Master page inheritance and target master pages...hmmm

[TR Lisa]

My struggle with master pages continues. I've set a master page at the target level, but topics that are set to the Default master page are still being built by that target with the wrong master page. I've even tried deleting all but one master page from the project, and the Default master page topics are still not rendering with the named target master page attributes. If I change from Default to the named master page, they render correctly. I've had to resort to using File List to select and set all topics to the named master page, but with 4000 topics in the file list it crashes repeatedly and I've had to select only a few files at a time. Painful process and I have to wonder if anyone else has experience this--that is, the named target master page not being applied to topics set to Default master page.

[SteveS]

Have you purged the output folder before you build? That sometimes helps and I make it part of my workflow every time I build.

The command is on the Project tab, in the Build group, called Clean Project.

[NorthEast]

But there's another way to set a master page for a topic - you can can set a html.class on the topic, and link the class to a master page in your CSS (using mc-master-page).
So if you didn't write the CSS, check if it includes code like this.

[TR Lisa]

Thanks both. Yes I have been clearing the build folders, and no I didn't know about the style class master page connection. I checked the style sheet and there are 3 style classes that reference legacy master pages, but those master pages no longer exist and I don't see any topics set to those style classes--definitely not the core topics I've been working with. I've got MadCap looking at the project now. I sent it to them before I did the "global" topic master page update, so we'll see if they spot anything. I supposed the next logical question is, what happens when a topic references a defunct master page--would think it'd be the only master page in the project and/or the target master page, but maybe something got fouled up there. I do know that a missing master page throws a build error, and I wasn't getting master page build errors after deleting the other master pages.