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Question

Publishing Error - Failed to create file

Forum|Forum|18 years ago
November 27, 2007
14 replies
3313 views

I am currently using the Trial version of RoboHelp 7. Does the trial version not allow you to publish the help system?

I am receiving an error message when attempting to publish the help system (WebHelp or Flashhelp) via FTP to a server. The messages I am receiving when attempting to create Flashhelp is "Publishing has been cancelled. Failed to create file cshdat_webhelp.htm" followed by "Publishing has been cancelled. Failed to create file bsscftp.txt."

The messages I am receiving when attempting to create WebHelp is "Publishing has been cancelled. Failed to create file cshdat_robohelp.htm" followed by "Publishing has been cancelled. Failed to create file bsscftp.txt."

I did import some robohelp .htm files from compiled help on our server.

Any direction or suggestions are greatly appreciated.

This topic has been closed for replies.

Peter Grainge

Community Expert

Just a guess

ftp://ftp2.g1440.net

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johndaigle

Legend

Good news

I am now able to publish via FTP using RoboHelp's WebHelp Publishing Wizard.

It turns out RH is looking for a unique FTP server instead of a "virtual directory" on a common FTP site.
Let me explain my setup. Bear with me because I'm not a "real" network guy.

I run my own small Windows 2000 Server which has about 20 websites. A few for profit, but mostly for my class work,etc.
In IIS, years ago I set up a single FTP Server (using the conventional port 21). So, with only one IP address on my server and one FTP server, how do I access 20 different website domains on my server? Well, IIS allows you to create "virtual directories" related to a single FTP server site.
This works without a hitch when I use 3rd party FTP clients (such as WS-FTP or Cute FTP, or even Windows Explorer).

However, for reasons I still don't understand, RoboHelp needs to connect to a main FTP server site, not a "virtual directory". So I created a new FTP Site using the IIS wizard. But this time I assigned it to port 2021 instead of 21.

OK, now back to RoboHelp. In the WebHelp Publish Destination dialog box I put the IP address (or domain name), user/password like before. BUT, I changed the port to 2021. In the Server Directory field, I left it blank. This did the trick and works like a charm.

So, mmphillipstx you might explain this to your Engineering folks and see if they have as much success as I did.
Sure hope so. This drove me nuts! I've been using RH since 1992 and had never really bothered using the built-in publishing feature. Now I know! BTW, this works the same for RH X5 and RH 6 as well. It's not just an RH 7 thing.
Thanx,
john

John DaigleAdobe Certified RoboHelp and Captivate InstructorNewport, Oregon

M

mmphillipstxAuthor

Known Participant

Here is the response from the Engineering department regarding the resolution:

Melissa,

This is a bug with RoboHelp …are there any RoboHelp updates or patches that can be downloaded.

The FTP site is, in fact a Virtual Directory. But that server FTP is shared by many clients, so we can’t set it up to be a dedicated FTP site for your purposes. Until this is fixed by RoboHelp, I can only suggest that you continue to do the FTP process that we explained last week.

Peter Grainge

Community Expert

Don't know what you guys are messing about at but it works OK for me! :-)

I first set up a RH6 project so that if the issue was RH7, I would not be caught by that. Once I resolved the path issue (unique to my site), it published OK.

I then repeated the process with RH7.

Here are my settings in the hope that if you follow, all will be OK.

In the first page of the wizard I generated to the !SSL!\webhelp.

In the last page, my settings for the server were:

Connection Protocol: FTP

Host Name: http://www.grainge.org (Note HTTP)

Untick Anonymous user and enter User ID and Password

Server Directory
/whatever it should be

See how that goes.

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M

mmphillipstxAuthor

Known Participant

My FTP settings are as follows:

Descriptive Name = Test
Connection Protocol = FTP
Host Name = ftp2.g1440.net
Port = 21
Plus the userid and password.

I had Engingeering provide me a different ftp location and userid/password. Now I'm not getting error message but it is timing out.

