Compile error on HTML file

[bobmoon]

We've got a project that is not compiling HTML Help anymore. During the compile I get the "Object reference not set to an instance of an object." error message when it tries to compile a particular file.

I am able to compile the project as WebHelp without errors, so it seems that it's something to do with compiling HTML Help.

The files that it chokes on are HTML files (not XML files) that were generated by another tool and included in this project. The files were generated by Captivate as container pages for Flash animations. These have compiled n previous releases. The files open fine in browsers (without errors), and I can't see anything in the html that would be a problem.

I deleted the file that it was choking on, and I got the same error on the next file in the project, which is a similar file.

The project stopped compiling when the writers pulled the files out of Source Safe to start a new release. I'm not sure if the problem is related to SourceSafe, to the fact that they are HTML and not XML, or something else.

Thanks for any suggestions!

Bob

[bobmoon]

This problem seems to be an issue with Flare 3.1, and I've reported it to Support.

To sum up, the error happens when Flare 3.1 tries to compile an HTML Help project containing imported HTML files. The files in question were generated by Adobe Captivate to display Flash movies inside the help window. Flare 3.1 can successfully compile the project as WebHelp, and with Flare 2.5, we can successfully compile HTML Help. So it must be a problem with the Flare 3.1 HTML Help compile process.

Our workaround is to insert the SWF files into a Flare topic as an image, instead of using the imported HTML file.

Bob