RoboHelp HTML 9.0.2.271 crashes when opening .htm files

Also using 9.0.2.271, I had exactly the same problem: open project, double-click a topic in the Topic List pane... crash.

However, immediately after opening the project I had Windows 7's blue 'busy' doughnut symbol constantly flashing under the mouse pointer. This is described (for RH8) in Peter Grainge's description on his excellent website (RoboHelp > Opening RoboHelp Projects). The same topic mentions the .hhp file, so I checked the contents of mine...

At the very end, in the [MERGE FILES] section, it listed two other .chm files; one which was supposed to be there, and one which was not (Dummy.chm). I had merged Dummy.chm only during the early testing stages of my project, and had long since removed all references to it from my project. I have no idea why it was still listed in the .hhp file.

I deleted the reference to Dummy.chm from the .hhp file and regenerated the project... and Dummy.chm reappeared in the .hhp file!  After deep-searching my project files using NotePad++, one remaining reference to Dummy.chm was also listed in the .xpj file:

  <file>
   <name>Dummy.chm</name>
   <comments></comments>
  </file>

So I manually removed those lines and saved the .xpj using NotePad++, reopened the project using RoboHelp, and regenerated. The rogue reference to Dummy.chm is now gone. I have opened, saved, and closed the project several times and it now seems to be reliable.

Probable cause of bug: I had recently performed a cleanup of my project folder and deleted Dummy.chm, but unknown to me I suspect RoboHelp was still looking for it when opening the project, hence the permanent 'busy' doughnut and the crash when trying to do anything else, like opening a topic.

If there’s no Source Control at play here, I’d do your import of 1 topic at a time (saving as you go) to discover the “bad” topic that’s causing the wheels to fall off.