Problem duplicating a RH project : cannot open rhpj file after renaming root folder

[jean-yvesb91055387]

Hello all, 

I'm trying to duplicate a Robohelp project (last saved in 2022.4 179, but it may have been created on a previous version). 

This project is structured this way: 

/Robohelp-project-2023
  /EN
    /Robohelp-project-2023-EN.rhpj
  /FR
    /Robohelp-project-2023-FR.rhpj

After reading this topic, I copied/pasted the folder /Robohelp-project-2023 via the Windows explorer.
I then opened the French version in /Robohelp-project-2023-Copy/FR/Robohelp-project-2023-FR.rhpj, and modified the project name to Robohelp-project-2024-FR in the project parameters. Until that point, everything is OK. 

Then, I tried to rename the root folder /Robohelp-project-2023-Copy to /Robohelp-project-2024. 

From this point, if I open the project /Robohelp-project-2024/FR/Robohelp-project-2024-FR.rhpj, I either get an empty project (and RH seems to be lagging, as if it was comuting somethin), or a screen with the recent project files. 

Am I missing something obvious ? 

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

So was this a merged help scenario? I suspect you probably should have started the renaming at the parent level first and then done the child projects (but I'm not 100% sure of that since I don't deal with merged projects). Maybe you need to create a new parent and then add the renamed child projects to it?

[jean-yvesb91055387]

Thanks for your answer Jeff,

As far as I know, this wasn't a merged help, just one with 2 langs.

From what I understand, there is no parent project linking the 2 lang versions. This being said, I'm not familiar with this merged / child project concept...  

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

See Peter's site - https://www.grainge.org/RoboHelp/Merged_Help/Merged_Help.htm 

[jean-yvesb91055387]

Thank you for the link, Jeff, I'll definitely check that out.

[Peter Grainge]

The correct way is to Windows copy the contents of the original that includes both languages into a new folder. Then rename the project within RoboHelp.

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

[jean-yvesb91055387]

Hello Peter, 

that is exactly what I have done.

Sorry if my description wasn't clear, I tried to give a lot of detail, but maybe there was too much and the gist of my message got drowned out.

[jean-yvesb91055387 · Accepted solution]

I found the cause of the problem. 

Short answer: 

I used a special character (#) in the new duplicated folder name.

If I don't use a # in the name, the duplication works and I can open the project. 

Jeff, Peter, thanks for taking the time!

Longer answer, just in case it can be useful:

If I do use a # in the folder name:

• Robohelp won't open the file by double-clicking on it, and will instead show the "recent projects file" screen.
• If I then use the "open" button and browse to the file to open it, RH will try to read the contents (loading bar in the bottom-right corner), and will act like it opened the project.
• But the project is not opened, the "content" section is empty, and Robohelp lags until I force-close the window.
• In some attempts, I hadd to kill the process in the task manager.

No wonder I didn't find this problem on the forum, I might be the only RH user who uses # characters in folder or file names ^_^' ... Never again.

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

Underscores are probably fine, but anything else I would stay away from.