[Solved] Compiler Failed to Copy Temporary CHM File

This forum is for all Flare issues related to the Microsoft HTML Help target.
This target produces "CHM" files in the output.
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doloremipsum
Sr. Propeller Head
Posts: 290
Joined: Mon Aug 26, 2019 2:11 pm

[Solved] Compiler Failed to Copy Temporary CHM File

Post by doloremipsum »

I've had a problem and managed to solve it with the help of Flare technical support, so just logging my notes here for posterity (I've seen a couple of forum posts about this issue but none of them included a proper resolution or cause for the problem).

Problem:
When trying to build a CHM, the build consistently fails with the following error:
Build failed: Compiler: Failed to copy temporary chm file C:\Flare Projects\Docs\Output\dipsum\Temporary\Help\Target\Content\Target.chm to C:\Flare Projects\Docs\Output\dipsum\Help\Target\Target.chm [Could not find file 'C:\Flare Projects\Docs\Output\dipsum\Temporary\Help\Target\Content\Target.chm'.].

If you go to the file location mentioned, it turns out that the "Target.chm" file does not exist. From this I understood that compiler failed to actually build the file, rather than just failing to copy it.

Troubleshooting:
I tried the following without success:
  • Creating a fresh project
  • Shortening the directory lengths (all directory names were well under the 256 character limit for CHMs)
  • Normal Flare troubleshooting (clearing the registry/appdata, uninstalling/reinstalling)
Solution:
This is apparently related to a mismatch between the Windows system language and the Flare project language. For me, oddly, these seemed to be the same - both English (US). Since I'm in New Zealand, I changed the Flare project language to English (New Zealand) and this time it built the CHM successfully. I think there must be a hidden setting somewhere that is set to English (NZ), which possibly came through when my company updated their IT policies recently.

So the workaround is to temporarily change the language of my Flare project whenever I need to build a CHM, which is thankfully not very often!
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klbmarsh
Jr. Propeller Head
Posts: 9
Joined: Tue Jul 06, 2021 8:44 am

Re: [Solved] Compiler Failed to Copy Temporary CHM File

Post by klbmarsh »

For me, the fix was to remove the period (.) from the folder name. HTML5 and PDF didn't care about that, but the CHM didn't build until I removed the period.
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