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A
Anonymous
October 28, 2009
Question

RoboHelp persistent crash

  • October 28, 2009
  • 2 replies
  • 3389 views

Hi,

I'm posting this in the desperate hope that someone else has seen this and knows what may be causing it.

I have contacted Adobe Support, but have not yet received a response. Most problems that I have ever encountered have been resolved much more quickly vie the forum, so here goes...

When I launch RoboHelp8, the mouse cursor flickers constantly between an eggtimer and arrow cursor.
When I try to do anything, like open a folder in the Project Manager it is very slow.

A Robo HTML dialog appears with the following message:

"The reference to the file,
C:\working_area\etc\etc\..\xyz.css
from the file
C:\working_area\etc\etc\helpfile.htm
contains ilegal characters and will not be shown in the project manager.
I only get the option to hit OK.
This is normally followed by the crash.


(Note: The aforementioned file IS visible in the project manager and it is not a new file or one that has been updated since the previous version
of my project)

After a short delay, RoboHelp freezes and I get a Windows error message that RoboHelp has been forced to close.
I have tried using a different copy of my source files, with the same results.
I have tried uninstalling and reinstalling RoboHelp, with the same results.
Any ideas what could be causing this and what the solution might be?


I notice there is a file called "$rhvariable$.htm" with a size of 0KB in the top level project directory, which I don't recognize. Is this connected?

Thanks for any help.

Regards,

Feebeegeebee

This topic has been closed for replies.

2 replies

Willam van Weelden
Willam van Weelden
Inspiring
October 28, 2009

Hi,

When I launch RoboHelp8, the mouse cursor flickers constantly between an eggtimer and arrow cursor.
When I try to do anything, like open a folder in the Project Manager it is very slow

Is this causing the same problem, see number 7 on Peter's using RoboHelp 8 page.

"The reference to the file,
C:\working_area\etc\etc\..\xyz.css
from the file
C:\working_area\etc\etc\helpfile.htm
contains ilegal characters and will not be shown in the project manager

Someone else had a similar error message, but I can't find the post. Anyway, if I remember correctly, the <link> tag contained an illegal (for Robo, the W3C validator accepted the file) reference. But it didn't crash RoboHelp. Can you post the html file so we can have a look?

I notice there is a file called "$rhvariable$.htm" with a size of 0KB in the top level project directory, which I don't recognize. Is this connected?

Good question, I don't think it's connected, but I don't know what the file is. This file is discussed on: http://forums.adobe.com/thread/453232?tstart=0

Greet,

Willam

Peter Grainge
Community Expert
Peter GraingeCommunity Expert
Community Expert
October 28, 2009

I have the solution but I have to dash. Wait an hour or so.

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

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Peter Grainge
Community Expert
Peter GraingeCommunity Expert
Community Expert
October 28, 2009

Peter,

This is very similar to a problem I've posted today see RoboHElp 8 project being corrupted under RoboHELP thread. I'd be interested to see if the two issues have a similar solution. As my post says I'm seeing similar behaviour and a re-intstall and clean copies of the project didn't fix either...


The first thing is that having read this thread and your other post, I am not entirely sure of the cause. In another thread a two people have reported crashing and I hit the same thing in a big way on Monday. What was happening was that on opening the project we got the same flickering cursor problem and rebuilding the CPD then lost track of over 5,000 files.

Things seem to go wrong if the CPD grows large and there are reports that people are finding it is growing quickly in RH8. The cause of that is unknown. So if your CPD was large and the usual renaming dance is not working, you are left with what worked for us. After renaming the CPD, we opened the project with the HHP file and when RH pointed out there was an XPJ we clicked No, we did not want to use it.

That opened the project for us and I know it has worked for someone else. The problem is, the HHP file has no knowledge of a number of features in RH8 so they are lost on opening the project. Fortunately I think I have worked out how to recover them all. See the attached repair.txt file.

Please let us know what the size of your CPD was before the project crashed and confirm that the solutions all work for you. Finally, please post a bug report.

The more people who report a bug or request a feature, the more likely it is to be actioned. Please follow this link.

http://www.Adobe.com/cfusion/mmform/index.cfm?name=wishform&product=38

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

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A
Anonymous
October 28, 2009

Sorry - should have specified RoboHelp 8 as the version I am using....

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