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A
Anonymous
January 26, 2010
Question

RoboHelp 8 blow-up with right-click on TOC item

  • January 26, 2010
  • 3 replies
  • 3359 views

Fellow Forum Foragers,

I would like to know if anyone else has had this problem or knows of a solution.  When I have the TOC pod open and I right-click on a TOC book or page, Robo shuts down and gives me the standard "send error report to Bill" message.  I am apparently trying to do something that I'm not supposed to do, and i usually do it when I am humming along on other work.  Obviously the big headache hear is the loss of any unsaved work when Robo goes to lunch like this.  Any suggestions?

~Dave

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    3 replies

    A
    Anonymous
    August 24, 2011

    Hi all,

    Just in case that can help someone, I'll explain what fixed the problem for me. (Sheairs, I wasn't getting the error message you're getting, so your problem is probably different.)

    The problem was that, for some reason, what was referenced as the default layout in the xpj file was invalid. It said "Default Topic.htm" instead of something like "WebHelp" - which of course made no sense. When I checked, there was indeed no layout marked as "Primary Layout" in the Single Source Layouts pod. Setting one of my layouts as the primary layout fixed the problem.

    I must thank Gravenstein for pointing me in the right direction. Following one of her posts I tried deleting some of the configuration files, and noticed that the problem was fixed when I deleted rhlayout.apj. I looked inside this file but saw nothing obviously wrong with it. Then, once I had opened my project again and seen that it worked, I noticed that the xpj file had changed: when RH created a new rhlayout.apj, it also set a valid default layout.

    So, this is my story

    HTH, C.

    A
    av_gchale
    Known Participant
    September 20, 2012

    I realize the last post to this topic was more than a year ago, but I thought I would reply with the resolution to my problem. I actually had two problems:

    1. When opening a help project, the XPJ file would automatically get checked out in Visual SourceSafe.
    2. When right-clicking an item in the TOC, RoboHelp would crash.

    These problems were identified in this topic by my predecessor, LisaR18. I was ultimately able to fix both problems by setting a layout in the Single Source Layouts pod as the primary layout.

    John_Ala__3PG_
    John_Ala__3PG_
    Participant
    April 20, 2017

    Just so everyone knows, this issue still exists in RH2015.

    A
    Anonymous
    June 14, 2010

    So, what's the fix for this problem? We're having the problem in one of our three of our help projects -- two of them work fine -- and all are five years old and were built in RH5. It almost sounds from this thread like you have to rebuild the project, but that's not possible for us to do. We have monthly releases and don't have time to devote to rebuilding this particular help project -- the busiest of the lot. Has Adobe come out with a fix for this issue? I find it hard to believe that so few people are having the same problem.

    I appreciate any advice. With right-clicking being such an ingrained habit for us, it's frustrating to have the project crash.

    Thanks,

    Lisa

    RoboColum_n_
    RoboColum_n_
    Legend
    June 15, 2010

    Hi Lisa.

    Rather than rebuilding the entire project, maybe you could try rebuilding just the TOC. Just a thought.


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    A
    Anonymous
    June 15, 2010

    Lisa,

    I have never found a fix for this issue, and to my knowledge Adobe has not addressed it. I tried Colum's suggestion of rebuilding the TOC - to no avail. It might work for you, though. I just try to suppress the urge to right click a TOC item . . .

    ~Dave

    RoboColum_n_
    RoboColum_n_
    Legend
    January 27, 2010

    Hi Dave.

    I've not heard of this problem. Can you give us a better idea of how you are using your TOC pod. Is it pinned in the margin and displayed when you hover over it or docked inside the RH window. Also is it just one TOC book you are getting the problem on? Perhaps if we knew this we could try and narrow down the issue.

    • Read the RoboColum(n) for a tips, tricks and musings on the Technical Communication Suite products.
    • Follow the RoboColum(n) on Twitter
    A
    Anonymous
    January 27, 2010

    Thanks for responding, Colum. I use my TOC docked inside the RH window.

    In the projects I work on, I often ad topics initially that need to be

    books later with additional topics underneath. When this has occurred

    it has been because I have right-clicked a TOC item before reminding

    myself that it causes Robo to crash. Here is the visual.

    ~Dave

    A
    Anonymous
    January 29, 2010

    Hi Dave,

    I have the same problem with one of my projects. I had copied the TOC files from another project instead of creating them from inside RH (and I modified the .xpj file manually so as RH would know the TOCs were there).

    Now right-clicking anywhere in the TOC pod crashes RH (whether the pod is docked or floating). Any new TOC I create (properly) does the same.

    Deleting the .cpd file has no effect.

    When I created the project I was trying to save time: I did create the project and import all the files properly, but copied and pasted all the .hhc, .apj and .ssl files from another project.  Did you by any chance do the same thing?

    C.

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