Project File Not Located in Archive

[mpierce]

When I try to open my project file, I get an error message indicating that the file cannot be opened, the project file is not located in the archive. This is the first time this has happened to me in H&M 5, but it also happened to me in H&M 4. Is there some way to recover this file? Why does this keep happening?

[Tim Green]

This message normally means that your project file is damaged or corrupted. This is quite rare, and when it does happen it is usually the result of network errors while saving on a network drive or a drive error when saving on an unreliable drive, for example a USB thumb drive. If you're getting this regularly you need to investigate the drive you're saving on, because it means that it's unreliable for some reason. Either it's a network drive with a bad network connection or there is some other problem. Another problem that sometimes occurs is saving across the boundary of a virtual machine -- for example saving on a drive on the host computer from inside a virtual machine running on the host computer, or vice-versa. This seems to cause problems quite often.

You can check to see if there is anything inside the damaged file that you can save by changing its extension from .hmxz to .zip (it is actually a normal zip archive). You can then try to unpack it with a normal zip program or a zip repair tool.

If this isn't possible you'll have to return to your most recent backup. If you have turned automatic backups on you will find the backup in your project folder, it will have two ~~ characters in the extension -- to make it readable just remove those characters. Failing that, you can generally recover your text by importing your last compiled output, if that is all you have available.

[Fabio Ferreira]

Hi,
I have the same problem. In local drive (C:\CONTAS\WCONTAS.CHM) the help is ok. When called um network drive (T:\CONTASWCONTAS) the same help dont work and appera the message attached.

Thanks,

MessageHelp.JPG

[Tim Green]

Hi Fabio,

This is not the same problem, there is nothing wrong with your CHM file. You are just trying to open it from a network drive, which Microsoft no longer allows for security reasons. This problem has nothing to do with Help & Manual itself, it is caused by a Microsoft security update introduced with Service Pack 2 of Windows XP that prevents HTML Help files from being opened on network drives or the Internet. If you compile and open your HTML Help file on your local computer it will run normally. This now happens when any HTML Help .CHM help file is installed on a network drive -- not just .CHM files generated by H&M. EC Software has now released a free tool called HHReg with which you can register your CHM files as "trusted" to make them work correctly on local networks only:

http://www.ec-software.com/products_hhreg.html

Note that registration must be performed on every user computer that needs to access the CHM file across a network, so if your application installation involves network installation you need to include HHReg in your installation process (it supports command line and silent operation for this). Even if you are only installing your software on the server you still need full administrator access to every computer from which the CHM help files will be viewed because the Registry changes must be made on every computer.

Also, although you can use this to make CHMs open on the Internet by enabling the Internet Zone we do not recommend this as it creates a potential security hazard on the computer by disabling the Microsoft security mechanisms for all CHM files, which have been introduced for a very good reason. This change too must be made on all computers that are to view the help and it can only be done on an ON/OFF basis for *all* CHM files, which means that the customers' computers are vulnerable to virus and malware attacks in malicious CHM files on the Internet, which is definitely not what you want.

For more background details of the reasons for this problem and manual methods for fixing the problem see this topic on the H&M user forum:

http://helpman.it-authoring.com/viewtopic.php?t=2870

Actually, however, Webhelp is now better suited for running across networks than HTML Help -- particularly the Webhelp generated by H&M5, which is compatible with all browsers on all platforms, including Mac, Linux and Unix browsers, older browsers and security-restricted browsers.

By the same token, HTML Help is better suited for running on local computers, because another Microsoft security patch forces the user to click away an alarming warning message about "potentially dangerous content" as soon as you use Internet Explorer to open any HTML pages containing scripts on a local computer (a single empty <script> tag is enough to trigger this). There are other ways to solve this problem but the simplest solution is to either use HTML Help for local help or not to use Internet Explorer (H&M's Webhelp runs fine in Firefox, Opera or Mozilla on local computers, and it also runs fine across networks with Internet Explorer).

Since H&M makes it very easy to compile help in both formats (it's just a question of selecting a different output format when you compile) it's no problem to produce different version for each scenario: HTML Help for help that must be installed on local computers and Webhelp for help on networks.

[Fabio Ferreira]

Ok. Thats true.

I downloaded the HHREG and registered my .chm. Now it working corretly but the topics referenced of external help file dont appear.
My helpfile is WCONTAS.CHM but have many topics externals for other help file DIXIHELP.HMXZ. This dont appears.

Thanks a lot,

Fabio

[Tim Green]

Hi Fabio,

That is normal. Even with registration CHM files are bad news on networks, many things don't work. Use WebHelp instead.

[Fabio Ferreira]

I try to use webhelp but every topics with reference to external help file dont appear.
Why to resolve this ?

Thanks,

Fabio

[Tim Green]

I try to use webhelp but every topics with reference to external help file dont appear.
Why to resolve this?

If your topics are references to topics in CHM files and you are using WebHelp on the Web where CHM files cannot be used then you will not see anything, of course. Instead of doing this you need to access the content in a different way that is compatible with WebHelp/HTML. You can put the other projects online as WebHelp as well and link to them with normal Internet links, for example. Alternatively, you can insert the topics from the other projects as snippets, then they will become part of your project when you publish. See here for instructions on using snippets.