MadCap Software Forums

Hi,

I am having a serious problem. When I go to build my projects - all targets - the build terminates immediately. There's no log because the process never runs long enough.

I have contacted MadCap Support. Their suggestion was to delete the Output, Analyzer, and User folders in Windows Explorer and then open the project and compile. (If not delete these folders, then copy them to another folder.) That has not worked.

Have any of you ever seen this before? Does anyone have any other ideas while I wait on another solution?

I'm totally stuck.

Hi there,

Starting with the basics, I assume that you have restarted your PC (it is amazing what a PC restart can fix).

Are there any other Flare users at your company? If yes, do they experience the same problem? This would indicate that it is something in the project that is causing the issue, rather than some form of localized corruption that is unique to your machine.

Does this occur for all Flare projects or just one project? If it occurs for all projects, I would create a new empty project to see if the problem still occurs.

Finally, if the problem occurs even in a brand new project, I would consider reinstalling Flare to see if that resolves the issue (assuming other Flare users are unaffected).

Paulie,

Thank you! I just created a brand new project from factory Flare templates and experienced the same problem. It must be Flare. I have a colleague who works in Flare about 5% of the time. I did just ask her to try to publish her project just to see what happens.

If I zip my current project in the current installation of Flare and then unzip it in the new installation of Flare, will I lose anything? (It's a huge project. )

Another basic tip is to check your .NET installation. Give that a go before you play about any more with your project, it may well fix it. Good luck!

Chocciemuffin,

Thank you! MadCap Support suggested the same thing. I did it; it did not work. I then uninstalled Flare and its registry keys. In fact, I uninstalled all Flare apps and registry keys and then reinstalled twice and the problem persists.

Windows is saying that Flare is incompatible with my OS, but I don't know why.

Jess77 wrote:Chocciemuffin,

Thank you! MadCap Support suggested the same thing. I did it; it did not work. I then uninstalled Flare and its registry keys. In fact, I uninstalled all Flare apps and registry keys and then reinstalled twice and the problem persists.

Windows is saying that Flare is incompatible with my OS, but I don't know why.

So what version is your OS, and what version of Flare are you running?

OS = Win 7 SP1
Flare = 11.2
.NET = 4.5.1 and Multipack

It does sound like something is wrong with the .NET install but have you tried removing the catapultMDIEditor folder yet?
Generally if you cannot start Flare at all, the cause could be in the window layouts. Removing this folder can fix this issue if the problem is in the window layouts.

Navigate to C:\Users\[Your User]\Appdata\Roaming\Madcapsoftware\Flare
Select and delete the CatapultMDIEditor folder


we have seen this error before and the fixes have been repairing .NET and deleting the CatapultMDIEditor folder.

Has a resolution been found for this? It's started happening to me today. In all my projects, and in Flare 12 and 11.

I've tried installing the latest version of the .NET Framework (4.6.2). I couldn't find a way to repair it in Windows. I downloaded the .NET Framework Repair Tool, but that made no difference.

I've also tried removing that folder, but it made no difference either.

I'm on Windows 10.

I've got to the bottom of this problem, in my case anyway.

My projects are in a Dropbox library. Someone changed the name of the library, and for some reason this had a strange effect on Flare build functionality.

When I manually navigate to the project rather than open the project from the Start Page, the path has the new library name, and the build functionality works.

That's really interesting Gareth.
I have had to uninstall and reinstall Flare a few times. Next time I'll check the names.

Just wanted to mention that I experienced this issue this week. I found that my targets were actually building and appeared to be building correctly (I didn't validate this in complete detail), but the progress bar was never starting, and every build of an existing or new project/target was failing in exactly the same way in about a minute.

The solution was to clear the registry with these steps:

1. Click on Start and then Run.
2. In the Run dialog, type in "regedit" and click the OK button.
3. In the Registry Editor, go to the HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/MadCap Software folder.
4. Find the Flare folder, select and press the Delete key.
5. Navigate to C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\MadCap Software Delete the Flare directory in this location.

Prior to trying this, I'd tried all the other solutions listed in this thread with the exception of uninstalling/reinstalling.

Hope this helps ... this one is painful.

Heather_White wrote:Just wanted to mention that I experienced this issue this week. I found that my targets were actually building and appeared to be building correctly (I didn't validate this in complete detail), but the progress bar was never starting, and every build of an existing or new project/target was failing in exactly the same way in about a minute.

The solution was to clear the registry with these steps:

1. Click on Start and then Run.
2. In the Run dialog, type in "regedit" and click the OK button.
3. In the Registry Editor, go to the HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/MadCap Software folder.
4. Find the Flare folder, select and press the Delete key.
5. Navigate to C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\MadCap Software Delete the Flare directory in this location.

Prior to trying this, I'd tried all the other solutions listed in this thread with the exception of uninstalling/reinstalling.

Hope this helps ... this one is painful.

I'd like to see another step, between step 2 and 3. It's always a good idea to backup the registry before manual edits. Just in case...

...and welcome to the forums!

