RH 2019 Log Location for Preset Generation?

[Jared Hess]

I'm working in RH 2019 again using the latest hotfix version 2019.0.9 (trial version). I'm trying to see if I can get the two projects that RH 2019 fails to compile to work. When I last used the RH 2019 trial version a couple of months ago two of our projects never compiled in 2019 new UI (even though they worked fine in RH 2017 and RH 2019 classic).

Where does RH 2019 store the log file during preset generation? That's what I currently need.

(Well, what I really need is an output window that shows the output progress as it generates so I can see where it fails. But an output window like that that unfortunately doesn't seem to exist in RH 2019.)

I'm hoping to open the log file in a text editor, press F5 to refresh periodically while it builds to mimic an output window, assuming the log is still text-editor readable to hopefully find the needle in the haystack. I cannot find such a log file. I searched in the source, I searched in the output, I searched the install location. I even got elbow deep in the nitty gritty of the appdata folder locations and do not see the log file. I'm starting to think it's generated on the fly in some temporary data file and isn't stored as a real usable .txt file anywhere.

Ideas?

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

I would fire off an e-mail to the RH folks at tcssup@adobe.com with your question (referencing this thread).

[Jared Hess]

Done. Thanks for the suggestion.

[Erwin.Timmerman]

Did you try to click the alert icon? That opens the log file when an error occurs. Although It's probably not as detailed as you want. See also halfway through https://helpx.adobe.com/robohelp/using/generate-output.html

[Erwin.Timmerman]

Hmm this doesn't seem to work either. I had this when generating pdf output directly, and clicking on the icon would generate a brief text on what was the problem. I now have the same issue with the Word generation, but the icon just turns my pointer into a hand but does nothing else. So sorry for giving you the wrong info. If you do manage to find out where the log resides, please share 🙂

[Jared Hess]

Erwin, thanks for trying to help. If I find anything, I'll be sure and post it here.

Anyway, for me, I don't get an alert icon. It doesn't show any alert or error message. The build apparently fails at some point with no message, but there's no indication of that. It just sits like this with no change. I've let it run for a couple of hours before and still the same blue progress bar:

If I click on the blue x, it doesn't close.

Right-clicking and choosing View | Log does nothing. The only way to get out of it is to close down my project.

So the upshot of this is I have no idea how far the compilation is getting nor where it's failing. Hence the need for a visible output window or at least a log file I can access that gives helpful data. But I have neither.

RH 2017 UX was so much better in this respect.

My only recourse at the moment is to only include a few folders / chapters at a time and rebuild. Rinse and repeat to eventually find out what folder / chapter is failing and then do the same for the files in the chapter. I've started doing this, but this help is ~2300+ topics and so it might take a while.

😞

[Amebr]

I've been wondering if it's somehow derived from information in the .rh folder, but I haven't had a chance to do any comparisions or searches (rebuilding my PC atm...).

[Jared Hess]

Hi Amebr. A log file might be derived from it, but I don't have any idea where the log file is stored if at all. I've looked in the .rh folder too and I don't see any log files there either. Anyway, thanks for responding.

[Amebr]

Derived as in "displayed on the fly" rather than a separate text file, is what I meant. 🙂

[Jared Hess]

I agree. That's probably what's it's doing.

[Surbhi_Maheshwari]

Hi Jared,

Log files are kept in C:\Users\<user-name>\AppData\Local\Temp\RHTMP folder. Also after generating an output you can click view log (in context menu of preset) to view the file in RoboHelp.

Thanks and Regards,
Surbhi Maheshwari

[Jared Hess]

Thanks Surbhi. But for how long are they kept there? Is the log only visible during Help generation? I looked in that directory, and I don't see an RHTMP folder there. But at the moment, I don't have any RH 2019 projects open and no Help is being generated.

[Jared Hess]

Surbhi and others, the RHTMP folder was initially empty for me. Not sure why, but at least the log files did start to get generated once I started up RobHelp 2019 and opened my project. I initally get a log of 0 kb in size. Eventually it gets 1 kb.

Once I started to generate my output, the log climbed in size. I opened mine in Np++ and was able to "refresh" it by switching to some other open text file and then clicking back on the opened log file. That way I could sort of see a live output view. But an output window showing the log data as it happened real time would really be nice.

The logs are named according to the epoch / unix date time stamp. You can use a converter like this to know the actual time: https://www.epochconverter.com/

Anyway, my log got up to about 4 MB before I noticed it wasn't logging any more data and was stuck on a file. Hopefully this helps me figure out what's going on. And hopfully this is of some use to someone else out there with a similar desire to see log data.

[Jared Hess]

I also found out that in that same folder RH generates an .ehtml file named after your preset. This is what you actually see when you right-click on the preset and choose View Log. It contains html tags for formatted log etc. It only gets generated if the generation succeeds though.

[Surbhi_Maheshwari]

Hi Jared,

Log gets generated for all output generations irrespective of success or failure.

Regards,

Surbhi Maheshwari

[Jared Hess]

Surbhi, thank you for responding.

Perhaps with certain failures, RH does generate the .ehtml file. But I can only go off of my experience. In my project, my preset generation gets stuck or simply stops on its own under the hood without giving any indication that there is a problem, and so it looks like it's still generating and it sits in that state forever.

This is using my "HTML5 Internal" preset in the project I sent you.

I consider a "stuck" generation, one that doesn't progress, or one that simply dies under the hood --I'm not sure which one it's doing--a failed generation. That's what led to this post in the first place. In this state, I can never access the .ehtml log file from within RH.