Error during publishing: maker: Show/Hide setting for DITA-Comment is inconsistent.

Report · Jan 25, 2023

I am using FM2020, structured with DITA.

I am having what appears to be same error posted in an older post (https://community.adobe.com/t5/framemaker-discussions/has-anyone-seen-this-conditional-text-error-sh...), but the solution there does not work. I am guessing that the difference is that I am using structured DITA.

The error message is:

maker: Error in <filename>.fm while updating UntitledBook13.book:
maker: Show/Hide setting for DITA-Comment is inconsistent.

It does not matter what ditamap I publish, i always get this error for DITA-Comment and DITA-Prolog for all files in the DITAMAP.

I have reviewed all DITA files, and used the "import format " to make them consistent (as per the above the suggestion) and that did not fix the problem.

I then used "import format" to all of the template files to ensure that they were consistent with each other, and that did not fix the problem.

I then used "import format" to all of the output template files to ensure that they were consistent with each other and imported them all to the STS, and that did not fix the problem.

Report · Jan 25, 2023

Is DITA-Comment the name of a Condition Code by any chance?

Report · Jan 25, 2023

Not entirely sure what "Condition Code" means, but if I open up the Show/Hide Conditional Text panel, I can see 6 different items listed, 4 under the Show panel and DITA-Comment and DITA-Prolog under the Hide panel. However, all of the files show this same pattern (i.e. there is no inconsistency between the files that I could find). Even that it did not make sense (given the text of the error message...) I did try to move DITA-Comment and DITA-Prolog to the Show column for one of the DITA files and also one of the DITA templates, but that did not appear to make a difference.

BTW - I inherited this project and have no idea what/why these settings are there. I am just trying to clean things up.

Report · Jan 26, 2023

re: Not entirely sure what "Condition Code" means…

You may need to learn about it, because this document is using them. CC is a way of having text regions that you can switch on and off, with adjoining text re-flowing.

re: …there is no inconsistency between the files that I could find…

You might try:
🗐 have all the book files open
🗏 make note of one {source.fm} that has apparently correct Conditional settings
🗐 in the book menu, select all except that one
File » Import » Formats
Import from Document [source.fm]
☐ deselect all except:
☑ Conditional Text Settings
[Import]

That will make them all identical from a CC standpoint.

Report · Jan 26, 2023

Thanks for the response.

As part of my testing, I deleted everything from one of my books except for 2 files (which makes testing for issues like this much simpler). The error occurs for BOTH files, so I cannot implement your solution of importing from the correct version, because there does not appear to be one...

Report · Mar 31, 2023

I have an update based on new observations, but still do not have a solution. The problem is somehow related to the Table of Contents.

If I Publish and PDF using the default .STS file that ships with Framemaker, then the problem disappears.

If I do the following, the problem is still not there:

start with the default .STS file
Edit the .STS file
on the DITA Options tab, check Save PDF via Book with components node
on the DITA Options tab, uncheck all of the options.

However, if I subsequently do the following, then the problem appears:

check at least one of:

Generate Table of Contents
Generate Index
Generate List of Figures
Generate List of Tables

These observations are highly repeatable. If I uncheck whichever of those I have checked, then the problem disappears.

Thoughts?

Report · Oct 22, 2025

Did you ever find the root of the problem? I'm having the same issue as I troubleshoot a different problem (Re: Structured master pages in PDF output - Adobe Product Community - 15540710). I can make the error messages go away by disabling those book components, but I'll need those components in the final product so that's not really a solution.

Report · Oct 22, 2025

Unfortunately, no. I tried working with Adobe support for a while, and they were not able to resolve the issue. It was very frustrating.

However, here are some observations that might help you:

Adobe was unable to reproduce this behaviour.
When they sent me the default .STS file, the problem disappeared.
- Checking/unchecking various options in the .STS file would cause the problem to appear/disappear (i.e. something in the .STS is having an impact, in some unexplained way. But see bullet point further below)
I uninstalled FM2020 (ensuring that ALL program files and roaming sub-directories were removed) and then re-installed. The problem remained.
- HOWEVER, after the uninstall-reinstall, FM still defaulted to my previous .STS file, which I was not expecting. So the Framemaker uninstall process is clearly NOT removing everything. I explicitly pointed this issue out to Adobe support, and they were unable/unwilling to indicate where/how this is happening or how to fix it.
- I am assuming that it is a registry problem, but have not tested that out.
  - I did seach through the entire registry for "Framemaker" after uninstalling it, but found nothing of use. So perhaps it is related to some other Adobe setting?
I have this problem on two separate computers.
If I create a new user account on my computer, the problem disappears
- This is true even if I use the same .STS file. In other words, the problem is not specific to the .STS file, but somehow in the way that the .STS file interacts with something specific to my Windows user login.
- Furthermore, that means that if this is a registry level problem, it would have to be something that is user-account specific
- Ugh - just looking through my notes and the above sub-bullet points were true for my original .STS file, but apparently no longer true. Although I might have to create another new user account to really re-test.
If hold the shift key and right-click on FM icon and select Run as different user:
- The errors will disappear under some conditions, but not others. It is too complicated to explain the details here. I think that the key takeaway is that there is something in some User-account setting somewhere that is somehow having a effect.
  - Again - I have pointed this observation out to Adobe support but there were unhelpful in figuring out what to do with this.
When I first was investigating this issue, if I install FM2022, the problem disappeared
- Unfortunately, because of a critical bug in FM2022 which has not yet been resolved, I am forced to stay on FM2020.
- However, I re-tested this approach last year and things are now borked on FM2022 as well, which I think is because I have different settings in my .STS file. Sigh.

Report · Oct 22, 2025

Can we meet sometime so you can show me exactly what is happening? Thanks. rick at frameexpert dot com

Report · Oct 22, 2025

@frameexpert - I very much appreciate the offer. At some point, I would love to take you up on this. But I do not have time to delve into this problem right now. I also think it would be more productive after I can move to FM2022.

Report · Oct 23, 2025

Hi,

Could it be that data in your appdata folder had not been deleted?

c:\Users\REWI\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\FrameMaker\17\

Best regards, Winfried

Report · Oct 23, 2025

Hi Winfried,

Thanks for the suggestion, but I did test that out. After uninstalling FM, I manually cleaned out everything related to FrameMaker in Program Files directory and all sub-directories related to FM in AppData/Roaming.

Report · Oct 23, 2025

For a clean sweep like that, I would follow up with Revo Uninstaller to winkle out the remaining bits left over (as you proved by creating a new Windows User profile).

Report · Oct 23, 2025

@Jeff_Coatsworth - thanks for the suggestion. I will try that it when I get back into this problem.