Internal error: The file " " already exists

[fltii]

whenever i try to build an output, i get an error message saying that the glossary.xml file already exists.

even if i manually delete the file from the directory, i get the same error...

what am i doing wrong?

[KevinDAmery]

You're not building your output into the same folder where you're source files are stored, are you? If you are, don't. You could end up replacing your source files with your built output, which isn't fun.

[fltii]

Kevin said: "You're not building your output into the same folder where you're source files are stored, are you? If you are, don't. You could end up replacing your source files with your built output, which isn't fun."

No I am not building to the same folder where my source files are stored... I am building to my usual output folder, except I have deleted its contents in order to force a re-build of all changes including changes to the skin.

So I am building to an empty folder.

[LTinker68]

It seems like at some point someone reported they had a problem if they created a page called glossary.htm that had a glossary proxy in it, but Flare creates another file called glossary.htm for the glossary pane in WebHelp. Did you create a topic with a glossary proxy in it, and did you name the file glossary.htm? If so, try changing it to glossaryPage.htm or something. I can't remember if that's the error message the person got, but I vaguely remember the file name was the reason for the problem. So try that and see if it works.

You could also try applying a print-only condition to the topic containing the glossaryProxy, since at the moment you can't view that type of topic in WebHelp output. Unless than changed in v4.2.

[fltii]

Thanks for your reply Lisa,

I don't have any files named Glossary.

and the file that it says already exists is the glossary.xml if that helps...

So still when i try to build my output to an empty directory, it gets part of the way through the build (starts to fill up the directory with help book folders) and then tells me the the glossary.xml file already exists in my output directory.

I can even watch the directory fill up with folders named for each of my help books. then i can see the glossary and glossary1 internet documents and the glossary.xml document being created. and then soon after i get the error message saying that the glossary.xml already exists.

it seems like my builds are trying to create the glossary.xml document twice, and that is generating the error...

does this sound like an legitimate bug in Flare?

[LTinker68]

...does this sound like an legitimate bug in Flare?

Definitely something to ask about. If you have a maintenance contract with MadCap, you can submit that project to them and they'll use it to troubleshoot the problem, since that particular problem doesn't happen for everybody so it might be hard to reproduce without having an example.

If you create a new project from scratch and create a term or two in the glossary and build, do you get the same error in the test project? If you don't, then it's something in your project. If you do, then it leans more toward being a problem with the software or how it's set up on your computer.

[fltii]

thank you again.

i do not have a maintenance plan, and i did start a new project and it built just fine.

but both of my projects that are near complete will not build and still say that the glossary.xml file already exists.

is there a way to transfer all of the files from a complete project into a new one?

[LTinker68]

Close down Flare and use Windows Explorer. Copy the parent folder (contains the .flprj file, the Content sub-folder, the Project sub-folder, etc.). After copying the parent folder, rename it and rename the .flprj file. Then load the new project from within Flare.

[fltii]

thank you very much Lisa,

you have been a great help

i did find the glossary file that was causing my error.

a glossary.htm file somehow had gotten copied to my main content folder (showing at the same level of my help book folders)