Disappearing text from topics

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JXBURNS
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Disappearing text from topics

Unread post by JXBURNS »

Strange one this. Project working fine. Then made change to the HTML Export format (as per the "get rid of white space around topic header" thread). Recompiled and looked OK. [Sure this had nothing to do with it].

At end of each topic (50+ topics) there was a "IF CHM" conditional variable inserted to only display "Related Topics" on CHM files, a few lines of related topic links, an "ENDIF" and a couple of manual page breaks for the PDF output.

ALL of the lines starting from and including "IF CHM" to end of the topic had disappeared on EVERY topic including the page breaks. I recompiled into CHM and sure enough, there were none of the related topic items appearing.

Ran Tools & Repair and made no difference. Restarted H&M3 and nothing. The lines had just disappeared and I can't find them!!

ANY IDEAS?

Ta = John
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Tim Green
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Unread post by Tim Green »

John,

Sorry, have to pass on this one. I've never heard of anything like it, it sounds totally bizarre. Are there any other circumstances that might have something to do with it? The only thing I can think of offhand are the "Builds which include this topic" options, but I can't really see any way they could cause the effects you describe.

Can you duplicate the behavior again? (Make a backup first...) What happens if you create some more IF/ENDIF blocks in the same project with just plain text between them? Do they disappear too? If not, try putting identical Related Topics code between them and see if they disappear -- the idea is to figure out where the source of the behaviour is. Otherwise I can't really think of anything at the moment. It clearly has something to do with the HTML code blocks, and it's too systematic to be a hardware error like a broken memory chip or something like that. :shock:
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Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

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JXBURNS
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Unread post by JXBURNS »

Tim,

Bizarre is not the word. This project has been fine for last few days as I built it. I could understand perhaps disappearing from one topic but not them all. Also what I missed was the horizontal line inserted before the <IF CHM> also disappeared.

My only other thought is that (perhaps) at the same time XP reported low on disk space (that is less than 200MB left on the drive) but it does that all the time as it creates/deletes temp file. Once minute there's 100MB - next 1GB. Never had a problem until it says "no disk space" :cry:

The BUILDS option is left alone and set to ALL. I even did a HEX examine of the H&M file and could not even see the related topic objects listed there anymore.

I have since added them all back in again and of course cannot replicate. Never had this happen at all with any of my projects...

I'm going to have to pass on this one as well. :twisted:

Rgds John
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Tim Green
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Unread post by Tim Green »

John,

Even if it doesn't have anything to do with this particular problem, make space on your system drive and/or get a bigger drive. It will blow up in your face eventually, generally when you least need it. Transferring to a new hard drive just takes a few minutes now that there are products like PowerQuest Drive Image and Acronis TrueImage. :P
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Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

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JXBURNS
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Unread post by JXBURNS »

Tim,

The "low disk space problem" is a misnomer with XP and I have had it ever since I first installed XP during it's beta days. Unless it says "you are very low" there is really nothing to worry about as it does not stay low for very long as XP does it's housekeeping. The particular drive (of many) is a 250GB drive partitioned. XP will report on anything less than 200MB on a drive as "low". It's a pain but is not affecting H&M3 directly as not installed on that drive - it's only the temporary files it is worrying about. It went down to 189MB earlier but, without touching or removing anything, is now up to 1.3GB.

I could go in the registry and set the NoLowDiskSpaceChecks to 1 but it's nice to be warned JIC. But I don't really think this had anything to do with this specific problem - that one is really strange and probably will not see it happen again.

Rgds John
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Tim Green
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Unread post by Tim Green »

John,

Agreed, but on a modern drive with many applications that page out massively without telling you (and often don't expect to ever run up against disk space constraints) I would still tend to feel that under 200mb is actually getting pretty low. Although it does depend on the type of programs you are running, of course.
that one is really strange and probably will not see it happen again.
Please let us know if it does. There are all sorts of possible reasons for (or perhaps better, associated with) strange computer gremlins like that -- including the summer heat, humidity, dryness, static electricity, unreliable power supplies, poor memory chips and in extreme cases even just the presence of specific individuals at or close to the computer. This last one is truly odd, and is similar to the phenomenon of those individuals who used to reliably stop mechanical watches simply by wearing them. (Not saying this applies to you, but it's just an inexplicable oddness that I've experienced with a couple of users myself.) You just need to get one bit flipping in a memory or controller chip at the wrong moment to produce all sorts of seemingly inexplicable phenomena. Odd problems that are solved by rebooting the computer are also often a "stuck bit" somewhere.

I've built (almost) all my machines myself ever since I started using computers -- my first was the Sinclair ZX81, preceded by the Sinclair calculator kit -- and particularly since the advent of faster hardware I've come to understand the extreme importance of high-quality memory chips and power supplies. All my hardware problems have stopped since I standardized on top-grade components, particiularly power supply units and memory.
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Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

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JXBURNS
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Unread post by JXBURNS »

Yes, I agree Tim. I think "summer heat, humidity, dryness, static electricity, unreliable power supplies, poor memory chips and in extreme cases even just the presence of specific individuals at or close to the computer." describes me to a T rather than the computer itself!! I am trying to convince myself to purchase some new computers although my trusted PII still works fine wrt program development. I'm one of those who will keep a machine until the voltage regulators blow (in the computer or me). I still have my old Sharp Z80 series computers up in the attic driving my son's train set some 25 years since I first bought them..

