file not generating

[Vicki5E13]

I have this one file (even if I make a copy of it) that will not generate.    It's not marked with a topic level tag to not publish.

I've checked the log file and the file (and the copy I made) say they are "updating...", but they never have a "finished updating..."   

Anyone know why these files are not generating?   There are no errors in the log file.   Just no "finished".

Any clues would be helpful.   

[Peter Grainge]

You haven't said which version of RoboHelp you are using. Please always start a thread with this information.

I will guess it is a new UI version.

How are you making the copy? By using Duplicate or pasting the content in? Both could be copying the problem in.

Paste the content of the original topic into a text editor and then paste that into the copy topic, don't worry about formatting it at this stage. Add that topic to the TOC and remove the original. If it then generates you know it is something in the content in the original.

Assuming that has worked, delete the content of the second topic and gradually copy paste small chunks from the orginal into the new topic until generating chokes. You now know where the problem is.

Let us know how you get on. Posting what the problem was may help someone else in the future.

________________________________________________________

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

[Vicki5E13]

Version 2022.   I'll try that.

Since I also couldn't preview the page (just showed a blank window), I had created a new topic and started copying in chunk by chunk and checking preview (but not generating).   I had thought it worked as preview worked the entire time and even at the end.   Then tried generating and the file didn't generate.   Strangely when I went back to the file in RH, the preview all of a sudden wouldn't work again.

But I'll try the chunk by chunk and generating this time and hopefully that'll tell me.   

Thanks so much for the idea.   

[Vicki5E13 · Accepted solution]

We finally gave up and are recreating the topic from scratch. Every time we felt we were on a roll with adding content, we would get to a "not generating" - that should say that the last bit was the issue.   But it wasn't.   Sometimes we had to remove multiple chunks back until we got to a place where it would generate.    

We really wanted to know what the cause was, but decided it was too much productivity lost to keep at it.   

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

Cleanest & fastest way is to just copy it out to a text editor & paste it all back in clean to a new topic.

[Vicki5E13]

Tried that also - didn't work.   You would be amazed at the number of things we tried.  Sometimes it felt we were getting there and then it would be not.    

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

You must be doing something else then because a clean paste via Notepad would take out any cruft that was present. 

[Peter Grainge]

What are copying from and how are you pasting it in. As @Jeff_Coatsworth has said, something is wrong with your process. Text from a text file will always generate. 

If you are pasting from a text file, you must be doing something else that is breaking things.

________________________________________________________

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