I'm running Flare 2017 r3 on Windows 10. My build terminates immediately, nothing of interest in the build log. I've tried all of these solutions (which is also what Flare support suggested). None of them work. I haven't uninstalled and re-installed Flare yet.

I've also reverted back to Flare 12 and tried these solutions - nope.

Anyone have any other ideas?

Thanks,
Denise

dkopcha wrote:I'm running Flare 2017 r3 on Windows 10. My build terminates immediately, nothing of interest in the build log. I've tried all of these solutions (which is also what Flare support suggested). None of them work. I haven't uninstalled and re-installed Flare yet.

I've also reverted back to Flare 12 and tried these solutions - nope.

Anyone have any other ideas?

Thanks,
Denise

The same here.

dkopcha wrote:I'm running Flare 2017 r3 on Windows 10. My build terminates immediately, nothing of interest in the build log. I've tried all of these solutions (which is also what Flare support suggested). None of them work. I haven't uninstalled and re-installed Flare yet.

I've also reverted back to Flare 12 and tried these solutions - nope.

Anyone have any other ideas?

Thanks,
Denise

Hi, the same here. Help!

So yesterday I resolved this issue, maybe it will you.

When I tried to build my project, it immediately terminated. There were no warnings and no errors, it was like Flare didn't even recognize the project. I went to the path of my project output (C:\Users\<my user id>\Flare project\Output\...) and realized that my folder in the Users directory was hidden (faded folder). I right-clicked my users folder, went to Properties, and changed the folder to be visible. After that I was able to build my project successfully.

I don't know how the folder got hidden. This is a new laptop, so maybe something in the installation hid it, or maybe I hid it accidentally when I was trying to find the .NET Framework in Windows Explorer. But it's one more thing to check if your build is terminating immediately.

Thanks, Denise.
Problem solved, though its root cause remains a mystery.
1. I deleted the Flare, applied CCleaner to clean left-overs in the registry, and reinstalled the Flare. Needless to say, it did not help.
2. Created the Temp folder, made sure it is not hidden and writable, and redirected all output to it - to no avail.
3. Inspected" C:\Users\<my username>\AppData" directory (it is hidden, by default) and deleted all Madcap folders. Found them in the "Local" and "Roaming" subfolders
of the AppData. SUCCESS!
Note, that Build automatically created the MadCap\Flare subfolder in the AppData\Roaming directory.
I'm not sure what I lost by deleting these directories, hope, no damage was made. In such case, it would be nice if Flare "Install/Repair" function could check content of this folder.

I get build terminated when my target output is PDF and it only happens when I have Adobe Acrobat (Pro or Reader) open. Once I closed Adobe Acrobat, I have had no more issues with the build terminating. I don't know if this is true for other output types but it may solve someone else's issues with the build terminating.

For a few days now I run into a slight variation of this issue with 2018r1: The first few times after opening Flare, the PDF compilation works well but the second or third time it starts failing with exactly this issue ("terminated"). Cleaning the target does not help. I made sure that Adobe is not running. I can close Flare, remove the said folders, and reopen to repair this temporarily for another 2 or so successful compilations until the issue appears again, but this is unnerving since I often compile for testing.

So has anyone run into this situation before and can for sure confirm that one of the other actions suggested here helps? (I hesitate to test all of the registry and MDI catapult resolutions, since this will also reset my GUI and create work to set my desired windows constellation again, and I strongly assume that these measures won't help based on gut feeling with Flare...)

A variant of this problem has just started up for me: when I hit build the Status hangs on Started, then jumps straight to terminated. However, the document has actually been built - I can open it from the Output folder, just not from the Builds pane itself. No issues in the build log, so it's as someone else said: not a problem with the build process, just with how it is displayed. Annoying anyway.

I'm on Flare 2019 (b7081), Windows 10 and .NET 4.6.1 (I think).

So far I have tried:

• Running a .NET diagnosis tool, with no apparent result (a lot of these comments just say 'check your .NET installation but I'm not really sure what that means)
• Allowing my anti-virus to update. This may be causing the problem but I don't think I have a lot of control over its settings.
• Clearing the Registry and App Data. (I wish I had backed up my macros first!)
• Uninstalling and reinstalling Flare

There's a .NET update pending, so I'm going to let that run over the weekend and then submit a bug report if that doesn't fix the issue. Any more suggestions would be appreciated!

Weird update: the build pane just started working again, for no reason I can fathom. Literally between one test build and the next it started tracking build progress correctly. I didn't end up submitting a bug report, so I guess I'll never know!

ETA: It stopped working again the next morning! It was nice while it lasted.

Wouldn't you know, I came back into the office after 7 weeks of lockdown and the build pane started working again with no complaints. The earth is healing etc etc.

The same happens to me in Flare 2020 (also on Flare 2019 r2)
- No Build progress info is shown
- Status = Terminated, after building, No reason shown in Output build log

Notes:
- When building the madbuild.exe is running
- the documentation is still publish/updated on our internal docs (by state Terminated).