RH7 not saving or generating Webhelp

[MrGaspode]

Have been using RH7 since November 2007 and presently have 4 projects active. OS is Windows XP Pro running MS Office 2007. Approx 1 week ago RH suddenly stopped saving my Word docs and as a consequence of this, will not allow Webhelp generation.
Looking at other forums I am not the only user encountering this problem but nobody seems to have a definitive answer. I have tried all of the suggestions posted as follows:

- Repair RH7
- Repair Office 2007
- Uninstall RH7
- Re-install RH7
All to no result

RH7 was installed AFTER Office 2007 (which was one of the suggested reasons for the problem)

In short, I am getting desperate

[Peter Grainge]

I think the problem you face is that whilst Robohelp for Word is still fairly widely used, the proportion of authors using it is dropping and few of those provide support on the forums. Whilst there are still people providing good support, unless they have hit this problem, they cannot help so I suspect you may have to go to Support. I only use it when trying to help on the forum.

You are generating from a local project without any source control and generating to a local drive?

If you edit a document and then click the X to close it, do you get prompted to save it? What happens then?

[MrGaspode]

All my projects are generated on my local drive. I have tried clicking on X and when the prompt asking me if I want to Save all comes up, I say yes and nothing happens, it does not save.

[Peter Grainge]

Try the following after creating a copy of your whole project.

Rename all the .RTF files in the project and then reopen the project. This should regenerate new .RTF files that might solve the problem.

Some other things to prod at:

1) Does it work with the sample projects?
2) Does it work with a new project?
3) Does MS Word function ok by itself (saving, etc)?
4) Were the template files removed when the customer did a
uninstall/reinstall?
5) Normal.dot may be corrupt. Close all apps that may spawn
winword.exe sessions (MS Word, Outlook, RoboHelp for Word, etc), rename normal.dot, and launch MS Word normally to rebuild it.

If none of these steps work, then you will have to consider contacting support, unless someone has any ideas.

[MrsVJW]

I'm having the same issues, which started yesterday. Using RH7 with Word 2007 on WinXP.

I cna edit the file, but RH will not save the Word document. When I try to do a Save All from Robohelp, it doesn't give any errors but it also does not really save the file. If I try a Save from Word, it does the same thing... no errors, but it does not really save the file. I can save the file - a real save, it includes the changes I just made - doing a "Save As" in Word, since I'm just editing text and not adding/deleting any projects.

If I've just done a "Save all" or "Save", I am prompted when I close the project to save the file. If I click Yes/Save, it brings me right back to my file without closing it. If I click No/Cancel, and I've just done a Save all or Save, I will not see my edits in the file. If I have done a "Save As", I can see my edits.

I tried playing with a copy of the project, and renaming the RTF files. That removed all my links for the files in question. And I am still getting the same "not really saving" behavior.

I've cleared out and replaced my RoboHelp and Normal.dot templates, twice. No difference. But I am going to try yet again once I hit Reply on this message.

I created a new project, and it's got the same problems with not really saving any changes I make.

I haven't noticed Word acting funny on it's own.

[Peter Grainge]

Mrs VJW

Was it you who had the Runtime Errror 49 problem or am I mixing up posts?

If not, it might be an idea to look on my site for that and try what is advised there.

Snippet 92.

[MrsVJW]

Peter,

Yep, I did have Run Time error issues, and replacing the .dot files eventually worked out, which is one reason I tried it again when this problem came up.

I may have gotten it fixed for me... was poking around my Word settings, and in my Add-ins, the RoboHelp Word COM Add-in somehow got disabled (not by me, I can assure you!). Trying to enable it by selecting it wouldn't fix the problem, but I manually added it again, it's running and all is happy with the project.

[Guest]

I was having the exact same problem, I wasn't able to save my Word Docments in Word 2007. The solution you posted worked for me: I manually added the RoboHelp Word COM Add-in located in ...\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe RoboHelp 7\RoboHELP\RHComAdd.dll Thanks for sharing!

[Peter Grainge]

First can I ask what you mean by manually adding the DLL. Are you referring to registering the DLL?

Also can both MrsVJW and RoboHelp_User check in Add/Remove Programs whether RH6 is still installed? If it is, do either of you use it?

[Guest]

Peter,

RH 7 is the first and only version ever installed on my machine.

By manually adding the DLL I mean adding it through word / options, jus as MrsVJW describes it.

And after having used RH7 for a little bit, I have to say that I encounter exactly the same behavior as MrsVJW: I repeatedly have to re-add the DLL. For some reason the settings get changed ever so often. I haven't found out what exatly causes the settings to change, but I keep having to add the DLL, exit out of word and restart it. It is fairly annoying. Thanks for your help!!

[MrsVJW]

Peter,

RH6 has never been installed on this machine. RH7 was the first version ever installed on this machine.

In Word 2007, if you go to Word Options > Add Ins, the problems happen when the "RoboHelp Word COM Addin" is listed in the "Disabled Add Ins" list. If you go to Manage > select the COM Add-ins > click Go... it will have the RoboHelp Word COM Addin listed, but unchecked. If you Remove the add-in and then add the RHComAdd.dll file again, it fixes the problems (even when you're in the middle of working on a project). I have also had it work occassionally when I just select the add-in and restart Word, but it seems to be more reliable when you just remove it and add it again.

Also, I just added the RHComAdd.dll file to my Documents and Settings\User\Application Data\Microsoft\Add Ins folder. Doesn't make it run any better, but it's easier to reload it.

