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nitabeck
Inspiring
October 4, 2007
Answered

Search tab has stopped working in .CHMs

  • October 4, 2007
  • 2 replies
  • 1156 views
I maintain several .CHMs for a client. For a reason I can't figure out, the Search tab of any .CHM that I've updated recently no longer works. Any search attempt results in "No topics found." I verified that any older versions of .CHMs have working Search tabs, but any .CHM that I've updated this year no longer has a working Search tab. I even took one of last year's projects, made absolutely no changes, recompiled, and voila, Search is broken.

I have verified that I've got all settings set correctly on the Windows Properties dialog, plus all required .DLLs are correctly installed and registered.

The only change to my setup is that I upgraded to IE7.0 (finally!) earlier this year. And I've kept up with all Windows updates. I have been using and continue to use RoboHelp HTML X5.0.2. (I have not upgraded because, in my opinion, it was not worth my $500. I'm self-employed and am holding out for a more robust upgrade.)

Any ideas? Frankly, I assume that a Microsoft upgrade has messed up the works and I'm stuck, unless I shell out bucks....

Nita Beck
This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer nitabeck
I found the solution, having picked up on an idea from Rick. Although I checked for and found the .dll that Rick mentnioned, I found that I was missing the itcc.dll that is part of the Microsoft HTML 1.x workshop. Once I re-registered that .dll and then recompiled in RoboHelp, the Search tab is once again working correctly.

2 replies

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nitabeckAuthorCorrect answer
Inspiring
October 4, 2007
I found the solution, having picked up on an idea from Rick. Although I checked for and found the .dll that Rick mentnioned, I found that I was missing the itcc.dll that is part of the Microsoft HTML 1.x workshop. Once I re-registered that .dll and then recompiled in RoboHelp, the Search tab is once again working correctly.
A
Anonymous
October 4, 2007
The search function works mostly using the topic titles property. It might be worth checking if these have been changed in any way as RH often show not found unless topic title is matched fairly closely. In fact I normally recommend using the index.....
N
nitabeckAuthor
Inspiring
October 4, 2007
Thanks very much for the reply, Author Care! As I said, even for a project whose Search tab had been working and for which I made absolutely no changes, recompiling that project now yields a broken Search tab... Wassup with that??!!!

Including only an Index is not practical for the particular Help system I'm working on today. It's loaded with esoteric terms and strings of numbers (thousands and thousands) that users must be able to (and, up until now, have been able to) search for, and it's quite useful that found search terms are highlighted in the found topics. There's no way that the Index in this case can replace the functionality offered by Search. They are complementary features.
Captiv8r
Captiv8r
Legend
October 4, 2007
Hi nitabeck

You might try obtaining and re-registering your Itircl.dll file. After you do this, recompile and see if Search is working again.

Cheers... Rick
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