RoboHelp Randomly Marking Topics for Deletion? (RoboHelp 11/TFS 2013)

[GnorbX]

Hey folks,

My team and I are running into a little issue which I assume has something to do with RoboHelp, but it may be our versioning system. We're not sure.

Once in a while -- maybe once a week, sometimes more -- RoboHelp insists that we're trying to delete topics, usually when we do a "Get Latest All". It's usually the same topics, but sometimes new topics are added. (The current list runs at about 10.) We cancel this request, then have to go into TFS to roll back any pending changes.

Steps:

1) Open a project connected to TFS.

2) Do a "Get Latest All".

3) See a pop-up asking whether we want to check in the changes involving the files being deleted. Click Cancel and continue with the Get process.

4) Close RoboHelp.

5) Open TFS. See that all those files have a pending change of "Delete", and are checked out by the current user.

6) To fix this (until next time), we Undo Pending Changes in TFS.

At this point, if it happens to one team member, it'll happen to ALL team members who touch that project. We all get the "Delete" message, we all have to Cancel this deletion, and we all have to go to TFS to roll back these changes, which are invariably attributed to whoever is experiencing the problem at that time.

Note that it doesn't always happen at the "Get Latest All" stage. Sometimes it happens when we do a "Check In All".

What could be causing this? How do we stop this from happening?

TIA

[Willam_van_Weelden · Accepted solution]

Have you enabled the option to always clear the CPD before opening? (Tools > Options). It may be that changes in the FPJ files due to the get all is causing this.

[GnorbX]

We hadn't done this. Trying it now. (Likely, we won't know whether it worked or not for a few days. If It doesn't happen again within the week, we'll consider this a success.)

Thank you!

[Amebr]

Many years ago when working in a team, we had a problem where topics added by one person would be auto-magically detele when another person opened that project, and conversely, files deleted by one person were auto-magically added back when another person was working on the project. This appear to be because file information is stored in the cpd file.

Our working practice was to delete the cpd before opening a project that someone else may have worked on. Generally we didn't need to as we were each assigned a specific project, but if we'd been away and someone else was working on our project this was necessary. I got into the habit of doing it all the time, just so I wouldn't forget and stuff up the project by forgetting. Having the 'Clear cache' setting will be a nice time saver.

However be aware you may hit another problem. Not everyone experiences this.

For unknown reasons, some files may vanish from Project Manager. It won't be all files, but once it happens, deleting the cpd will cause those files to vanish every time. I've encountered this problem with image files and stylesheets. They are still on the hard drive and everything looks fine in topics, but the files don't always make it to the output, and editing them requires work-arounds. You can easily get them to redisplay by creating a new (empty) folder, waiting for RH to finish thinking, then deleting the new folder. As near as I can tell, this forces RH to refresh the topic list stored in the cpd. This is somewhat messy when you are using source control but it does work. Or you can manually check the file out of source control, then access the file using Windows Explorer - less messy for source control history, but less convenient for you.

And all this reminds me I should re-submit this bug again (8th time lucky maybe? ). But maybe I'll wait until after checking in RH2015 (none of the bugs fixed seem relevant, but you never know).

[GnorbX]

I'll be sure to keep this in mind. RoboHelp can be a mysterious creature, sometimes, so this is definitely helpful. Thanks!

[GnorbX]

A week later, and no problems. This fixed it. Thanks!