Error "File was not included in ToC" (but it really was!)

[carolynmwallace]

First, I'm running Flare 2.5 on Window XP.

I'm getting a weird error when I build my print target (for Word 2003). It tells me that I have two unresolved links because those files were not included in the TOC. However, when I go to the Content Explorer, select the topics, right-click and choose "Locate in TOC," Flare finds them there without a problem. The topics ALSO show up correctly in the Word file output.

I do NOT see these errors when I'm building my Microsoft HTML Help (.chm) target from this project. This would normally make me think it's some kind of condition issue, except there ARE no conditions applied to these two files.

Analyzer can't find anything wrong with my project and neither can I.

Has anyone else seen similar behavior?

[LTinker68]

When you said conditions aren't applied to those two topics, did you check the files themselves and the links to those files in the TOC?

[carolynmwallace]

Yes, I checked both the files and their links in the TOC. That tripped me more than once, but I'm hip to it now!

And since the topics DO show up in both the Word and HTML Help builds (despite the errors saying they won't), if there IS a condition causing these error messages, I don't know what it could be.

[LTinker68]

Did you have bookmarks in those topics that you removed, or do those topics contain links to other topics that aren't in the TOC or are conditioned out?

[carolynmwallace]

No, all the files linked to within those two files are in the TOC too and not conditioned out. No stray bookmarks, either.

[LTinker68]

If the output builds fine (i.e., those topics are in the output, despite what the error says) then I'd live with the errors for now and open a bug report with MadCap and send them your project. As long as it's just those two topics it's not bad (easy enough to check them after each build), but if the problem starts accumulating then you could have a problem. Sending MadCap the project will help them reproduce the problem (hopefully).

[carolynmwallace]

The good news is, I don't have any errors any more.
The bad news is, I feel stupid.

I keep forgetting that those error messages show the file the bad link is pointing to and NOT the file where the problem IS! It hit me yesterday afternoon and, after going through all 30 topics that link to the two error files--yuck!--I found two links to bookmarks that no longer existed. (When they got removed and who removed them, I don't know. More fun!)

There are two things I want to gripe about (because feeling stupid always makes me cranky):
1) Why didn't Flare include the bookmark info in the error message? I.E., "Unresolved link to file: /Content/topic.htm#bookmark" It would have been a big help to know the errors were related to bookmarks; I would have seen right away the link was pointing to something that wasn't there.
2) Why didn't Analyzer show the bookmark links as broken?

But everyday I find something to be thankful for when using Flare, so I can't gripe too much.

Thanks again for your help, Lisa!