Missing TOC books & topics in RH Server output -- is there a fix??

[Guest]

RH9, RH Server 9,WebHelp Pro

I've seen a post a few months old now reporting the problem of nested books and topics not showing up in WebHelp Pro RH9 Server output even though they display fine in the local output before and after publication.

Has there been a fix for this?

I have a large project, over 400 topics,  and it seems to affect books that are nested at level 4 and below. I have a level 3 book with several level 4 books inside it. The published output shows only the first level 4 book, and its contents, but then it omits the remaining level 4 books in that group and jumps to the next level 3 book.

This is not a merged project.

When I run the TOC report, all content is shown correctly in the report.

[Guest]

Now we have found that our users’ searches return corrupted results when we have the RH9 server configured for server-side indexing; for example, terms that are clearly present in topics return no results on Search. When we disabled server-side indexing, and republished, the search results performed correctly.

As I reported here earlier, we continue to get a corrupted TOC when publishing WebHelp Pro to RH9 Server. Some books and topic nested at level 3 do not appear; sometimes there are visible gaps in the TOC and other times no gaps, just missing content. These errors do not appear in WebHelp output (as distinct from WebHelp Pro) nor do they appear in WebHelp Pro output on my local C: drive. They occur only when WebHelp Pro output is published to the RH9 Server. Last week I sent you a couple of screenshots showing the discrepancy.

I am beginning to wonder whether the WebHelp Pro/Robo Server 9 combination is sufficiently robust.

[johndaigle]

Hi. Sorry you're having glitches. While I research my notes from similar situations, I offer these  things worth looking at:

1. This is a Knowlege Base article with a download that may help:

Books, topics missing from TOC | WebHelp Pro output | RoboHelp Server 8, 9

http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/904/cpsid_90498.html

2. Take a look at this thread (in particular, Message #10):
http://forums.adobe.com/message/3691553#3691553

I don't remember offhand but I think there may indeed be a limit of three "nested books" in a TOC, although I just experimented with this and I found it worked down to 6 or 7  nests.

3. I know in the past I have noticed that sometimes the culprit has been an oddball "illegal" character or space in a subfolder or filename. One client found that an exclamation point in a filename was a problem.

4. To be clear, remember that WebHelp (not Pro) has some very important differences from RoboHelp Server (Pro) output. Also, understand that when you view WebHelp Pro locally (i.e. View Results) you are not getting a fully accurate picture. Often, you must view the project from the RoboHelp Server to truly see the results.

5. With regard to Search. I have found in some cases that ticking the "Automatically Merge Projects of the Same Type" helps even though you only have one project!

6. I have found that a project that has been "renamed" can cause the server's configuration to be choke on the new name as it looks for the old one.

Let me know if any of this helps. If it does not, I'd suggest you zip up your Tomcat Log files and send them to me. I'll ask the Adobe folks if they could take a look.

You can find them here:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Apache Software Foundation\Tomcat 6.0\logs

Because they might be large, you might just send the most recent day's worth.

I realize this is a "dump" of so many possibilities but it's the weekend and I know you must be frustrated so I thought I'd pass along all ideas no matter how remote.

John Daigle

Adobe Certified RoboHelp and Captivate Instructor

Evergreen, Colorado

www.showmethedemo.com

[Guest]

Much appreciated, John. Will sift through these.

Regarding the nested TOC, it appears to be a combination of number or volume of topics plus the nesting that apparently hits some threshold before it goes haywire. I’ve often built deeply nested structures with no problems (though not using WebHelpPro for those projects).

Yes, I know about the difference between viewing local output and server output. For example, when viewing local output, the toolbar shows ALL buttons that are available in the skin definition, not just the ones selected in the default window, which are the only ones shown in server output (with the exception of the Search input box in the toolbar which I do NOT want and cannot turn off!).

You mention differences between the two WebHelp types – but from the user’s perspective, what are they really? My understanding is that the analytics are the main differentiator, and of course users aren’t exposed to that. Or are there other behavioural differences visible to users? Because I’m really thinking of backing out of WebHelp Pro for the short term and publishing plain old WebHelp.

Anyway, thanks again for the leads … hoping I hit paydirt soon!

Mike

[Guest]

BTW, we had already tried that server patch download, and it introduced new problems. The TOC books never opened at all -- they just popped up a “downloading” message and then froze. No books ever opened. So we backed it out. The Adobe support page you link to talks about “deeply nested” book. I wouldn’t have thought four levels was particularly deep. But we do have a large body of content.

[Guest]

Just updating this item. The problem afffects WebHelp Pro output regardless of whether that output is published to a server or not. The result in my local !SSL! folder is the same; i.e., some (not all) folders not appearing in the TOC when nested at level 3 and below. I have been advised that the RH engineering team is looking into this and will update this discussion further when I receive any news.

I have also determined that the same problem occurs in WebHelp Pro output when a single TOC is used in the project, or when multiple TOCs are used and merged. The results are the same either way.

The problem does not occur when the same content is generated as WebHelp (not Pro).

