Copy link to clipboard
Copied
When we upgraded from RH11 to RH2015 the upgraded project didn't have any of the topics in it. Is there a way to get the topics to appear without having to import them after the upgrade?
Copy link to clipboard
Copied
That shouldn’t have happened – is there any source control at work here?
Copy link to clipboard
Copied
Hi Jeff,
No, there is no formal source control over these files. They are legacy help files that were originally created when RH wasn't owned by Adobe (and before I started working here in 2006). But, we had no problems migrating from that super old version to the TCS but are seeing problems going from RH11 to RH2015. Go figure. Not sure what could fix this, but we have imported the files for a couple of the projects that had missing Topics, but others are very large and cumbersome so I thought I'd check with the RH community to get some assistance.
Thanks!
Pat
Copy link to clipboard
Copied
HI there
Can you share a screen shot depicting your RoboHelp application?
Cheers... Rick
Copy link to clipboard
Copied
Hi Rick,
Here's a screenshot of my workspace after upgrading a RH11 project to RH2015 showing nothing in the Topic List, all the topics in the broken links folder, and the TOC showing missing files. I also received the error dialog inserted after the workspace screenshot for every project I've upgraded to RH2015. For each project, this is the result I see after the upgrade:
Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks!
Pat
Copy link to clipboard
Copied
Hi Pat
Thanks for sharing the images. Most helpful.
Based on what you have shown, it would appear that your project is located on a network resource? I"m basing that off the image showing K:\Design\Help...
I know that RoboHelp has improved in recent versions so as to allow it to work some better in these situations, but I'm wondering if the problem would perform a disappearing act if you were to move the project to a folder on your local C drive.
Are you able to try that?
Cheers... Rick
Copy link to clipboard
Copied
Yes, all of our help files reside on our network for backup purposes but I can see if that helps. They've always been on our network so it's strange that would now become an issue with this upgrade. I'll move one of the smaller projects to my local C drive and then upgrade and see what happens. I'll report back shortly.
Thanks,
Pat
Copy link to clipboard
Copied
So I moved a copy of my project over to my local C drive and upgraded but ran into the same issue, no topics in the upgraded project. Very strange.
Copy link to clipboard
Copied
How odd!
Does the Topic List populate properly if you open one of the sample projects?
Click here for a video on how to open a sample
Cheers... Rick
Copy link to clipboard
Copied
Yes, one of the sample files opened and displayed the Topic List properly, but it wasn't upgrading from an earlier version of RH, which seems to be our problem.
Copy link to clipboard
Copied
We have Help projects that were created long ago (14+ years ago) and projects that are fairly new (only a few years old), and we're only having problems with the old ones. The newer files, which were based off the same actual project parameters, CSS, and even hijacked xpj files opened fine with the Topic List intact.
Copy link to clipboard
Copied
Projects created before RoboHelp was optimised for working on a network
must be upgraded locally before running them on a network.
Maybe that is the issue.
Copy link to clipboard
Copied
@PSW – are you completely patched up in your RH2015 version? That may be the issue when upgrading old projects…
Copy link to clipboard
Copied
I thought I was since we just installed TCS2015, but looks like there is an updated for RH available. I'll update that and see how it does and let you know if that fixed it. Thanks for the heads up.
Copy link to clipboard
Copied
... and when you upgrade locally, I believe it must be a copy you have not
attempted to open across the network.
Copy link to clipboard
Copied
We have always had our RH projects on the network and have upgraded several times, even from RH5 all the way to TCS 4, with no issues. Plus, it's kind of a mix and match with some being okay on upgrade and some not, if RH was only optimized in the last couple of releases. We created the "newer" help files in RH10 (I mistakenly listed RH11 earlier), and they opened fine. Plus, I upgraded a copy of one of the files locally as a test earlier today and had the same results, no topics in the project.
Copy link to clipboard
Copied
Okay, I updated RH with the latest updates and moved an untouched copy of a project to my local drive and performed the upgrade. Same results, no topics in the Topic List and the Broken Links full of all the topics. Seems like nothing is working. Manual import looks like the surest option, although it's going to be a bit painful for our large projects. It just seems so odd that the last time we upgraded and went to TCS4, everything was fine but now it's not and we've been using the TCS for several years now. Unfortunately, as our organization is looking to consolidate tooling across doc teams (since we were acquired), this isn't looking good for our push to stick with RH. I can't let the MadCap side win!!!
Copy link to clipboard
Copied
So, after having upgraded one of my projects yesterday, manually importing all the topics and fixing the broken links, I updated RH2015 with the latest updates/patches (there were also FM and Captivate updates). Well, when i tried opening that "fixed" help file that had previously been updated to RH2015, I was prompted to upgrade again (I'm assuming because I applied the latest updates/patches). So I made a copy of my project on my local drive and upgraded. Well, the same problem happened yet again, no topics in the topic list. So, I'm chalking this up as an issue with RH2015 and I'm not looking forward to any updates to it in the future.
Copy link to clipboard
Copied
We kinda wanted you to load all the patches & then try upgrading again with a copy of the original RH11 project totally checked out of any source control or network entanglements in a local short-path folder on your c:\ drive. That would be a more accurate test.
Copy link to clipboard
Copied
I actually had one of the project folders restored back to pre-upgrade status, so I'm going to move that "fresh" RH10 project to my C: drive and then upgrade it. I'll report back when i'm done. Thanks for your continued assistance.
Copy link to clipboard
Copied
Okay, I completed the upgrade of the RH10 project on my c:\ drive. The topic list again is empty and all the topics are showing as broken links, but one topic is open in the workspace, although it doesn't show in the topic list. Here's a screenshot of my workspace after the upgrade:
So, really no difference other than this topic being open. Still so strange. It's hard to believe that the last upgrade we did, which was from RH5 to TCS 4, was farily seamless (over the network), yet this upgrade to RH2015 has been troublesome. And I'm still surprised that when I updated a RH2015 file with patches and then upgraded upon launching the project, the topics were again gone. Oh well, there's workarounds so I'll have to import the topics, hopefully not every time. Thanks for the assistance.
Copy link to clipboard
Copied
Okay, now when I import the .htm topics, I am being told they already exist in the project (yet they're shown as broken links).
I'm going to see if I can't get those topics to display somehow, if they are truly in the project. Any ideas?
Copy link to clipboard
Copied
If I right-click each broken link and select Restore, the .htm topic moves to the topic list. Not sure why they're broken though.
Copy link to clipboard
Copied
Have you tried deleting the .CPD file in the project (or have RH set to kill & recreate each time?)
Copy link to clipboard
Copied
No, I'm not too familiar with .cpd files, although I do remember being told to delete it when I was having problems previewing topics a while back. I deleted it at that time, but it didn't solve my problem. Someone was saying the drop-down text (or expanding text) feature was causing problems.
I have a copy of the RH10 project still. Would I delete the .cpd file prior to upgrading or after?