Project does not open after updating RoboHelp 2019 to current updated version

[Ullrich Cox]

I have had my current version of RoboHelp updated. I then opened my existing project and a conversion or upgrade of the project occurred. This all looked perfectly fine until I tried to open the project. Then I received the following error message:-

Application Error

The application has run into an error.
Please save your unsaved changes and restart from menu:
Help > Restart RoboHelp

Has anyone else had this issue? The toc files had been mentioned in another thread but they look ok having checked the links to files etc. Any additional help would be great.

[Peter Grainge]

1. Do you have Update 7 applied?
2. What happens if you restart the project? Does it continue to show the same error message?
3. What was your previous version of RoboHelp?
4. Try upgrading the original project in 2019 Classic and then upgrade that to 2019 new. Back up your old project first.

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@petergrainge

[Ullrich Cox]

In reply:-

1. I am using RoboHelp 2019 2019.0.7. I'm not absolutely sure that update 7 is applied from that but it would be a reasonable assumption.

2. Restarting the project makes no difference and the message remains the same.

3. The previous version was the initial release prior to any updates released by Adobe.

4. I have not been using the Classic version for this project so it isn't possible to do that conversion unless there is a way to reverse engineer into classic from the current version.

I hope that helps and any help regarding this issue is greatly appreciated.

[Peter Grainge]

My understanding is this is a project that started in a version of RoboHelp before 2019 that was then upgraded to 2019. What's not clear is when it was upgraded. Was it upgraded in the initial release and it worked fine until you applied Update 7 or has it never worked in 2019?

If the latter then you still have the version of the project from the version before 2019 that can be upgraded to 2019 Classic and from there to the new 2019.

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See www.grainge.org for free RoboHelp and Authoring information.

@petergrainge

[Ullrich Cox]

Apologies, to be clear, it was in RoboHelp 2017. when we moved to RoboHelp 2019 we upgraded into classic, I think, and then to RoboHelp 2019 (not classic). This was at the initial point when we moved to 2019. Since then we have been solely working in RoboHelp 2019 so the original version and current version are substantially different.

[Peter Grainge]

Did this problem arise immediately after applying Update 7 or had you worked on it with Update 7 applied and then it went belly up?

I am trying to establish whether the upgrade has caused this problem or something that was done after applying the problem?

There is one thing you could try but you must do so after making a backup of the whole project. In File Explorer you will see a .rh folder. Delete that and then double click the RHPJ file to open the project. Does that work? If it does, check the project is OK and post back. I will then check with Adobe to see if they can shed any light on this.

Do take a backup first.

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See www.grainge.org for free RoboHelp and Authoring information.

@petergrainge

[Ullrich Cox]

Started straight after the upgrade to update 7. A process to upgrade the project happened and appeared to work successfully.

Did the back up, deleted the .rh folder and all appears to be working again now!! Very pleased, thank you Peter.

[Peter Grainge]

OK but so that anyone seeing this thread is clear, that is not an officially tested solution and the project needs thorough testing now to make sure there are no hidden side effects.

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See www.grainge.org for free RoboHelp and Authoring information.

@petergrainge

[Peter Grainge]

Ullrich

Do you still have a copy of the project when it was in the state that it would not open? If you do and you can share it, Adobe would like to investigate. If you can share, see the Contact page on my site and send the project as instructed there. Do make sure you include a link to this thread and please do not email the project by email.

I will then relay it on to Adobe.

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See www.grainge.org for free RoboHelp and Authoring information.

@petergrainge

[shootathought]

Just to chime in a bit, I had the same problem when we upgraded, and it turned out to be an illegal character in a conditional build tag name, specificially, one had an ampersand in the name. I would never have known, support actually fixed that one for me! Run through and look for oddities in any of your file names, build tags, index entries, and whatnot and see if that fixes it.

[Kathy Zem]

This is a question for shootathought. 

I have these odd characters in my 2017 project. When you say "support" fixed it, do you mean Adobe Support?

Basically my issue is where there are - (hyphen) or ' (apostrophe) characters, they go wonky on me. Did Support tell you how to fix the issue in the future?

Thanks!

Kathy

[Peter Grainge]

Kathy

I recommend you change your forum name from an email address unless you want a whole bunch of lawyers telling you that your long lost uncle has left you millions that are yours, if you just send a paltry few thousand dollars to register.

As to your question, unless shootathought can add more, it's a case of sticking to alphanumeric characters and those known to be safe, such as underscores and hyphens.

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www.grainge.org

[Kathy Zem]

Thanks, Peter. I will change my forum name. 

On the funky characters issue, it is apostrophes and hyphen that are causing my problem. I recently upgraded to RH 2019 and was hoping that there would be a magical fix in it, but I tested it with all the different encoding options, and nothing helped. 

[Peter Grainge]

Hyphens shouldn't cause a problem and haven't for me so I am guessing that RoboHelp is baulking at the apostrophes.

Can see all your file names at a glance in the Topic List report.

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www.grainge.org