A

Anonymous

Just making sure: Since there is both an output folder and a publish destination (the server), does your publish destination URL have the !SSL! folder in it? If so, I would suggest taking that folder out of the destination URL and see what happens.

--Ben

M

mmphillipstxAuthor

Known Participant

I'm pretty sure the publish destination has the !SSL! folder from the last time I was able to publish.

I asked Engineering to provide me another FTP location/login/password. After I clicked the publish button, it made it passed the file that was previously hosing. However, the transfer rate was .05 ....very very slow....but it did make it passed the file that was previously hanging up...until it timed out. My output folder was C:\RoboHelp_Generate\index.htm...not the usual ...!SSL!\WebHelp\index.htm.

Peter Grainge

Community Expert

Create a folder

C:\rh_generate

In the first field of the wizard, change the generate folder to that one.

Then generate and publish.

Let us know if that works.

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M

mmphillipstxAuthor

Known Participant

I created C:\RoboHelp_Generate...changed the output path in the wizard, generated and published.

Unfortunately, I received the same error message.

Peter Grainge

Community Expert

I just noticed in your Engineering Dept's response the reference to the !SSL! folder. That is simply where RH generates the local version of the webhelp.

Not everyone publishes their webhelp. Some take the content that is generated and give that to their developers who then put it on the server.

When you generate AND publish, first RH generates to wherever you define in the first page of the wizard and by default that will be to a folder under the !SSL! folder. Then RH tells you it has generated and asks if you want to View or Publish. When you publish it copies to the server the files it has generated to the !SSL! folder or wherever you have defined.

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M

mmphillipstxAuthor

Known Participant

What's perplexing is that we did a successful transfer using RoboHelp when we selected a Customers subdirectory (a folder one level in from the root directory) on my laptop. Something is going wrong when the output folder is "...\!SSL!\WebHelp\index.htm" .

A

Anonymous

Just an idea: Try eliminating the !SSL! folder. Trim the output path to <output folder>/WebHelp/index.htm and see if that will go to your server.

--Ben

Peter Grainge

Community Expert

Last page of the wizard, where you define the server.

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Peter Grainge

Community Expert

What setting(s) have you tried under Connection Protocols?

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mmphillipstxAuthor

Known Participant

Can you direct me where to check for Connection Protocols?

RoboColum_n_

Legend

These are used to store context sensitive help data for webhelp output. Are you using CSH?

M

mmphillipstxAuthor

Known Participant

I am not creating context-sensitive help...just WebHelp...and FlashHelp.

johndaigle

Legend

Hey, I remember that Austin class. I lived there for 14 years and have since moved to Colorado. I still enjoy returning to teach though.

Just to get this out of the way, the cshdat_webhelp.htm and cshdat_robohelp.htm files are generated whether you are using CSH or not. I know this is counterintuitive. After all CSH means context sensitive help! But they are simply "generic" javascript functions that are routinely produced whether the system needs them or not. Kind of "just in case" files that do no harm if they are not needed.

Now to the other issue. To eliminate a permission/connection problem, use an FTP client (WS-FTP or some shareware) to log onto the webserver. Since this would be outside of RH, you could validate whether this is a connection problem.

Let us know,
john

John DaigleAdobe Certified RoboHelp and Captivate InstructorNewport, Oregon

H

HKabaker

Inspiring

Are you saying these files are missing from output in the !SSL! directory, or on a server?

Harvey

M

mmphillipstxAuthor

Known Participant

I am saying that when attempting to publish ANY project via FTP to a server, I am receiving the following error messages:
Publishing has been cancelled. Failed to create file cshdat_webhelp.htm" followed by "Publishing has been cancelled. Failed to create file bsscftp.txt."

What are these files used for and why couldn't they be created?

Peter Grainge

Community Expert

Sorry, I hadn't seen the post about having opened Customer Care when I just posted.

I don't use the publish function so I don't know what to suggest. Presumably you can access the same target on the server using FTP.

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