Publishing eWriter windows book never publishes

Please post all questions and comments regarding Help & Manual 7 here.

Moderators: Alexander Halser, Tim Green

Post Reply
Mary van Kemenade
Posts: 22
Joined: Mon Feb 16, 2009 10:36 am
Location: Sydney Australia

Publishing eWriter windows book never publishes

Unread post by Mary van Kemenade »

How long should it take to publish in the new format? I have windows 8.1 fairly new laptop, enough memory etc. but I keep trying to publish so I can see what it looks like and so far I have waited for 45 minutes, then 1 hour, now I left it and 3 hours later it does not fail but it stays sitting on Writing Topics, Indexing Pages, Please wait. I tried only a small section still does not work. I tried another manual still same behaviour. Do you have any ideas?
User avatar
Tim Green
Site Admin
Posts: 23157
Joined: Mon Jun 24, 2002 9:11 am
Location: Bruehl, Germany
Contact:

Re: Publishing eWriter windows book never publishes

Unread post by Tim Green »

Hi Mary,

This isn't normal. There must be something in your project or the output location you have chosen holding it up. Make sure that you have not chosen a network drive for your output. That might cause problems in some situations. At least for testing, choose a folder in your own local Documents directory. You can be sure that your Windows account has all the necessary permissions there.

Also make sure that you are using the current version of Help & Manual 7, which is 7.0 Build 3608 -- there have been a number of fixes since the release. You can check the version with Help > About and download the latest installer here: http://www.helpandmanual.com/downloads.html

Also try using a different skin to publish.

If you continue to have problems please mail me a demo project illustrating the issue at support AT ec-software.com (replace the AT with @) and we will check it for you.
Regards,
Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

Private support:
Please do not email or PM me with private support requests -- post to the forum directly.
Mary van Kemenade
Posts: 22
Joined: Mon Feb 16, 2009 10:36 am
Location: Sydney Australia

Re: Publishing eWriter windows book never publishes

Unread post by Mary van Kemenade »

Hi thanks, I definitely am not using a network drive, I am administrator on my PC, have the latest version just downloaded today and have no skin set (is it required to have one?) I really just wanted to see how it looks since I have always used CHM. I will reboot and try again and maybe try another location even though not a network drive. If I still cannot get it working I will send a sample. thanks for the quick reply.
User avatar
Tim Green
Site Admin
Posts: 23157
Joined: Mon Jun 24, 2002 9:11 am
Location: Bruehl, Germany
Contact:

Re: Publishing eWriter windows book never publishes

Unread post by Tim Green »

Hi Mary,

You don't absolutely have to use a skin, but you definitely should -- particularly if your project is an older one that will still have old HTML templates in it.
Regards,
Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

Private support:
Please do not email or PM me with private support requests -- post to the forum directly.
User avatar
itexnz
Posts: 137
Joined: Tue Jan 06, 2009 10:09 pm
Location: Wellington, New Zealand
Contact:

Re: Publishing eWriter windows book never publishes

Unread post by itexnz »

I'm seeing something odd too, publishing to HTM format with overwritten custom variables seems to be an issue in 7 - the Creating Webhelp progress window gets stuck at the "Indexing pages... please wait." prompt. It never completes - same when building that publishing task via batch.

Other outputs, PDF, epub, and other HTM outputs without variable overrides works fine
David Scott
Documentation Infrastructure Consultant
https://www.sourceone.co.nz
SourceOne. Documentation, engineered.
User avatar
itexnz
Posts: 137
Joined: Tue Jan 06, 2009 10:09 pm
Location: Wellington, New Zealand
Contact:

Re: Publishing eWriter windows book never publishes

Unread post by itexnz »

Mary van Kemenade wrote:How long should it take to publish in the new format? I have windows 8.1 fairly new laptop, enough memory etc. but I keep trying to publish so I can see what it looks like and so far I have waited for 45 minutes, then 1 hour, now I left it and 3 hours later it does not fail but it stays sitting on Writing Topics, Indexing Pages, Please wait. I tried only a small section still does not work. I tried another manual still same behaviour. Do you have any ideas?
Does your publishing task have variable overrides Mary?
David Scott
Documentation Infrastructure Consultant
https://www.sourceone.co.nz
SourceOne. Documentation, engineered.
Mary van Kemenade
Posts: 22
Joined: Mon Feb 16, 2009 10:36 am
Location: Sydney Australia

Re: Publishing eWriter windows book never publishes

Unread post by Mary van Kemenade »

