CS6: Adobe Help Manager - PDF download/extraction error

Question

Hi - we have received several reports through this forum that some users are encountering an issue when downloading Help reference PDFs through the Adobe Help Manager in CS6. 
Problem: Although the application appears to be downloading the Help content, the application hangs during the 'extraction' phase of the process. Further, when users check in their shared documents folder, the PDF files are actually present and unzipped as expected.
Solution:  the application database files and/or corrupt configuration files are likely at fault. To resolve the issue, please delete the following two directories.
Delete the following directory:
Windows: %appdata%/chc.4875E02D9FB21EE389F73B8D1702B320485DF8CE.1 
Tip:  To find this directory in Windows, copy the preceding phrase into the Windows Explorer file manager.
Mac OS: /[user name]/Library/Preferences/chc.4875E02D9FB21EE389F73B8D1702B320485DF8CE.1
           Tip:   To find this directory on Mac OSX 10.7, open the Terminal application and enter the following: "chflags nohidden ~/Library/” and execute.
And delete this directory too:
Windows : C:\Users\Public\Documents\Adobe\ (Help and PDF directories within)
Mac : \Users\Shared\Documents\Adobe (Help and PDF directories within)
Then simply restart the Help Manager and restart the download process.
The engineering team is continuing to investigate the root cause but the steps above should resovle the issue for the majority of users.  Thanks for your patience while we continue to investigate.

Answer 1

Hi Mark
I was almost sure that this issue was related to our proxy, so I decided to trace the dialog between HelpManager and our proxy.
I used a HTTP sniffer called Charles  ( demo downloadable here:  http://www.charlesproxy.com/ ) to trace everything.
Bingo !
HelpManager has some problems talking with the proxy ( authentication issues ).
If you are interessed, I can mail you the log created by my sniffer to allow your engineering team to investigate.
Hereafter are some screen shots of the trace :
As you can see, it's very short :
1) the first HEAD failed (normal) : the proxy request an NTLM authentication
HEAD #1 request :
HEAD #2 answer :
2) the 2nd HEAD failed :
HelpManager did not respected the NTLM authentication method requested by our proxy !
HEAD #2 request :
HEAD #2 answer : error 403 !
3) then a POST is made :
Failed because the authentication is bad  (not NTLM, as expected by our proxy)
POST request :
POST answer : error 403
4) then a GET is made on the URL :
http://www.adobe.com/support/chc/update/400/fr_FR/update.xml
This time, the authentication negotiation between HelpManager and the proxy is OK, but the last GET failed : error 404, the requested xml file is not found on your site !
GET #3 request :
GET #3 answer : error 404
Mark, I hope these informations will help your engineering team to correct this issue !
Feel free to request complementary information if needed.
Best regards,
Didier Nicolas