Mike

[johndaigle]

Hi, Mike

I'm on my way to LavaCon in Austin and so I've asked some folks at Adobe to take a look at this thread. Hopefully, we can find a solution.

Thanks for your patience.

John

[Guest]

Good to hear, John. I'm wondering if the thread title should be changed to make it clear that it occurs in all WebHelp Pro output irrespective of server publication -- or if it's even possible to do that.

Thanks for letting me know about your interest in this.

[NidhiB]

Hi,

Thanks for raising this issue,We are looking into this issue for a while but we are not able to reproduce it in local pro output .

It would be great if you could share the sample Webhelp pro out or sample project in which this issue is ocuuring so that we can look into it further.

Please share it at

nidhib@adobe.com

[Guest]

I have sent it -- please let me know if anything further is needed, such as screen captures of the results I am seeing. If you carefully examine the difference between the WebHelp TOC and WebHelp Pro TOC then you will see the problem.

[Guest]

Here's an update. Adobe tech support has been able to isolate the problem and have designated it Bug # 3052633.

Now that we have a name for it, there remains only the small problem of getting a fix for it....

[Guest · Accepted solution]

Adobe Support has now provided a fix for this bug which appears to resolve it. They will be putting the details on their support pages (not sure where).

[johndaigle]

Hi, Mike.

This is great news, Mike. Could you could relate the gist of what they suggested? By chance is this related to an update to the fix posted here?

http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/904/cpsid_90498.html

Thanks

John Daigle

Adobe Certified RoboHelp and Captivate Instructor

Evergreen, Colorado

www.showmethedemo.com

[Guest]

Hi John,

Not sure if it is the same. Support sent us a file named SearchUtils.class and it worked. Here are the instructions:

· Copy this file in the RHS Installed folder at WEB-INF\classes\adobe\robohelp\server\search folder location

· Restart the Server

Mike

[Guest]

Oops -- sorry John that was a different fix for a Search issue. Here is the method for the TOC issue

1. Web-Inf folder contains the files which need to be replaced in the RoboHelp Server Install folder\Web-inf folder

2. Resource folder contains files which need to be replaced in each context folder created in the RoboHelp Server

a. Go to c:\program files\adobe robohelp server 9\

b. go to server\resource folder in each of the context folder, and copy the files of resource folder

3. Restart RoboHelp Server

[rwrich21]

This is not a new answer. I read Daigle answer several times and it still is not clear to me what files need to be replaced and where I get them from and put them.  Could you reword your answer?

[Guest]

A lot of things have happened since that issue, so I’m a bit hazy on it, but I am fairly sure that the replacement files referred to were provided to us by Adobe tech support. We used them to replace files in our RH server install folders, as described in the steps given in my post – which I am (again) fairly sure quotes the instructions as they were provided by Adobe. (I wouldn’t write instructions like that – but on the other hand I couldn’t solve the issue myself either!)

[johndaigle]

Hi, rwrich21

This is an old and kind of a crazy quilt thread (Missing TOC, Search fixes, etc.)  When you say, "Could you reword your answer?" Are you asking me or Last fudgement? Is your question still regarding the Missing TOC and topics?

As best I can tell, the Missing TOC issue is explained here http://helpx.adobe.com/robohelp/kb/books-topics-missing-toc-webhelp.html but it sounds like you have tried that and it is not working?  What version of RoboHelp client and Server are you using? If you will elaborate a bit more, we'll try our best to offer suggestions.

Thanks

John

[rwrich21]

My question was about missing TOC.

Looking at the link you sent me, it sounds like it can solve my problem.

I am going to have our Systems Analyst guy try it.

Our System attributes are:

RoboHelp HTML V9.0

WebHelp Pro 9.0.1.262

We will be installing RoboHelp 9 Server sometime within the next month.

Before RoboHelp 9 HTML we were on RoboHelp 8 HTML and RoboHelp 8 Server.

Do we need to have RoboHelp 9 Server installed before using the link instructions?

Richard Wright

Functional Area Expert II

Systems Made Simple (SMS)

1615 Woodward Street

Austin, TX 78772

Service Delivery and Engineering (SDE)

Enterprise Operations (EO)

Enterprise Applications Support (EAS)

(512) 326-6610

Richard.Wright@va.gov <mailto:Richard.Wright@va.gov

[johndaigle]

Hi, Richard.

The answer is yes, you would have to have RH Server 9 installed before applying the link instructions. To be honest, I'm still confused about what your original question is. Your post (#15 in this thread) does not discuss exactly what your problem is? I'm confused because you are asking for a "fix", but it appears the RH Server 9 has not yet been installed, so how are you seeing this problem? Does this mean you are seeing a missing TOC problem in RH Server 8?

Thanks

john

[rwrich21]

Yes we saw this problem in RH8.

Richard Wright

Functional Area Expert II

Systems Made Simple (SMS)

1615 Woodward Street

Austin, TX 78772

Service Delivery and Engineering (SDE)

Enterprise Operations (EO)

Enterprise Applications Support (EAS)

(512) 326-6610

Richard.Wright@va.gov <mailto:Richard.Wright@va.gov