Problem on saving -- now cannot open project

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John Johann
Posts: 305
Joined: Mon Aug 21, 2017 7:35 pm

Problem on saving -- now cannot open project

Unread post by John Johann »

HnM 8.4.1 Build 5881, project in git
I was editing a project this morning with some 1900 (small) topics. I added some new topics, renamed the files in the Project Explorer, and tried to save the changes.
I received an Access Violation and the option to restart HnM.
Now when I try to open the project, I get "Cannot load -- Please ensure that you have sufficient rights to open the project".
If I open the hmxp in a text editor, the beginning is full of NUL up to here: onfig-value name="STR_CAT_SUMMARY".

Any ideas what has happened?
I edited the same project last week and had no problems.
Is it ok to copy the first part of the file from git and replace the NUL?
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Tim Green
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Re: Problem on saving -- now cannot open project

Unread post by Tim Green »

Is it ok to copy the first part of the file from git and replace the NUL?
Yes, this is definitely what you should do. What happened here was a very unusual error during saving, that corrupted the main .hmxp file. The STR_CAT_SUMMARY is just the definition of one of the interface texts for WebHelp search. It is quite far down in the file, so there is a lot missing.

It is hard to say what caused this, but the most likely culprit is a Windows or network error during saving (if your project is on a network drive). This is particularly likely if you are trying to work across a WAN connection, for example a VPN or WebDAV drive on a remote computer.

Did you get the option to send a bug report when the Access Violation dialog came up? This provides key information that could allow our developers to analyze what the cause of the problem was.
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Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

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John Johann
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Joined: Mon Aug 21, 2017 7:35 pm

Re: Problem on saving -- now cannot open project

Unread post by John Johann »

Hi Tim,
The projects are all on a local drive.
I've got a similar problem in another project which did not raise an error on saving but corrupted the hxmp file.
I don't have the error message any more. Does it get cached anywhere?
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Tim Green
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Re: Problem on saving -- now cannot open project

Unread post by Tim Green »

John Johann wrote: Wed Oct 12, 2022 10:48 am I've got a similar problem in another project which did not raise an error on saving but corrupted the hxmp file.
I don't have the error message any more.
This is very unusual, actually unique. Are you running the latest version of Help+Manual? If you're not saving on a network HM is absolutely reliable on saving your projects, with multiple checks performed before it actually lets go of and closes a project after saving.
Does it get cached anywhere?
HM maintains a shadow copy of all your unsaved changes while you are working and if the save fails it will offer to save the unsaved files in a separate copy. If you don't do that, they are deleted, however.

If you are experiencing uniquer problems like this I would recommend a solution like AJC Active Backup, at the very least until you find the cause (and you'll definitely want to go on using it afterwards). You configure AJC to monitor all your work and save it in compressed archives in any location you like (for example on an external drive or NAS). The archives are very compact, only saving the differences between each iteration, and allow you to recover any version of any file you have ever saved. Even with version control it has saved me huge amounts of work many times -- for example when I selected a lot of files in Tortoise and accidentally clicked "Delete" instead of "Add". ACJ is produced by a customer of ours, Andrew Cutforth, and we don't have any financial relationship with him. He just produces truly excellent software. 8)
Regards,
Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

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John Johann
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Joined: Mon Aug 21, 2017 7:35 pm

Re: Problem on saving -- now cannot open project

Unread post by John Johann »

Hi Tim,
HnM 8.4.1 Build 5881, project in git.
The project has only recently been changed to git and I did not have this sort of problem before.
Hopefully something was just having a bad day and has got over it now :-).
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