Also, I have noticed that I have problems with the add-in being disabled mostly after other programs have tried to access Word (such as IE).

[Peter Grainge]

I was hoping that location would be the reply as it is fairly straightforward to explain to people.

It would help both of us if you could monitor things for a while checking Word after you have used IE and anything else that might disable it. The more data we can get, the more chance of getting it fixed.

Thanks for posting back.

[Peter Grainge]

I fully understand that it is annoying to say the least. If either of you can identify what triggers the reset though, it will considerably increase the chance of getting a fix.

I would definitely check the setting after using IE and Outlook.

[MrsVJW]

I've tested it a little this morning. Outlook doesn't seem to have any impact on it, it treats Word attachments fine. But when I open a .doc file thru IE (linked thru one of our lifecycle management/bug tracker systems) it will open the .doc file, but when I start RH again, the RComAdd.dll is disabled again and I need to remove/add it. Every time (I did it five times today). No problems when I save the file to a drive or my desktop and launch it, it only happens when I directly open the file from one of our web services.

[Peter Grainge]

That looks like just the sort of information that will help. I'll forward this information to Adobe. Thanks.

[Guest]

I am having the same problem, only I cannot keep the .dll loaded between one RoboHelp session and the next, no matter what is or is not running. I had a Notepad.exe and a folders open, and was running Windows Live Messenger, and that's IT. I AM, however, using Vista with Word 2007, which is probably the difference. Please pass this on to Adobe as well, as this is completely unusable right now, and my other team members want to use the Word version, not the HTML version.

Thank you.

~~dmarie

[Peter Grainge]

Welcome to the forum Dawn-Marie

I have alerted Adobe to this. Can you run without Live Messenger for a short while just as a test. Doubt that is it but we need to rule out all possibilities.

Does it drop out if you close RH and immediately re-open it?

Do you have any Office 2003 components on your PC? Running or not?

Have you installed Vista SR1?

[Guest]

Hi Peter. Thanks for getting back to me. I'll answer your questions and tell you where I'm at...

I have alerted Adobe to this. Can you run without Live Messenger for a short while just as a test. Doubt that is it but we need to rule out all possibilities.

Tried that (saw the post on anything that might be touching Word could cause the problem). I actually stopped running every single thing--sidebar, IE, Outlook, Messenger, Defender, everything in the task bar. Didn't help.

Does it drop out if you close RH and immediately re-open it?

Yes.

Do you have any Office 2003 components on your PC? Running or not?

Not as far as I can tell. Here's all my MS OS/software stats:
- Windows Vista Enterprise version 6.0 (Build 6000) patched to the latest level, including all optional updates from Update.Microsoft.com.
- Office 2007 Enterprise (Word itself is at: Word 2007 version 12.0.6212.1000 SP1 MSO (12.0.6213.1000),
- Windows Live Messenger 2008, version 8.5.1302.1018.
- Visual SourceSafe 2005 version 8.0.50727.42
- Visual Studio 2005 version 9.0.21022.8 RTM
- .NET Framework version 3.5
- IE 7 version 7.0.6000.16575

Have you installed Vista SR1?

No, but I do have all the latest patches from the Update site.

Where I am now:

After trying all the things I saw online, to no avail, and discovering you can't write a macro to programmatically load the Dll (you can load Wll files...), I uninstalled Robo & Office completely, and scrubbed the registry by hand, followed by a shutown/pause to clear all memory. Then, I followed the last bit of advice I saw, I installed RoboHelp FIRST, then Office 2007.

RoboHelp is CURRENTLY working, though I haven't touched a single "Word Option" yet and I have a couple of the harder tasks to put through the paces.

I do need to turn off/on a few options, such as AutoCorrect (off), but I will not touch the save/convert/open options this time. (I had made my standard options settings, but changed them back when I was troublshooting, to no avail.) I will be switching an option at a time, in case there is a spurious side effect that hoses Robo. (If I find such a beastie, I'll be letting you know... /grin/.) If this goes well, I will be stripping/scrubbing/re-installing my co-worker's system this afternoon with the same procedure and seeing if I can get the same results. I will let you know. The co-worker did NOT touch any options, so it's just install order on his machine (he's not running IE or Messenger while in Robo and still experiencing these problems).

I did not expect this to work--it makes little to no sense to have the install order have such a dramatic effect on the ability to retain a COM add-in registration. I only tried it out of due diligence. Go figure. :)

I'll let you know the results. Let me know if you need any more specifics to help feed Adobe information.

Cheers!

~~dmarie (volt)

[Peter Grainge]

At the moment, the problem cannot be replicated so any information that helps force this problem really will help.

[Peter Grainge]

Two things.

1] I don't know where you saw to install RH before Office as the advice has always been to install Office first. It is necessary so that RH creates the right links.

2] The sight of Visual Studio makes me nervous. I've seen several posts on other issues where the user's PC had Visual Studio. It's absolutely circumstantial but sometimes that's enough. I guess there is no chance of you install RH on a PC that does not have Visual Studio and running it there for a while?

[Guest]

I am having this same problem and I am using RoboHelp HTML. I just converted from RoboInfo a week ago.

[Peter Grainge]

A suspicion is that it is related to opening documents over the net. Can those of you with this problem confirm or deny that?

[Peter Grainge]

Are folks still having trouble with RHComAdd.dll please?

Any more information?

I will be meeting with Adobe shortly and want to discuss this one.