Multiple HHC3004: Warning: Messages - Results in Rogue Topics

Report · Oct 03, 2013

I'm using Windows 7 64-bit and RH 9.

I'm running into a strange problem. When I generate our core help file into a .chm format, my compile log shows 69 "HH3004: Warning:" messages that look something like this:

...

HHC3004: Warning:

Changing_the_Report_Window_s_Contents.htm :

The HTML tag "?rh-cbt_start condition="Online" ?" is not a valid HTML tag (it does not begin with an alphanumeric character).

HHC3004: Warning:

Changing_the_Report_Window_s_Contents.htm :

The HTML tag "?rh-cbt_end ?" is not a valid HTML tag (it does not begin with an alphanumeric character).

HHC3004: Warning:

Changing_the_Report_Window_s_Contents.htm :

The HTML tag "?rh-cbt_start condition="Online" ?" is not a valid HTML tag (it does not begin with an alphanumeric character).

...

(Because I get multiple warnings on the same topic, there's only about about 10 unique HTML files with this problem.)

It almost sounds like there are some topics that are getting added into the chm output but are not running through the help generation process. Because these proprietary rh tags are only used during generation. They don't end up in the final output. At least they shouldn't.

If I look into RH's HTML code for these topics, I don't see anything amiss. Everything appears normal to me. For example, in this specific help topic, the HTML code shows this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">

<head>

<title>Changing the Report Window's Contents</title>

</head>

<body>

<?rh-cbt_start condition="Online" ?><h3>Changing the Report Window's Contents</h3><?rh-cbt_end ?>

Hint: See the "<a

href="../app_j_shortcuts_topics/Shortcut_Menus_in_the_Report_Window.htm">Shortcut

Menus in the Report Window</a>" topic for a list of functions you

can quickly and easily access to perform some of the modifications discussed

in this topic and its subtopics.

While you can permanently change how and what information

appears in your Report window by <a href="Modifying_Standard_Templates.htm">modifying and

the underlying templates</a> and the rules used, you can also perform

modifications to the objects on a Report window directly within the Report

window by using the information provided in these topics below.

Important: Please

note that custom reports, templates, label templates, and other reporting

modifications are NOT backwards compatible.

<?rh-cbt_start condition="Online" ?>More:<?rh-cbt_end ?>

<?rh-cbt_start condition="Online" ?><a href="Edit_Text_Reporting.htm">Edit

Text Reporting</a><?rh-cbt_end ?>

<?rh-cbt_start condition="Online" ?><a href="Edit_Label_Reporting.htm">Edit

Label Reporting</a><?rh-cbt_end ?>

<?rh-cbt_start condition="Online" ?><a href="Edit_Label_Positioning_and_Size.htm">Edit

Label Positioning and Size</a><?rh-cbt_end ?>

<?rh-cbt_start condition="Online" ?><a href="Edit_CAD_Model_Reporting.htm">Edit

CAD Model Reporting</a><?rh-cbt_end ?>

<?rh-cbt_start condition="Online" ?><a href="Changing_Label_Templates_on_the_Fly.htm">Changing

Label Templates on the Fly</a><?rh-cbt_end ?>

<?rh-cbt_start condition="Online" ?><a href="Removing_Report_Window_Modifications.htm">Removing

Report Window Modifications</a><?rh-cbt_end ?>

<?rh-placeholder type="footer" ?>

</body>

</html>

But don't HHC errors have to do with the table of contents? The .HHC file? If I look at the HTML source of our HHC file, where this topic is located (highlighted in orange), I see this:

</item>

</item>

</item>

</item>

</item>

</item>

Again, I don't see anything out of the ordinary.

If I search for this topic inside of the chm file, I get two results, like this:

If I click on each of these, one of them displays as expected, but the other does not:

Here's what the good one looks like:

And here's what the bad one looks like:

Notice the portion I highlighted. In the bad topic, while it looks almost identical, it does not have the feedback content that I'm including at the bottom of each topic. And if I investigate some of the other topics that are exhibiting the same problem, those with images do not display their images in the bad topic.

Now here's something fun! Notice what happens if I examine the topic properties by right clicking on the topic inside of the chm:

The good topic has this expected pathway:

And the bad topic has this unexpected pathway:

It looks like it's pulling that topic from the root level of my project.

But in fact, if I navigate to this directory, and sort by file type, the topic doesn't even exist inside of my help project. Which begs the question, where is this even coming from?

Any ideas on what might be causing this and how to resolve it?

Many thanks in advance.

Report · Oct 25, 2013

I wish I knew what was causing this. Today I took the chm file and decompiled it, and right there in the extracted directory's root is one of the htm files that shouldn't be there. But it's not in my source source in that location. I looked in the HHP file to see if maybe that was pulling that file in from some weird folder. But it had the correct reference.

Does anyone have any ideas on this? Strange problem...