello,I am trying to upgrade a RoboHelp classic project to RH 2019 with new UI. WebHelp output hangs on "Indexing references" and never completes. I am able to generate WebHelp output in RoboHelp Classic 2019 UI.

I saw related posts about this issue here and done the following things to resolve the issue.

Used default css from a new project.
Set all options under "select files to exclude from search."
Changed skin.

Still I am not able to generate WebHelp output.

There is a suggestion from other post to remove image maps, but I am not sure If I have them in my project or how to remove them.

One thing seems to work is - if I Create a new TOC and add only a couple of topics. But as soon as I add all topics, output won't generate.

Any suggestions?

Thanks.

This topic has been closed for replies.

Correct answer Peter Grainge

The project was shared and I have found a topic causing the problem, there may be more!

I am not clear how it was not found using the method I suggested, gradually adding more and more to a new TOC as that is how I found it. I created a new TOC and dragged a bunch of topics from the Contents panel to the TOC. In the first instance all the topics beginning with A. No folders as the sole objective of this TOC is troubleshooting.

It compiled just fine. So then I add the Bs and it still compiled. I then added the Cs and it failed. So then I deleted all the Cs and added them back in a few at a time. Eventually I found Custom Job API was what was causing it to hang. Looking at the code of the topic reveals it has either been imported or pasted in from Word at some point as there are many references to MSO styles. They don't exist in the CSS so RoboHelp doesn't know what to do and hangs.

I selected all the content and clicked the Clear Formatting icon and it then generated OK. Obviously the topic will need a bit of formatting work.

What you need to do now is create a TOC and add all the topics down to but not including that file. It should generate without issue. Then clean up that topic as above and add that. Generate again to prove it works for you. Then keep adding 20/30 topics at a time and generate again until it fails. When and if it does, then you know you have another topic needing clean up.

There are more. After fixing that in the TOC I created that now works, I reverted to yours and it still doesn't work.

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Cgbn5987897Author

Inspiring

When WebHelp output hangs on "Indexing references", I usually wait for some time, then restart RoboHelp. Today after restarting, I clicked on "View Output" in Webhelp Output preset options. First I got a dialog box "WebHelp is out of date. Do you want to generate?" I selected No here. Then output is opened in my browser.

I am not sure, if I can rely on this output as the process is not completed.

Peter Grainge

Community Expert

That's not large. 🙂

Are you saying it reports that it has not generated but it does and everything works? I am not clear on what is happening now.

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Cgbn5987897Author

Inspiring

Hi Peter,
Thanks for your suggestion.

I tried many combination of topics/books in TOC. I couldn't find any problem topics. When a output generation failed, I created a new TOC with last batch of topics and this TOC worked. I repeated this steps with multiple topics. It seems very random. When I add most of the topics to TOC, again output won't generate.

Is the issue could be of size of project? I have around 640 topics and 2000 plus images in this project.

One more thing I noticed is after restarting RoboHelp, and if I select "View Output" I got the output with all the TOC I have added. In browser this looks good but I am not sure if anything is broken in the output project.

Peter Grainge

Community Expert

That looks like your project has one or more topics the new version doesn't like.

Create another TOC and add the contents one folder at a time or just a small number of topics. They don't have to be in any order. This TOC will be trashed later, it is just to tease out where the problem topic(s) are.

Keep generating until you can't. The problem is somewhere in the last batch so reverse those out and add back in one at a time.

Let us know what happens.

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Cgbn5987897Author

Inspiring

I am using version 2019.0.14

Jeff_Coatsworth

Community Expert

Are you all patched up? Check Help > Updates to check.

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