No I do not think so (since I do not know what those are ;-) I am trying section by groups of sections now I think the problem could be I have too many topics. I had this problem with publishing to PDF in the past but have not had time to try to move all content around. I still cannot select entire TOC and get it published though so still trouble shooting.
User avatar
itexnz
Posts: 137
Joined: Tue Jan 06, 2009 10:09 pm
Location: Wellington, New Zealand
Contact:

Re: Publishing eWriter windows book never publishes

Unread post by itexnz »

Mary van Kemenade wrote:No I do not think so (since I do not know what those are ;-) I am trying section by groups of sections now I think the problem could be I have too many topics. I had this problem with publishing to PDF in the past but have not had time to try to move all content around. I still cannot select entire TOC and get it published though so still trouble shooting.
My project has many hundreds of topics - and publishes fine to HTM (and gets past the indexing prompt) if my task has no overrides set in the task properties - the same project gets stuck on the indexing prompt if there are any set. So there's something going on there which I suspect is related to your problem

these guys are awesome though so they'll have a solution for us in no time I bet. :)

EDIT: Actually I've just seen that I have another similar HTM project with 330+ topics with override variables that DOES publish ok, the problematic one has over 870 topic files and fails - but only on the task that has override variables. Odd
David Scott
Documentation Infrastructure Consultant
https://www.sourceone.co.nz
SourceOne. Documentation, engineered.
User avatar
Tim Green
Site Admin
Posts: 23157
Joined: Mon Jun 24, 2002 9:11 am
Location: Bruehl, Germany
Contact:

Re: Publishing eWriter windows book never publishes

Unread post by Tim Green »

Please mail a demo project illustrating the problem to support AT ec-software.com (replace the AT with @) and we will check it out right away. Please include the skin you are using if you are using a skin. And PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE include a description of the problem and steps to reproduce in the mail. We waste a LOT of time trying to locate things when people just write "as discussed in the forum" without any further references... 8)
Regards,
Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

Private support:
Please do not email or PM me with private support requests -- post to the forum directly.
User avatar
itexnz
Posts: 137
Joined: Tue Jan 06, 2009 10:09 pm
Location: Wellington, New Zealand
Contact:

Re: Publishing eWriter windows book never publishes

Unread post by itexnz »

Hi I'm trying to package up a demo that replicates the problem - creating a hmxz compressed file does not replicate the problem (I suspect because all of the images and snippets are not included)

Working on other ways to replicate without attempting to send 100MB of files
David Scott
Documentation Infrastructure Consultant
https://www.sourceone.co.nz
SourceOne. Documentation, engineered.
User avatar
itexnz
Posts: 137
Joined: Tue Jan 06, 2009 10:09 pm
Location: Wellington, New Zealand
Contact:

Re: Publishing eWriter windows book never publishes

Unread post by itexnz »

Mary van Kemenade wrote:No I do not think so (since I do not know what those are ;-) I am trying section by groups of sections now I think the problem could be I have too many topics. I had this problem with publishing to PDF in the past but have not had time to try to move all content around. I still cannot select entire TOC and get it published though so still trouble shooting.

Mary, I've just had some success publishing my troublesome project by deleting any previously published output files (in my case the htm files) and publishing again then gets past the indexing phase. Try doing something similar. I'm still doing some tests to try to replicate my issue for certain (or make sure it has gone away for good)
David Scott
Documentation Infrastructure Consultant
https://www.sourceone.co.nz
SourceOne. Documentation, engineered.
User avatar
Tim Green
Site Admin
Posts: 23157
Joined: Mon Jun 24, 2002 9:11 am
Location: Bruehl, Germany
Contact:

Re: Publishing eWriter windows book never publishes

Unread post by Tim Green »

Hi Mary,

We've discovered some issues in your project related to EWriter output and are looking into it. I'll get back to you when we have more information.
Regards,
Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

Private support:
Please do not email or PM me with private support requests -- post to the forum directly.
User avatar
Alexander Halser
EC-Software Support
Posts: 4098
Joined: Mon Jun 24, 2002 7:24 pm
Location: Salzburg, Austria
Contact:

Re: Publishing eWriter windows book never publishes

Unread post by Alexander Halser »

The problem has been fixed with build 3626. Registered users of Help+Manual 7 can download the update here:
http://www.helpandmanual.com/downloads.html?upd
Alexander Halser
Senior Software Architect, EC Software GmbH
Post Reply