Images and CSS not being found on some Windows machines

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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dwingert
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Images and CSS not being found on some Windows machines

Post by dwingert »

I have been asked to look into this for my company's documentation team.

They create a .chm file which contains images and style sheets. Every time they use the app that the help is for, the help gets downloaded to a Windows temp directory on the user's pc.

On some Windows machines when the user opens the help everything in it looks fine. All of the embedded imaged show up and the fonts, etc. are what is expected. On other Windows machines the same help file has default formatting (instead of ours) and all of the images are missing. The actual topics still display though. It seems like all of the links for css files and image files are not working.

I renamed the .chm file to .zip and uncompressed it. Everything is there. I did notice that the actual folders and file names are all lower case even though the links in the .htm files are mixed case. On Windows I don't expect this to matter though.

I tracked down one link of an image to see what it looks like.
<img src="ms-its:Policy_Config_Help.chm::/Resources/Images/PolicyEditor.png" class="NoThumbnailHyperlinkedImage" />

I don't know understand the src path. What is "ms-its"? I'm guessing that the :: part is telling something to look in directory below where the .chm file itself is. The links with these types of src paths all seem to not be working on some user's computers. But they do work on other user's computers.

Anyone know what is going on.

Thanks,
David Wingert
Psider
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Re: Images and CSS not being found on some Windows machines

Post by Psider »

"ms-its" is a bit like "file" or "http". I forget what the specifics are, but something to do with MS file formats, possibly only chms.

Basically the src is telling you the path to find the image inside the chm file.

It's possible you've run in to security features which make chm files almost unusable on the internet or intranet, or downloaded from either. The symptoms don't seem quite right, but it's the only idea I have at the moment. Have a look at the information on this page to see if it helps. Do note that a number of the solutions may not work any more, either.
http://kb.helpwaregroup.com/ms-html-hel ... s-break-hh


Oh, one more idea: maybe the necessary dlls aren't registered correctly by the application:
http://kb.helpwaregroup.com/ms-html-hel ... iagnostics
dwingert
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Re: Images and CSS not being found on some Windows machines

Post by dwingert »

Thanks for the information and suggestions.

Unfortunately MJ's Diagnostics is identified as containing a virus by my employer's virus scanner. It won't let me use it.

I've had the coworker who has the problem on her pc try some things with IE's cache. That hasn't helped.
doc_guy
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Re: Images and CSS not being found on some Windows machines

Post by doc_guy »

I'd give MadCap Support a call and see if they have seen anything like this, or if they have any suggestions for you. That's the best I got. Sorry.
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ccfisher76
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Re: Images and CSS not being found on some Windows machines

Post by ccfisher76 »

I had a similar problem. When I'd test my CHM from my desktop, it looked great. But when I tested it from within the application by pressing <F1>, all formatting and pictures were lost.

Thanks to Psider's comment above, I went to this link:

http://kb.helpwaregroup.com/ms-html-hel ... iagnostics

And it fixed my problem. My hypothesis is that when the programmer includes all the help files for the final install (and does the necessary stuff of registering it with the computer), it will likely also fix the problem. I'll try to remember to circle back to this question and confirm my suspicions.
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