Error Opening RH 8 Project

[Janet_Havens]

When I am working in my RH project, after a few minutes, I get an error that RH 8 encountered an error and has to close. I can open a new "sample" project and work with it without errors, so it makes me think that it is something in the project itself rather than another issue. When I first started experiencing the problem, I was trying to import a word .doc file. I have deleted that file from the project, but am still getting the error. Any help would be appreciated!!

[RoboColum_n_]

Open up the sample project and try and import the same word document. Does the same error happen? If so, there must be something inside the word document that is causing RH to choke. Try splitting the .doc file in half and importing it. If that works, do the same to the remaining half, etc.until you hit the problem. That should narrow it down to what is causing the issue.

[Janet_Havens]

Thank you Colum, I will try that. However, my primary concern right now is that the rest of the help file seems to be corrupted. Even after deleting that file from the project, I cannot work in the help file without getting the error that RH8 has encountered an error and has to close. Do you know of any way to identify what is causing that problem?

[RoboColum_n_]

That is exactly what I am trying to do by getting you to try importing the word document into the sample (or a new) project. It is a process of elimination.

[Janet_Havens]

Okay, I see what you're saying. I imported the file into a "test" help project, and it imported just fine. Saved/reopened the test project and it is fine. So, apparently that file didn't have anything to do with it?

[RoboColum_n_]

That's it. So we now know the word file is not at fault. You could try deleting your project's .cpd file and seeing if that helps.

[Janet_Havens]

Now, it errors out immediately after opening the project.

[RoboColum_n_]

Is your project located on a network drive (bad) or a local drive (good).

[Janet_Havens]

local.

[RoboColum_n_]

Was the project upgraded to RH8 from an earlier version and has anything changed in it apart from the additional word file?

[Janet_Havens]

Yes, it was converted from x5, but that was awhile ago, and I worked in it a lot, up until about a month ago. The only other thing that I can think of is that I unlinked it from VSS version control. I did try re-linking to version control to see if that helped, but it didn't. I can't think of anything that has changed other than that.

[Peter Grainge]

I hope Colum won't mind me suggesting a slightly different way of opening the project given the first attempt has not worked as it should have done.

You could try opening the project from the HHP file rather than the XPJ. If you do, rename the CPD first.

Have you got a backup from before the import? I'm thinking that would be easier but copy the backup first.

[Janet_Havens]

I tried deleting the .cpd file and then launching the .hhp through RoboHelp, and it errors out almost right away. Doesn't even get as far as before.

[RoboWizard]

Hi Janet

You may find that you ultimately need to just create a new project. Then methodically import the topics from the errant project into the new. During this process you may also discover that it's actually one or more of the topics causing the headaches.

Just thinking out loud a bit here... Rick

[Janet_Havens]

I can't imagine how long that would take me to do Rick! This project is huge, and has been around a long time.

[RoboColum_n_]

Hi Janet.
It shouldn't take that long. Just create a new blank project. Then import all your topics. You can even copy over the .hhc and .hhk (and other)files as required from the old project to recreate your TOC and index.

[MergeThis]

Importing all your topics as Colum suggests, might take several tries (2, 3, 4?); RH seems to only want to import a certain number of topics in one swell foop (but it won't reveal what that magic number is).


Good luck,
Leon

[Janet_Havens · Accepted solution]

Thank you all for your suggestions. I ended up deleting all of the folders from the project, and then adding them back 1 at a time, until I identiifed the offending folder, and then finally identifying the corrupt file.