RoboHelp 2019 New UI: WebHelp output hangs on "Indexing references"

[Cgbn5987897]

Hello,I am trying to upgrade a RoboHelp classic project to RH 2019 with new UI. WebHelp output hangs on "Indexing references" and never completes. I am able to generate WebHelp output in RoboHelp Classic 2019 UI.

I saw related posts about this issue here and done the following things to resolve the issue.

• Used default css from a new project.
• Set all options under "select files to exclude from search."
• Changed skin.

Still I am not able to generate WebHelp output.

There is a suggestion from other post to remove image maps, but I am not sure If I have them in my project or how to remove them.

One thing seems to work is - if I Create a new TOC and add only a couple of topics. But as soon as I add all topics, output won't generate.

Any suggestions?

Thanks.

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

Are you all patched up? Check Help > Updates to check.

[Cgbn5987897]

I am using version 2019.0.14

[Peter Grainge]

That looks like your project has one or more topics the new version doesn't like.

Create another TOC and add the contents one folder at a time or just a small number of topics. They don't have to be in any order. This TOC will be trashed later, it is just to tease out where the problem topic(s) are.

Keep generating until you can't. The problem is somewhere in the last batch so reverse those out and add back in one at a time.

Let us know what happens.

[Cgbn5987897]

Hi Peter,
Thanks for your suggestion.

I tried many combination of topics/books in TOC. I couldn't find any problem topics. When a output generation failed, I created a new TOC with last batch of topics and this TOC worked. I repeated this steps with multiple topics. It seems very random. When I add most of the topics to TOC, again output won't generate.

Is the issue could be of size of project? I have around 640 topics and 2000 plus images in this project.

One more thing I noticed is after restarting RoboHelp, and if I select "View Output" I got the output with all the TOC I have added. In browser this looks good but I am not sure if anything is broken in the output project.

[Peter Grainge]

That's not large. 🙂

Are you saying it reports that it has not generated but it does and everything works? I am not clear on what is happening now.

[Cgbn5987897]

When WebHelp output hangs on "Indexing references", I usually wait for some time, then restart RoboHelp. Today after restarting, I clicked on "View Output" in Webhelp Output preset options. First I got a dialog box "WebHelp is out of date. Do you want to generate?"  I selected No here. Then output is opened in my browser.

I am not sure, if I can rely on this output as the process is not completed.

[Peter Grainge]

Please add a screenshot of your Output Presets using the photo icon above where you reply.

Open the properties and try selecting a different skin.

[Cgbn5987897]

Hi Peter,

Here are the screenshots. I selected a different skin but got the same issue.

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

Was this a brand new Output Preset or one that migrated over from the Classic version?

[Peter Grainge]

That was to be my next suggestion. 🙂 Where Jeff is going with that is to try creating a new preset, not a duplicate.

If that doesn't change things, try changing your start page to just index.htm.

[Cgbn5987897]

Thanks for your suggestions Jef & Peter. Earlier I was using a duplicated preset. Now I have created a new preset but the issue still persists. 😞

Screenshots of new preset

[Peter Grainge]

Can you share the project with me? If you can, see the Contact page on my site

[Peter Grainge · Accepted solution]

The project was shared and I have found a topic causing the problem, there may be more!

I am not clear how it was not found using the method I suggested, gradually adding more and more to a new TOC as that is how I found it. I created a new TOC and dragged a bunch of topics from the Contents panel to the TOC. In the first instance all the topics beginning with A. No folders as the sole objective of this TOC is troubleshooting.

It compiled just fine. So then I add the Bs and it still compiled. I then added the Cs and it failed. So then I deleted all the Cs and added them back in a few at a time. Eventually I found Custom Job API was what was causing it to hang. Looking at the code of the topic reveals it has either been imported or pasted in from Word at some point as there are many references to MSO styles. They don't exist in the CSS so RoboHelp doesn't know what to do and hangs.

I selected all the content and clicked the Clear Formatting icon and it then generated OK. Obviously the topic will need a bit of formatting work.

What you need to do now is create a TOC and add all the topics down to but not including that file. It should generate without issue. Then clean up that topic as above and add that. Generate again to prove it works for you. Then keep adding 20/30 topics at a time and generate again until it fails. When and if it does, then you know you have another topic needing clean up.

There are more. After fixing that in the TOC I created that now works, I reverted to yours and it still doesn't work.

[Cgbn5987897]

Thanks for the inputs Peter.
I am a bit late to reply on this. I was trying all the scenarios and want to make sure before posting again.

I followed the process you mentioned.
First, Just to rule out formatting issues, I cleared formatting for all the topics.
Next, I Added few topics at a time and generated output. As long as I am adding just few topics to TOC (About 10 at a time), Output is generating.
But when I added all topics to TOC at one time and ran output, it got stuck on indexing references.

One more method I tried:
I kept adding topics to TOC till it failed. Then I removed last batch of topics and started adding 2 or 3 topics at a time. To my surprise, output is generated at each step and also after I finished adding all topics from that batch.
Output also generated when I added topics from failed batch to TOC and removed remaining topics.

Please let me know, if you have any further suggestions. 🙂

[Peter Grainge]

You have to add the topics in batches. There's more than one causing problems so when you had large numbers, it fails but you have no idea why.

Sorry but you need to add say 20/25 at a time all the way through.

[Cgbn5987897]

Thanks for the help. I'll add topics to TOC in small batches and see how it will work.