Odd master and subprojects configuration

I've inherited a project that is put together rather oddly. I have been editing some of the topics here and there as requested, but was prompted to take a closer look at the overall project structure when I noticed that, after the master project was compiled, a large number of topics returned a "page cannot be displayed" error when I tried to open them (although oddly enough, I *can* open them in the browse sequence, just not when I click directly on the topic page).

I traced it down to a subproject that had been merged into the master project at two different points. The first point was just below a "top-level" book in the TOC. The second place was under a "subbook" beneath a "top-level" book in the master project's TOC.

The master project is called "Admin". I went to see which CHMs were in Admin in the !SSL! only to find that this folder is completely empty. All of the CHMs are in a folder called !CHMs! (normally, when you create a project, the CHM file is in \!SSL!\Microsoft_HTML_Help\). This is an odd configuration but it seems to work (more or less).

I went to check each of the four subprojects (I can only find one other subproject that's merged into the master project). Let's call the subprojects A, B, C, and D. Subprojects A, C, and D are structured just the way you'd expect. Each subproject contains a single CHM fow that subproject in \!SSL!\Microsoft_HTML_Help\ so for example, subproject A's chm can be found at \!SSL!\Microsoft_HTML_Help\A.chm. The same for C and D. B is another matter.

Here is the structure of subproject B's directory and relevant subdirectories:

B folder
!SSL! folder
InfoSDK folder
InfoSDK.chm
Object folder
Admin.chm
Object.chm
Microsoft_HTML_Help
Admin.chm
B.chm

As you can see, instead of the !SSL! folder containing just the Microsoft_HTML_Help folder which contains the subproject's chm file, there are three folders in !SSL!, each containing one or more chm files. The really odd thing is that two of those folders contain the chm file from the master project (Admin.chm) and only one folder (Microsoft_HTML_Help) contains the chm for the B subproject.

I thought perhaps that this subproject had another subproject nested beneath it but in looking at the TOC, I can't find any merged project links. The B subproject itself has a large number of folders that are heavily nested beneath each other, so it's directory structure is both complicated and extensive.

Before anyone asks me to zip the entire thing up and send it out, the content is proprietary and confidential and I can't send it out into the open. I'm hoping someone can tell me based on my description, what is going on here.

As far as the topics from the merged B subproject that wouldn't open when I compiled and ran the master project "Admin", I double-clicked the merged project link for B in the Admin TOC to open the Merged Project dialog box. I discovered that the HTML Help File pointed to the B.chm but the TOC file pointed to Admin.hhc. When I pointed the TOC file to B.hhc and recompiled the master project, everything opened fine.

I have a sneaky suspicion though that I may have broken something in the process and that topics that should be available in the master when it's compiled are no longer available.

I apologize for the length of this post and the level of confusion it's probably generating, but this is the only way I can think to describe the situation short of being able to actually show you what's going on.

Any responses and ideas would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

-Trip