Compile fails in hhc.exe [3220] when topic in TOC

[Cecily]

One of my projects stopped compiling (others OK) after I created a new topic, though there is nothing obviously untoward in that topic.

I had Flare 6.0.0 running in XP and got the error: "An unhandled win32 exception occurred in hhc.exe [3220]".

I rebooted, deleted the Output directory and tried to compile, but it still failed.

So I upgraded to 6.1.0 and conditioned the new topic out and removed it from the TOC.

That worked, so I removed the condition, but left it off the TOC. It compiled successfully and I could view the page using Search.

So I added it to the TOC - and compilation failed again.

How can it compile and view successfully, as long as this topic isn't in the TOC?
How can I add it to the TOC and get the project to build?

[rjhoughton]

Ugh. That sounds like a variation on my issue, which I haven't solved yet.

Good luck!

Rachel

[Cecily]

Do you think so? I read your topic and a couple of others, but they seemed different enough to justify a separate topic.

I suppose my next step is recreate the topic bit by bit, adding it to the TOC at each stage.

However, even if that works, I'd like to know what caused the problem so I could try to avoid it happening in future.

[LTinker68]

So I added it to the TOC - and compilation failed again.

How are you adding it to the TOC? What is the filename for the topic? If you change it to something simple (e.g., test.htm) does it work after adding it to the TOC? Any special characters in the first heading?

[Cecily]

Hi Lisa.

I've added it to the TOC the same way as I have all the other topics (by dragging and dropping from the Content Explorer) and the topic's file name and first heading are the same as each other, just upper and lower case letters.

The whole project is tied to TFS source control, so I don't rename things lightly, so I tried renaming the topic title. As before, it compiled fine, until I added it to the TOC.

So then I actually renamed the file and it's just the same: it compiles OK, displays the page OK (if I access it via Search), but won't compile if I add it to the TOC.

I guess I have to create a brand new topic and recreate the text and images etc, but I will still be worried about what caused it and whether it might strike again.

[Cecily]

If I create a new, virtually blank topic and insert it in the TOC where the problem topic used to be, it won't compile, but if I put it (or the original problem topic) elsewhere on the TOC, it's OK.

So I deleted that whole section of TOC, recreated it and added topics one by one.

This time I was able to add the new topic; the only one that caused it to fail was an old topic that has been there for a couple of years and not changed in many months.

So I'm no further on than when I started, though it's a different topic that I have to leave off the TOC to get the project to compile!

[LTinker68]

Did you upgrade TFS between the older topic and the new one was added?

How about this... Try creating a new TOC and add the problem topic to it. Add the problem topic back to the original TOC. Open both TOCs in the Internal Text Editor or Notepad and find that problem topic. See if the file is referenced differently between the two topics. If there's nothing different between them, try copying all the TOC entries from the original TOC to the new TOC (while still in the Internal Text Editor or Notepad). Save the TOC, switch the target to point to that new TOC, and build. See if you the problem re-occurs.

I'm wondering if the TOC file itself got corrupted. If it did, then the above test will work without build errors. In which case, delete the old TOC file, rename the new one to the old name, then check it back into TFS and again try building. I don't use TFS, so I'm assuming renaming the TOC will work before checking it back in, but if not, then you'll have to remove the old TOC from TFS and add the new one.

[Cecily]

Thanks Lisa. TFS is unchanged and I've tried rebuilding the TOC from scratch, adding one topic at a time, compiling after each, but it failed when I'd created less than a quarter of it, i.e. in a different place, with different topics.

I've reverted to the old TOC and will refrain from adding anything to the TOC for now. It is very strange as the failures seem random: all the topics are in the project and accessible from the output via Search, and I can add, remove or move different topics to, from and around the TOC and sometimes it fails and sometimes it doesn't. The only consistency I've found is that I can't put the new topic where it needs to go without deleting another one somewhere else on the TOC.

It must be something local because versions that won't compile for me, do compile on the build server when I check them in.

Meanwhile , I've submitted it to Support. (Unfortunately, as I only have Bronze and there is an 8 hour time difference, I'll be lucky to have a fix by the end of the week.) Fingers crossed.

Thanks again for your help.