Table of Contents with Parent and Children Projects

Do you only see the problem when you publish, or also when you generate ? If it's only when you publish, it may be a server caching issue. The toc entries are stored in js files, which are cached on the server, and thus can show in the wrong place when the old, cached, version points to a different place than the new content.

I managed to get my server admin to change the max-age setting to 1 day for the folders on the server that stores the js files, and that seems to have helped in my case. You could also just choose to reduce the max-age setting for the entire server.

If I select the + sign all items are displayed from that child project as they should be.

So the TOC for that child project viewed in RoboHelp is the same as in the output, correct?

While others just show the topics/sections. They are not displayed in the accurate child TOC. 

Here that is not the case, correct. Duplicate the preset that generates to mergedProjects and generate to a temporary folder. Is there still a problem, namely you are not seeing the same thing in the project as in the output?

________________________________________________________

My site www.grainge.org includes many free Authoring and RoboHelp resources that may be of help.

What you see in the merged TOC should be what is in each child project's TOC, one after the other.

Thus if say Child One has a TOC with all sections nested in a parent section such as below, you will see just Child One.

Child One A (top level section)

    Child One B (Sub Section)

If Child Two's TOC is structured 

Child Two A (top level section)

Child Two B (Sub Section)

Then in the merge you will see

Child One A (which would expand to show B)

Child Two A

Child Two B

Without being able to see your TOCs, it's not possible from the screenshot to understand the problem. All those sections/topics could be from one TOC or many as it depends on the child TOCs I'm not clear what you mean by +barcode.

You refer to previously using 2019 Classic but don't say if you are now on 2019 New UI or 2020.

Two things changed in the new UI versions. From 2019 New UI a topic does not get into the build unless it is in the TOC. Topics you want in the build but not showing in the TOC can be hidden. See RH2020 The Table of Contents (grainge.org). That topic also explains how there are now Online and Book TOCs but I don't think that change will be an issue here.

Hopefully the issue is what is in your TOC, or to be more accurate what is not in your TOC. If not then please come back with a clearer explanation.

________________________________________________________

My site www.grainge.org includes many free Authoring and RoboHelp resources that may be of help.