Search tab has stopped working in .CHMs

[nitabeck]

I maintain several .CHMs for a client. For a reason I can't figure out, the Search tab of any .CHM that I've updated recently no longer works. Any search attempt results in "No topics found." I verified that any older versions of .CHMs have working Search tabs, but any .CHM that I've updated this year no longer has a working Search tab. I even took one of last year's projects, made absolutely no changes, recompiled, and voila, Search is broken.

I have verified that I've got all settings set correctly on the Windows Properties dialog, plus all required .DLLs are correctly installed and registered.

The only change to my setup is that I upgraded to IE7.0 (finally!) earlier this year. And I've kept up with all Windows updates. I have been using and continue to use RoboHelp HTML X5.0.2. (I have not upgraded because, in my opinion, it was not worth my $500. I'm self-employed and am holding out for a more robust upgrade.)

Any ideas? Frankly, I assume that a Microsoft upgrade has messed up the works and I'm stuck, unless I shell out bucks....

Nita Beck

[Guest]

The search function works mostly using the topic titles property. It might be worth checking if these have been changed in any way as RH often show not found unless topic title is matched fairly closely. In fact I normally recommend using the index.....

[nitabeck]

Thanks very much for the reply, Author Care! As I said, even for a project whose Search tab had been working and for which I made absolutely no changes, recompiling that project now yields a broken Search tab... Wassup with that??!!!

Including only an Index is not practical for the particular Help system I'm working on today. It's loaded with esoteric terms and strings of numbers (thousands and thousands) that users must be able to (and, up until now, have been able to) search for, and it's quite useful that found search terms are highlighted in the found topics. There's no way that the Index in this case can replace the functionality offered by Search. They are complementary features.

[Captiv8r]

Hi nitabeck

You might try obtaining and re-registering your Itircl.dll file. After you do this, recompile and see if Search is working again.

Cheers... Rick

[nitabeck]

quote:

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Originally posted by: Captiv8r
You might try obtaining and re-registering your Itircl.dll file.;

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At the risk of appearing a total non-geek, what is that dll, and I don't have a clue how to manually register a file with Windows. If it's not too much trouble, could you clarify a wee bit?

FWIW, I've searched for this dll and it does not appear to be on my computer. Where can I obtain it?

(And mucho thanks for the suggestion!!)

[nitabeck]

OOPs, typed the filename wrong when searching. Found it multiple times on my computer...

[nitabeck · Accepted solution]

I found the solution, having picked up on an idea from Rick. Although I checked for and found the .dll that Rick mentnioned, I found that I was missing the itcc.dll that is part of the Microsoft HTML 1.x workshop. Once I re-registered that .dll and then recompiled in RoboHelp, the Search tab is once again working correctly.