Puzzling "Unresolved links" error messages

[Centauri27]

I have a large help project that is generated into a single WebHelp project but has just been split into two PDF manuals. For simplicity, let's say half the topics are in "PDF A" and the other half in "PDF B". When I generate PDF A, Flare gives me a series of error messages similar to the following:

Under "Description" column:

Code: Select all

Unresolved link(s) to file: file://D:/MyDir/AnyFile.htm. File may not be included in the output. 

Under "File" column:

Code: Select all

D:\MyDir\AnyFile.htm

The file "AnyFile.htm" does not appear in the TOC for PDF A, but does in PDF B (which I haven't generated yet). Why is Flare complaining about an unresolved link from a file to itself? Now, there is most likely another topic within PDF A that does attempt to link to "AnyFile.htm", but then why isn't this topic identified as the calling topic?

By the way: I just launched MadCap Analyzer and it does not flag any of these "unresolved links". Bug in Flare maybe?

[Nita Beck]

Are you sure that the topic is trying to link to itself?

You would get this error if a topic in PDF A has a link within it to a topic that is not in the TOC for PDF A and, therefore, is not in the generated PDF. It's a link to nowhere as far as PDF A is concerned. (If you're using cross-references to page numbers in PDF A, you can find this broken link there by searching for "page 1". Flare doens't know what the page number should be, so it leaves it as "page 1" in the generated PDF.)

Analyzer won't catch this broken link because -- at least for now -- Analyzer analyzes on a whole-project basis, not on a per-target basis. (Some of us have been asking MadCap for that enhancement.) Since the topic containing the link points to a topic that exists in the project, nothing is broken as far as it knows.

I hope this makes sense.

[Centauri27]

Thank you, Nita. That makes perfect sense and is most likely the cause of my problem. I don't doubt that many topics in PDF A link to topics that now reside in PDF B. What I'm puzzled is why doesn't Flare correctly identify the topic that's calling the "nonexistent" topic. For example, "foo" links to "bar" and "bar" is not in PDF A. You would expect the error to read: "Missing linked source file: bar", "file: foo". That'll alert me to go to foo and fix the link reference. Right now, it's effectively saying "Missing linked source file: bar, file: bar", which tells me nothing.

Thanks for the tip about searching for "page 1" to help find the errant cross references.

Carl

[Nita Beck]

You're welcome re the tip to search for "page 1" in the generated PDF. I've made "search for page 1" a best practice when finalizing a PDF. It's highly unlikely that one of my cross-references points to a destination truly on page 1, so searching for "page 1" works pretty well for finding these cross-references to nowhere. Of course, the search will yield "page 16," "page 13," etc., but I can simply blast past those.

I agree that Flare's various error messages could be more informative.