Adobe RoboHelp 9 has stopped working

Question

RH9 | WebHelp
I've copied an existing project and applied a new stylesheet. This has involved multiple "find and replace" actions in order to change old styles to my new styles. All was going well - everything looked fine and the project compiled without a problem. However, after further changes the compile has stopped working. As I start compiling the following message appears as the process starts updating files "Adobe RoboHelp 9 has stopped working. A problem caused the program to stop working correctly. Windows will close the program and notify you if a solution is available."
I've tried deleting the CPD file, but it doesn't make any difference. I've also tried removing the last topics I've worked on, but again it's just the same.
Does anyone have any ideas? I've spent over a day re-styling the project and don't want to lose what I've done.
Thanks

Answer 1

Find and replace for style names done correctly should not cause this. If you searched for something like <p class="me"> and replaced it with <p class="you"> and that class was not quite what was in the CSS, RoboHelp would display your topics with the style name showing in block capitals rather than crash.
My first thought was that something else had been changed unintentionally and was causing this. Then I noted you said it had compiled the first time after you had made the changes. At the moment I am a bit stumped on what it could be.
The first thing I would try is to generate some other form of help, try Microsoft HTML Help (CHM). If that too fails, then you might have to go for working on a backup as below. However, if it works, I would then create a new webhelp layout by right clicking in the SSL and selecting Create New, not the Duplicate option. If that fails then you may have to work on a backup of the project before you did the find and replace, you did make one didn't you?
Ttake a fresh copy of the backup so that you retain an untouched copy. Then copy your new CSS from the broken project into a working copy of the backup using Windows Explorer. Manually apply a few of the styles to a few topics and then test compiling. If that works, then do the find and replace work again testing after each style has been changed. After each successful pass, create a backup in case it goes wrong at the next stage. Before you start any find and replace, post back what you are using for that.
Good luck and post back how you get on.
See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips
@petergrainge