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RoboHelp 8
I am working to reduce the number of topics that we have in our 3000+ project by taking a large number of very small topics and adding the text from them into one large topic with bookmarks. However, as I was working on this yesterday, RoboHelp crashed on me and when I relauched it, everything I was working one was hosed up pretty bad.
Here is my process for this compilation:
1. Create a new topic.
2. Cut and paste the individual text from each of the small topics into the new large topic.
3. Create a bookmark for each of the items in the new large topic.
4. Delete the small topic files.
5. Reset all of the broken links to the new bookmarks in the new large topic file.
I was just about done with Step 4 when RoboHelp shut down on me without warning. Now about half of the deleted small topics reappeared and the other half are deleted, but are appearing in the Topic List with a red X by them and I can't get them to go away.
I attempted to roll back to before the crash, but that didn't really help at all. I also deleted the project locally and reloaded in RoboHelp and again, no luck.
I've tried deleting these topics from RoboSource Control, deleting them from my local C drive, and performing a Get Latest Version All and Generate Primary Layout after each step to see if these topics would truly delete, but alas, they will just not go away in my Project Manager. When I try to delete them, I get the popup asking about removing references to other files, but after selecting my answer, nothing happens and the topic doesn't go away.
I did the same 5 steps in a different project and when RoboHelp didn't crash, I did not have any issues.
Any guidance you have would be appreciated!
I have had this happen also. The way I have resolved it is to edit the .fpj file with a text tool such as notepad and hand remove the topics. The fpj file contains a list of the all the topics that are expected in the folder and when RoboHelp crashes it doesn't have a chance to clean this up. The file is named (folder_name).fpj if you have topics in a folder. If the topics are located in the main directory, the file is named root.fpj. Hope this helps.
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Have you tried deleting the project's .CPD file before reopening the project. Then try and delete the topics.
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I tried that and unfortunately, no go. Any other suggestions?
Warren- 221-3210
Senior Communications Support Specialist
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Do a multi file search on the filename of one of the topics that will not delete to see if there is a reference anywhere in a topic. You should be able to delete even if there is so I doubt it will help but who knows.
Somehow I think this is more to do with source control being messed up as a result of this problem and I will have to leave that to one of the source control gurus.
See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips
Follow me @petergrainge
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I brought up the link view for two topics and removed the links between them and tried to delete without any luck, but thanks for the suggestion, that was something that I had not tried.
Version Control does not show these topics to delete them from there.
Warren- 221-3210
Senior Communications Support Specialist
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I have had this happen also. The way I have resolved it is to edit the .fpj file with a text tool such as notepad and hand remove the topics. The fpj file contains a list of the all the topics that are expected in the folder and when RoboHelp crashes it doesn't have a chance to clean this up. The file is named (folder_name).fpj if you have topics in a folder. If the topics are located in the main directory, the file is named root.fpj. Hope this helps.
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I wasn't able to do exactly the way you indicated as I received error
message about local copy different from server and what not, so I am
editing the root from within source control and that seems to be
working! 😄
Warren- 221-3210
Senior Communications Support Specialist
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Glad it worked for you - happy to help
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This helped me with a RoboHelp 2019 file I couldn't delete. I edited the root.fpj to remove the file which didn't work by itself, but when I also deleted and let RoboHelp recreate it's <project>.cpd file the offending file was gone and everything compiled cleanly again. Yea!