Navigation menu doesn't load

[sgartley]

I have been learning Flare and using it to develop a help system. When I preview it in a browser, or open what I've published to the webserver, the navigation menu on the left doesn't display. The pane is there but the TOC and accordion buttons aren't. If I click on "hide navigation," it loads and is visible when I unhide it. If I resize the pane or the window, it loads. (I see the word "loading" for a couple of seconds as it's doing it.)

In IE, I get this error that I assume is related, but I haven't found the solution:
Webpage error details

User Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; Trident/4.0; SLCC2; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.5.30729; .NET CLR 3.0.30729; Media Center PC 6.0; OfficeLiveConnector.1.5; OfficeLivePatch.1.3; .NET4.0C; MSSDMC2.5.2219.1; yie8)
Timestamp: Wed, 1 Sep 2010 14:52:17 UTC


Message: 'document' is null or not an object
Line: 6070
Char: 1
Code: 0
URI: http://www.sharongartley.com/flaretest/ ... dCapAll.js

Line 6070 in MadCapAll.js is:
accordionFrame.document.body.style.backgroundColor=cssValue;}}}}}

I have searched everywhere I know to look and get this figured out but have not found the solution. It does the same thing whether I'm in IE or Firefox. Any help you can give me would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks!
Sharon Gartley

[lacastle]

How are you viewing the help? Are you building the target and then viewing the help from there, or "previewing" individual topics in a browser? if you're viewing the help from what you have published, which file are you opening?

there error that you posted looks like it's a skin problem. do you have the correct accordion items checked in the Skin editor (general tab)? what about in the WebHelp Setup tab? do you have all the settings for the navigation pane correct?

after that, make sure the accordion item styles are set correctly in the Skin Editor Styles tab.

[sgartley]

How are you viewing the help? Are you building the target and then viewing the help from there, or "previewing" individual topics in a browser? if you're viewing the help from what you have published, which file are you opening?

I am building the target and then viewing it from there, and also viewing what I've published. The file is default.htm.

I can't see that any of the settings are wrong in the places you mentioned.

OK.... I just logged on to a different machine where I'm backing up my files and opened it there. It worked perfectly. I published it from there and it works perfectly on the webserver also. The only difference I'm aware of is the Flare version. The one on the backup machine is 6.0.0. The one I'm using is 6.1.0. Are there any known issues such of this related to 6.1?

Thanks!
Sharon

[LTinker68]

The only issue I'm aware of with v6.1 related to the skin is what's described in this KB article --> http://kb.madcapsoftware.com/default_CSH.htm#BTE1010F.

[sgartley]

The only issue I'm aware of with v6.1 related to the skin is what's described in this KB article --> http://kb.madcapsoftware.com/default_CSH.htm#BTE1010F.

OK. Well, I guess the next thing to do is compare the project files on the backup machine with what I'm using here and see if I can see what's different. I must have changed something after I backed it up that broke it. If anyone else knows of anything in particular I should check, please let me know.

Thanks!
Sharon

[LTinker68]

Did following the KB article not resolve the issue? It's not that you changed anything in the skin -- it's that the program (v6.1) may now have a problem with the skin, due to changes to support the new version of Feedback.

[sgartley]

I confess I did not try it because when I read the article it didn't seem at all the same issue. Silly me! I just did it and it fixed my problem too.

Thank you so much!!

Sharon

[LTinker68]

Yeah, every time I look at that article I think it's a bit misleading because it doesn't indicate all the error messages or problems it can cause. You might want to add a comment to the article yourself (go to the very bottom of the article) saying that it can also result in the navigation not loading.

[sgartley]

You might want to add a comment to the article yourself

I will do that. Thanks!

Sharon