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Joseph Mullins
2-Mar-2022, 12:53 PM
Is there any way to rebuild the help index when this happens? Seems to happen occasionally and fix itself with a re-install.. or even by itself sometimes; but quite problematic when in the middle of working. Have experienced it the most with DF20.1 but also with DF20.0
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Dennis Piccioni
2-Mar-2022, 01:01 PM
If you installed on a local drive, this shouldn't normally happen. The first time you open the hep, it should create an index file (.chw) in the Help folder. If it 's downloaded from a network drive, you may need to unblock it (right-click on the DataFlex.chm file to do so).

Joseph Mullins
2-Mar-2022, 01:13 PM
Thanks Dennis, though definitely a local drive. I did just try to delete the .chw to see if it rebuilds it, but it did not.

Dennis Piccioni
2-Mar-2022, 01:17 PM
Did you try unblocking it?

Joseph Mullins
2-Mar-2022, 01:26 PM
Sorry, no, it's not blocked.

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Dennis Piccioni
2-Mar-2022, 02:27 PM
Does the folder have the correct rights so that it can recreate the CHW file?

Samuel Pizarro
2-Mar-2022, 03:12 PM
do you have other help from other df version opened before that ?

this happens to me all the time... it's something related to virtualizing the folder, and one each cache files conflicts each other.. just the 1st help opened works.

There is a trhead about this in the forum, but I was not able to find it.

Dennis Piccioni
2-Mar-2022, 03:14 PM
I've never seen this, but I stopped installing into Program Files years ago due to other virtualization issues.

Stephen W. Meeley
2-Mar-2022, 04:13 PM
Joseph,

If you don't see the help system recreate the .chw file automatically in the same folder as the help, it's likely because UAC is getting in the way (you probably installed under program files). Here is one way to try to fix it...



Search for dataflex.chw and delete any copies that are not in the same folders at the rest of the help (those will be virtualized copies)
Run the Studio as Administrator and launch the help from the Studio
See if the .chw is created in the help folder (note that you have to hit the index tab before it will create the .chw file)


The reason this may work is that when the help system tries to create the .chw file without administrator rights it gets virtualized. Since there is no way to run the help itself "as admin", you can take advantage of the standard windows behavior that any program launched from an elevated process is automatically elevated as well (this is why cut and paste never works right when you run the studio as admin).

Marco
4-Mar-2022, 09:02 PM
Joseph,

If you don't see the help system recreate the .chw file automatically in the same folder as the help, it's likely because UAC is getting in the way (you probably installed under program files). Here is one way to try to fix it...



Search for dataflex.chw and delete any copies that are not in the same folders at the rest of the help (those will be virtualized copies)
Run the Studio as Administrator and launch the help from the Studio
See if the .chw is created in the help folder (note that you have to hit the index tab before it will create the .chw file)


The reason this may work is that when the help system tries to create the .chw file without administrator rights it gets virtualized. Since there is no way to run the help itself "as admin", you can take advantage of the standard windows behavior that any program launched from an elevated process is automatically elevated as well (this is why cut and paste never works right when you run the studio as admin).

So this post made me attempt once more to finally fix this annoyance.
So found and deleted C:\Users\marco\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\HTML Help\DataFlex.chw
Left all the DataFlex.chw in the .\help directories of the DataFlex programs folders

Attempt 1

Started 20.0 as admin and went to help / index, seems to not reindex anything
Started 19.1 as admin and went to help / index, seems to not reindex anything
Closed 20.0 and 19.1
Started 19.1 as normal user; Dataflex.chw is re-created in the 'virtualised' location...


Attempt 2

Deleted C:\Users\marco\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\HTML Help\DataFlex.chw
Added everyone full control to C:\Program Files (x86)\DataFlex 19.1\Help\DataFlex.chw
Added everyone full control to C:\Program Files\DataFlex 20.0\Help\DataFlex.chw
Started 19.1 as normal user -> Dataflex.chw is re-created in the 'virtualised' location...


Attempt 3


Deleted C:\Users\marco\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\HTML Help\DataFlex.chw
Deleted C:\Program Files (x86)\DataFlex 19.1\Help\DataFlex.chw
Deleted C:\Program Files\DataFlex 20.0\Help\DataFlex.chw
Started 19.1 as admin and went to help / index; created in 19.1\Help\DataFlex.chw
Closed 19.1 as admin
Started 20.0 as admin and went to help / index; created in 20.0\Help\DataFlex.chw
Closed 20.0 as admin
Started 19.1 as marco and went to help / index; created in Roaming (virtualised)
Started 20.0 as marco and went to help / index; no index


So basically the suggested steps do not work.
Also some other attempts do not work.

Looking forward to an actual working solution, so the help works on two concurrent studio version while logged in as normal user.

Should the help perhaps by the installer not be installed in Program files? But some shared user directory instead?