Robohelp 10 crashes when updating linked Frame 11 files

Report · Mar 28, 2013

I recently upgraded from TCS 3 to 4 and this project worked fine before the upgrade.

Whenever I update the book linked to RoboHelp, it crashes and I receive an "Adobe RoboHelp 10 has stopped working message" (below).

If I update individual files in the book, RoboHelp does not seem to have a problem with files that do not have many linked images.

I'm running Windows 7 Enterprise. 8 GB RAM. The source control for the Frame files is Documentum, so they reside locally on my PC at C:\Users\user.name\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\FrameMaker\Documentum\<connection_name>\<repository>\

Report · Mar 28, 2013

Before you tried to put the 2 together, did you open up the FM10 files, upgrade them, save them, then update them? Did you also just open the RH9 project and save it (performing no other actions)? You could also try clearing the projects CPD file.

Report · Mar 29, 2013

All of the Frame files were updated to Frame 11. I opened the RH 9 project in RH 10 and upgraded it. I also tried starting from an entirely new project and Robohelp still crashed. I deleted the cpd file, but that wasn't any help either.

According to the status area, it's choking on the converting process. Does Robohelp create any log or error files that might identify a place in the Frame document where it has a problem?

Report · Mar 31, 2013

I'd be suspicious that something in the FM files is causing it to choke, but before tossing out content to narrow down the offending .fm file, I'd be tempted to create a new RH project and import the FM content - if it comes in clean, then you know it's a linking issue; if it bombs too, then it's a slow process of working with a copy of the FM content and tossing away docs until you hit the one that's causing the crashing.

Report · Apr 01, 2013

Your suspicion is confirmed. In each problem file is at least one image with a callout text box insrted over the referenced image in Frame. If I clear those out, the file updates just fine.

This sounds like a bug to me. It worked just fine in previous versions and I very much fear the next update of other help files if I have to go back and change all of those callouts.

Report · Apr 01, 2013

How have you got your Conversion Settings set for handling images? Maybe messing with that will cause it to be passed through without error.

Report · Apr 04, 2013

I am having the exact same issue with a new projects I set up - FM11, RH 10. This is a small project consisting of 2 files in one book, linked in RH from FM. When I update the book in RH, it appears it's trying to run the files through Adobe Distiller, and then crashes. I get the same message as posted here. I assume it's Distiller that's causing this problem - why would Distiller enter the mix here? I've never seen this with previous versions of FM/RH.

Report · Apr 04, 2013

Check your Conversion Settings - Images - you can have images run through Distiller with a setting in there.

Report · Apr 04, 2013

Jeff, thanks for your help. I hadn't gotten around to checking my image conversion settings until just now. I cleared the Use Distiller to Generate Image check box and have not had the same problem. Is there a down-side to not using distiller to generate images?

So here's the issue as I see it - with a seemingly acceptable workaround:

Robohelp crashes when attempting to use distiller to convert images that have text frames placed on top. Is that what you are experiencing, Indy_Writer? Or is it crashing on files with any image?

Report · Apr 04, 2013

@davewilks - can't really offer you much help on images as I don't use them in my projects; I think that the TCS blog had some posts on how (and why) to use that Distiller setting. I seem to recall reading someplace that it's better to deal with those sort of images with callouts all in one anchored text frame when bringing it over to RH rather than having RH try to figure out how to deal with each part separately. You should still file a bug report with some sample files so that it gets on Adobe's radar.

Report · Apr 10, 2013

Hello,

TCS4 with Acrobat update to XI, unstructured FM. Win8.

I am having the same problem, and I am very concerned. This is definitely a new problem so something has changed recently - perhaps an Acrobat update?

I have been linking my FM books to RH and happily converting graphics through distiller for several years now. The last time I successfully did this was in February, with no problems. Now, I am starting a new round of help releases. As soon as RH encounters a chapter with graphics to convert, it crashes. This is not a problem with a particular graphic or particular FM chapter. It happens on any FM chapter with a graphic. Many of my graphics have callouts so it's possible that it occurs due to this, but it wasn't a problem before.

Things I've tried:

Started a new RH project.
Changed the image conversion to not use Distiller. This resulted in no problems whatsoever, but the graphics quality is not acceptable.
Converted a chapter with no graphics. No crashing.
Tried using Distiller, but created .gif instead of .png. Still resulted in an immediate crash.
Deleted the CPD file after each crash.
Observed Distiller and looked for error messages in the log. There are none. It looks like 2 -3 graphics are converting before the crash. I went to the temp folder where these are being distilled but could not really make sense of what's there... there are 2-3 PDFs of my images in each temp folder. There's a temp folder for each time I crashed.

OK I admit I am really worried about this new issue.

Alexandra

Report · Apr 10, 2013

Changing the conversion setting to not use distiller worked for me, but I haven't really done an assessment of the images. I don't need to publish this help until end of May, so I haven't really given it a once over.

Before I did that, I removed all of the callouts and used my screen capture tool (SnagIt) to add the callouts. After resizing in Frame and whatever transformations occured in Robohelp, they looked like - well, not good. But at least Robohelp didn't crash.

I'm certain in my case that it was the callouts on the images that caused the problem. I'm guessing yours is the same issue. Find a file with very few such images, copy it to create a backup, and then remove the callouts. Update just that file from Robohelp, and see what happens.

Report · Apr 10, 2013

The problem is fixed by a RH 10.0.1 update.

Right after I posted, I filed a bug, and Mohd from Adobe let me know about the update. Thanks, Mohd! Then I also saw the update mentioned in the HTML5 forum where I was looking around.

It's here:

The download link is http://www.adobe.com/support/robohelp/downloads.html

Strangely, this update did not appear in the Adobe Application Manager list, nor did it show up when I checked for updates in RH.

The update fixes the problem. It looks like the update may also fix a cross-reference problem I had, and I am really happy about that.

Alexandra

Report · Apr 10, 2013

It's not appearing yet in the Help > Updates tool (but then, neither has Acrobat XI either - LOL) but I'm sure that it will eventually. Sometimes I feel that this is all the notice you get from Adobe - http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/all_adobe_updates.png ;>)