Flare 6.1 build output skin is blank

[amatsumoto]

I've recently upgraded from Flare v 6.0 to 6.1. Now when I build my output and then view it, the skin is almost completely blank - no TOC or other accordion panes, and my home page doesn't show at all. If I compile the same project in v5, it all looks just fine (I don't have my copy of v6 anymore, but I know it worked then). What has changed to make this happen?

[LTinker68]

Are you building WebHelp or WebHelp Plus?

[amatsumoto]

I'm building with WebHelp. I tried removing the accordion items per the knowledge base article Topic Comments and Recent Comments Are No Longer Supported, but re-building after that did not help.

[LTinker68]

If you create a new test project in v6 and build WebHelp output, does the skin appear?

[amatsumoto]

Created a new test project and building with factory default skin is fine. Building with my skin is not.

[LTinker68]

Hmmm. Are you using source control with Flare? Although if you were and the upgrade caused problems then I would expect it to have a problem with more files than just the skin.

It sounds like the skin file might have gotten corrupted during the upgrade, unless you missed a step when you were removing the accordion items per the KB article. You could try opening a trouble ticket with MadCap Support, but if you're in a hurry it might just be faster to recreate the skin. Not that MadCap would necessarily take awhile to respond (they're usually fairly quick), but if you're on a tight deadline then recreating the skin will at least get you going.

[amatsumoto]

We are using source control, but this problem started only after the 6.1 upgrade (it looks like several others are having similar troubles with the upgrade). I re-verified that I removed everything I need to from the skin, according to the knowledge base article, but no luck. And the exact same skin from the exact same project generates just fine with Flare 6.0 and 5.0. Guess I'll have to re-create the skins (sigh).

Thanks for your help, Lisa.

[LTinker68]

Yeah, I don't think the source control is an issue, except that apparently the path to the program file changed with the upgrade (from Madcap Flare 6 to MadCap Flare 6.1), but if that were the issue, again, I would expect that to be a problem with the other files.

I guess to rule out the source control you could unlink that particular skin file and rebind it (if that's possible) to see if that resolves the issue.

[SteveS]

... Guess I'll have to re-create the skins (sigh)...

At least with source control you should be able to recover the last known working skin and then go from there.

[32ndFlava]

I am having the same issue. Except I have created a new WebHelp target and a new Default Skin to attempt to fix this but it is still blank. Is there a certain setting that needs to be turned on or what not in the General tab for the WebHelp target?

[32ndFlava]

Nevermind. I found my solution here: http://forums.madcapsoftware.com/viewto ... =9&t=11022

I am using Chrome and there is a known issue with WebHelp coming through to it.

[amatsumoto]

I thought I finally corrected this issue, but it is stranger than ever. I still have Flare 6.1 on my machine and decided to redo the skins:

The skins and the Flare projects are checked into Perforce
With the new skins, I can generate a build on my machine using 6.1 and the skins appear as they should (rather than being blank)
A colleague still has Flare 6.0 on his machine and is able to generate a build with 6.0 and the output looks normal

However...

Our nightly help builds are done on another machine, by a script that grabs the latest files from Perforce, creates a build using Flare 6.0, and deposits the files to a staging location. When I open the help output from there, which should not be any different than anywhere else, the skins are blank again. I have no idea what I can do to fix this problem, nor what is causing it anymore.

Any suggestions?