error when trying to preview compiled topics

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lhamilton
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error when trying to preview compiled topics

Post by lhamilton »

Hi all. Remember me? I'm the one who lost my project when my drive crashed! Well I created a new project and copied all my output files into it and voila got my styled content back, but nnw I'm cleaning up the aftermath--had to recreate my alias file to remap all the CSH stuff and I had a gazilliong dropdown heads which got all fouled up in Div tags somehow. I've been removing the Div tags in the text editor and cleaning up other bits--like deleting some javascript that found it's way into eevery topic and re-tagging ALL my conditional text, but now that I'm almost done I am not able to preview any compiled topics. I get one of those "Flare doesn't feel like playing with you anymore" errors and the app closes.

Anyone else ever had this problem?

Thanks!
Lisa
SteveS
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Re: error when trying to preview compiled topics

Post by SteveS »

I've not had it, but standard advice is restart Flare, reinstall the DotNet framework (1 and 2), reinstall Flare to see if any of those fix the issue.

When you say you can't preview the compiled help, does that mean the help file builds but you can't open the chm? If so there are issues with chms not on the local hard drive.

HTH
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Steve
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LTinker68
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Re: error when trying to preview compiled topics

Post by LTinker68 »

She said CSH, not CHM.

Lisa, some of the code in the topics is inserted automatically at compile time. For instance, if you specify a masterpage for your project, then the code from that masterpage is inserted into the topics at compile time. It's possible that some of your topics have auto-generated code in them since you started from compiled output, so Flare might be putting the same code into a topic twice, and the duplication of code is causing errors when you try to view the new compiled output.

In the output folder, right-click on the topic you have specified for your "start"/"welcome" page and select Open with > Notepad. See if you have any duplication of code, especially multiple html, head, and body tags. You might have to check a couple of other topics, too, but if you can't even get to the start page, then you should be able to find the problem somewhere in that topic. (Unless the problem is in the masterpage, if you're using that.) If you do find duplicate tags, then you're going to have to figure out what feature is applying the second set of tags and make sure the reference to the feature is specified correctly in the topic.
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Lisa
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Warning! Loose nut behind the keyboard.
SteveS
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Re: error when trying to preview compiled topics

Post by SteveS »

LTinker68 wrote:She said CSH, not CHM.
Chums can be context sensitive......

....but then we'd be a different forum, not the web help forum.

Sometimes I should stay in bed. :?
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Steve
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lhamilton
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Re: error when trying to preview compiled topics

Post by lhamilton »

Ok...first please excuse all my typing errors. I have new nails and they are too long and I'm having trouble hitting the right keys! Now, thanks for your prompt and helpful replies as always. One question on Lisa's suggestion about dupe tags. I don't immediately see any dupes in the topics I checked, but I still have a ton of erroneous DIV tags where I once had dropdowns and text popups. Do you think I need to clean all that up in all topics to get rid of the preview error? I was hoping I could view individual topics as I cleaned them up but that doesn't seem to be the case?

Thanks again!
Lisa
LTinker68
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Re: error when trying to preview compiled topics

Post by LTinker68 »

If you want to see if it's a specific topic, then open Windows Explorer, navigate to the Content folder, and double-click on the topic in question. It will open in whatever browser you have set as your default browser. When it opens in the browser, look at the message bar at the bottom of the browser and see if it says "Done" or "Errors on page" or something. If it's just "Done" then the topic is fine. If it's "Errors on page", then you know there is something wrong on the page but the browser was able to compensate. If you couldn't Preview the same topic in Flare, then maybe Flare's Preview window isn't as forgiving as a full browser. That might help narrow down which topics are having problems.
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Lisa
Eagles may soar, but weasels aren't sucked into jet engines.
Warning! Loose nut behind the keyboard.
lhamilton
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Re: error when trying to preview compiled topics

Post by lhamilton »

Hmmm. I can view every topic successfully using Windows Explorer--with no error messages--but I can view none using the Flare preview, even ones I have cleaned up to remove DIV tags, all the dropdown tags...everything. Can't preview new, simple topics I have created either. Is it time for the dreaded uninstall/reinstall?
LTinker68
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Re: error when trying to preview compiled topics

Post by LTinker68 »

It could be a .NET issue, since the Preview is tying into part of Internet Explorer. What version of .NET are you running? You should have .NET 2.0 installed, although I think Flare will give you an error if you don't have that version. I'd try reinstalling .NET 2.0 and trying to Preview, and if that doesn't work then try uninstalling/reinstalling Flare.
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Lisa
Eagles may soar, but weasels aren't sucked into jet engines.
Warning! Loose nut behind the keyboard.
lhamilton
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Joined: Fri Apr 20, 2007 11:33 am

Re: error when trying to preview compiled topics

Post by lhamilton »

Thanks I'll give that a whirl!

Lisa
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