Internal Error: Object reference not set to an instance ...

[Flying_Opera]

This is not an original problem.

There are several references to this error, Internal Error: Object reference not set to an instance of an object in this forum. My error occurs when trying to perform a PDF Publish.

Most responses blame the div tag and suggest they be deleted. I have tried this solution without success.

Does anyone know of a solution for my problem?

Any assistance provided is appreciated.

Flying_Opera

[Andrew]

There's really not enough information to give you any solution. Watch on the Messages tab to see what is happening when the error occurs, and that may tell you where to start looking for a problem. Also, it looks like you're building output, not publishing.

[LTinker68]

Did you by any chance abort the previous build? It seems like I would occasionally get this error if I started a build, aborted it, then started it again. I think it cleared itself if I tried the build again or if I closed the build screens then tried again.

[Flying_Opera]

The error occurs at the end of the PDF Compile.

See attached image.

Does this help?

Do you need more information?

Any assistance provided is appreciated.

Flying_Opera

[Andrew]

Well, it tells us that the error occurs during pagination. I was hoping it was failing on a specific topic we could point to, but looks like it won't be that easy.

Since we don't have anything specific, we'll have to approach this in a systematic way.

First stop: create a new TOC from scratch, and add topics to it, a few at a time (depending on the size of the TOC -- anywhere from 2 to 10). If it errors out on the first batch, remove all but one, and try that. If that still errors out, then try with a completely new target.

If it still errors out, create an empty default project, and try to add a topic to a TOC and build the PDF target. If that errors out, there's a problem with your system or with Flare's installation. In that case, I'd uninstall Flare, uninstall the .NET Framework, reboot, and then reinstall .NET, reboot, get Windows updates for .NET, reboot, and reinstall Flare.

If the first batch works, then it's simply a matter of finding out when / if a new set of topics causes the error. When it does, you know the error is in the most recent set of topics, and from there, you should be able to narrow things down.

Hope that helps.

[i-tietz]

I think I found out some more: I'm in the starting phase of print output, so I have a target with one topic only. Sometimes I got the error, sometimes I didn't. I tracked it down to a numbered list at the top of page 2.
I inserted paragraphs of 1px height on the first page and there was a certain number of those spacing paragraphs and I got the error on the build.
Then I deleted one paragraph again and everything was fine.
I inserted a handful more of those spacing paragraphs and the error disappeared, too ... there was a range in between in which I just couldn't build the target ...

Going to report it as a bug.
Oh, and: It's the same bug for Flare 8 and Flare 7.

[ruthhoward]

I just had this because I'd accidentally excluded the entire body of a topic from the target, removing the conditions on that page (it was the first page in a chapter) allowed the PDF target to build.

[DocuMike]

I just had this because I'd accidentally excluded the entire body of a topic from the target, removing the conditions on that page (it was the first page in a chapter) allowed the PDF target to build.

We were investigating this error today and the comment above was the solution. The PDF build halted on a topic which had the body conditionalized to be excluded from the output. Removed condition, problem solved. Thanks for the hint.

[purple45]

First stop: create a new TOC from scratch, and add topics to it, a few at a time (depending on the size of the TOC -- anywhere from 2 to 10). If it errors out on the first batch, remove all but one, and try that. If that still errors out, then try with a completely new target.
If it still errors out, create an empty default project, and try to add a topic to a TOC and build the PDF target. If that errors out, there's a problem with your system or with Flare's installation. In that case, I'd uninstall Flare, uninstall the .NET Framework, reboot, and then reinstall .NET, reboot, get Windows updates for .NET, reboot, and reinstall Flare.