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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 29, 2009

Folks,

We've tested this problem again today using a clean install on a different machine, still no good, Here's what happened ..

Following clean installation of RoboHELP, Framemaker and Acrobat components on  a separate PC..

Opened a clean copy of  a help project which had previously worked ok and been released as normal.

On opening the project the following message was displayed

The project previously had no problems of this nature.

Once opened the project had the flickering cursor and hour glass and then proceeded to crash displaying the following:

We then opened the project a second time. on openeing this time more erroe messages such as ...

This showed missing files. When opened the project had folders and files missing then crashed again.

Error log showed trhe following:

So a project which previously was fine has bee trashed and RoboHELP seems to creash whenever this is opened.

We then created a new project added a few topics and folders, compiled, saved and closed re-opened several times without incident.

This suggests projects have been damaged.

Currently our thinking is that RoboHELP is not fit for purpose having a vunerability like this and we will be seriously considering alternatives if a definate cause cannot be established, I'll alslo be following Peter's suggestion and raising this to Adobe as a showstopper. I wouldn't be suprised to see more incidents.

Final  question what antivirus software are toy other fellow sufferers using? we have McAffee...


Feebeegeebee

The first dialog could be because you had turned that warning off on your normal machine, assuming the image is not in the project.

The second one is what I would expect with this problem.

The third one I am particularly interested in. It indicates the CPD has lost track of the folders and files but not necessarily that they are no longer in the project folders. Do they still exist if you look via Windows Explorer or are they truly missing?

That is what happened to us but after repairing the project, it seems to be stable again. We had to go to a backup just before the crash as after it, the files were missing off the hard disk.

What is common in these reports, and in our case, is the flickering cursor. I suspect that if the option to always recreate the cache is ticked, the crashes will stop. What seems to be behind them is the CPD growing too large. Why is not yet known.

We are making a point of backing up several times a day and then reopening the project with that option ticked. So far it is working. Of course the test would be to work with that option off and see how the CPD grows and when it crashes, Forgive me but that does not appeal to me.

If you haven't reported this yet, please do so. You may not get a response but we need Adobe to realise this is happening and needs urgent attention.

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

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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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