I may be able to beat you in the computer stakes - my 1st computer was an Altai 8800 bought I think in 75/76. Oh joy - assembly & assembler programming - but how much money was spent on something which is given away free at Burger King these days! I'm sure I would have paid the mortgage off by now if I had not wasted my youth and cash on such frivolities!

Rgds John
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Unread post by John Smith »

Dissapearing Text - Actually I have experienced this problem several times now, but so few people experience it, it happens so rarely, and can not be reproduced.

I did start a thread on it but it was quite a while ago, and have only ever seen one other person experience the problem, other than yourself.

1) it seems that only people using XP experience the problem.

2) it seems to happen after H&M has been open for some time, and you have been in and out of it, or it is open, but not used for some time (sitting there minimised).

3) the first indication you will get is that the Save button, which greys out after saving will suddenly not come back after changing some text. It will remain greyed out, and if you move to another topic, and then go back the text will be gone.

The only solution is to close H&M and reopen, and the problem is gone, but so is your text.

I now save my project regularly, and keep my eye on the save button, and have managed to save myself quite a bit of extra effort, twice now. If I start typing and the save button remains greyed out, then I immediately close H&M.

Thats all I can tell you about it. I have tried to reproduce it by leaving H&M open, opening other programs, etc, etc, but to no avail.


See - http://helpman.it-authoring.com/viewtopic.php?t=441
you will notice that the save button was working, but a greyed out saved button still seems the best way to pick it up.

Regards
John
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Tim Green
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Unread post by Tim Green »

John,

Thanks for the reminder on this. This smells like an XP-related problem that only crops up under certain special circumstances. Since both you and John have now experienced it, it might be helpful to find similarities in your hardware configurations. Since lots of people are now using XP there must be some other triggering factor; the difficulty is finding out what it is.

Of course, it may also not be the hardware configuration. It could just as well be a combination of other situations, programs...urgh... :roll:
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Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

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John Smith
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Unread post by John Smith »

Yes well - -

I am using XP proffessional - all updates have been installed - apart from that someone would have to point me in the right direction to get further information.

on your point of - maybe programs. I can't say this is exactly right, but at one time I got the feeling that it was something to do with running Delphi. We are currently running Delphi 6. Would be interesting to know if John also runs delphi. Anyway it was only a feeling that it was Dephi, and try as I could, I could not replicate it. I may have been influenced by the fact that I think H&M is built with Delphi. It may be a combination of XP and Delphi
JXBURNS
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Unread post by JXBURNS »

I too run XP Pro with all updates applied. I do not though use Delphi but do use VB6 - at the time I did not have the developer running but was creating the manual for a VB6 application.

I have not experienced the Save button staying inactive and always click the save whenever I finish typing a bit of text.

As I mentioned earlier, the only thing that I had done was slightly alter the HTML output format to remove the white spaces around the topic. I can't see why that should have caused anything and sure it was just a coincidence. What was really strange was the fact it deleted from the last horizontal line to the end of the topic on every topic. Maybe that is the clue as if the horizontal line created some sort of trigger to say "let's delete". I'm at a loss and can only put down to one of those weird things.

Rgds John
John Smith
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Unread post by John Smith »

It seems that your problem is different than mine. My problem only concerns new text, not text on every topic.

Its as if part of H&M has crashed, I can type in new text, but it does not get accepted. I can compile, but do not get the new text.

Anyway will keep a look out for it - has not happened again for approx 2 months.

Regards
John
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Alexander Halser
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Unread post by Alexander Halser »

ALL of the lines starting from and including "IF CHM" to end of the topic had disappeared on EVERY topic including the page breaks. I recompiled into CHM and sure enough, there were none of the related topic items appearing.
What are the include options that you use to export the CHM? The IF... statements refer to the include options rather than to the output format. So, if "HTML Help" is disabled (because print manual is enabled) in the include options of the export dialog when you create HTML Help, this would skip the conditional text.
Alexander Halser
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JXBURNS
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Unread post by JXBURNS »

Alexander,

We have been discussing text disappearing from the bottom of each topic WITHIN H&M3, not on the output (where also obviously missing).

The IF CHM/ENDIF (was) is on end of every topic and the INCLUDE options is set to "ALL BUILDS" on every topic. I only ever build PDF & CHM files.

Rgds John
John Smith
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Unread post by John Smith »

:D

Bit of a coincidence but today, it happened to me again, and I found the cause of the disappearing text, or should I say that H&M no longer recognises any further text you type.

Sorry John - does not solve your disappearing problem.

Here is how to reproduce it (not sure if having XP pro makes any difference)

a) In a topic, create a table (mine was 3 rows two columns 2*2, padding of 5). Also leave some lines above or below for typing of text.

b) click on Save button

c) type a little bit of text in the first cell (not sure this makes any difference)

d) select the last row, by placing the mouse to the left, and wait for arrow to appear, then click. Row should then be selected.

e) Go to toolbar Menu - Table/Delete/Row. click on ok for dialog

f) click on Save button. After it should be greyed out.

g) Now click anywhere outside table and type some text. You will notice that the saved button will remain greyed out, and if you leave the topic and then come back your text will be gone.

Regards
John
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