Documentation Script errors invoking help

[Steve Pitts]

Folks,

I'm not sure if this has just started happening after installing v18, since I can't remember the last time I invoked help from the previous v17 installation, but I get the following error dialog whenever I start help from Take Command:

and the help display is a mess, lacking most formatting, won't scroll, etc. Any ideas??

TCC 18.00.31 x64 Windows 7 [Version 6.1.7601]
TCC Build 31 Windows 7 Build 7601 Service Pack 1

 

[Alpengreis]

Could be related to Internet Options (IE) ...

 

[Steve Pitts]

Could be related to Internet Options (IE) ...

Interesting. I don't use IE as a rule and suspect that therefore the IE Internet Options are 'out of the box', albeit that this is a six year old box running Windows 7 and no doubt MS have pushed updates to their browser during that span. Any ideas on which options might be affecting this??

 

[Alpengreis]

Just wrote because Internet Options (IE) are involved somehow (probably).

Now, after I "analyzed" the error msg a bit, I have googled for "@MSITstore script" - and found the following interesting page ...

http://www.grainge.org/pages/snippets/snippets.htm#chms

Look under point "6" - this could be really interesting for your problem.

Good luck!

Greetings from Switzerland!

 

[Charles Dye]

You might check whether the help file has any odd streams attached to it:

dir /: "%_cmdspec\..\tcmd.chm"

If you spot any weird streams, delete 'em. You may have to restart Take Command, HH, Internet Explorer, or reboot Windows afterwards.

 

[Steve Pitts]

this could be really interesting for your problem

Thanks for the tip but that all relates to not being able to find the mk:@MSITStore item, whereas my issue seems to be that the item has been found but a script run by it is failing.

check whether the help file has any odd streams attached to it

No streams attached to that file, odd or otherwise.

One further data point is that if, having received the error dialog and clicked on Yes (or No), I click on the Refresh button then the page displays correctly. Any attempt to navigate to another page results in a fresh error dialog for nsrInit but I can at least get the help pages to display in a readable form now.


BTW I've had a great deal of frustration posting this as something keeps taking focus from the edit box for the reply to higher in the page (probably the same logic that is putting the orange arrows on the bottom RH corner of the page). Most aggravating.

 

[Charles Dye]

No streams attached to that file, odd or otherwise.

Well, I'm disappointed. It was a nice, elegant theory.

I suppose you could reset Internet Explorer. (INETCPL.CPL, Advanced tab, Reset....) Kind of a blunt instrument, though, and if it does fix the issue, you still won't know what caused the problem.

 

[samintz]

Since you said you don't use IE, I'd go with Charles' suggestion and reset IE.

 

[Steve Pitts]

Sadly resetting IE - whether that be via the Advanced Tab > Reset, via Security > Reset all zones to default level, or by deleting the browser history - does not have the desired effect. I also tried logging in as my PC admin account, which has never been used to access the web, whether that be using IE or any other browser, and it exhibits the same symptoms. With my paranoid hat on I've also run Malwarebytes Anti-Malware and Hitman Pro but neither found anything particularly untoward (a handful of toolbar related registry settings, although I have no active toolbar and no add-ons, and a bucket load of tracking cookies).

I've also discovered that whilst Refresh fixes the page layout if I then mouse over the navigation 'buttons' in the top RH corner of each page, they change to a missing image icon (although they still perform their function, if I can manage to click on them). This is all rather weird.

 

[Charles Dye]

Sadly resetting IE - whether that be via the Advanced Tab > Reset, via Security > Reset all zones to default level, or by deleting the browser history - does not have the desired effect.

Sorry to hear that. I'm out of ideas....

 

[rconn]

Folks,

I'm not sure if this has just started happening after installing v18, since I can't remember the last time I invoked help from the previous v17 installation, but I get the following error dialog whenever I start help from Take Command:

The help doesn't actually have anything to do with TCMD or TCC -- it's entirely run by Windows & IE.

An alternative would be to try the web help (https://jpsoft.com/help). If that works, you can change the .INI option to use web help instead of the local help.

 

[Alpengreis]

Maybe this page can help you (I hope):

http://kb.helpwaregroup.com/ms-html-help/mj-s-diagnostics

 

[Steve Pitts]

Folks,

I'd already tried the mjsdiag and had also tried an SFC /SCANNOW but without succes. However, Rex's comment

The help doesn't actually have anything to do with TCMD or TCC -- it's entirely run by Windows & IE.

set me to thinking and I decided to try uninstalling the update to IE11 to see if that might reset things in some way. Thankfully, despite the uninstall taking a couple of hours to complete, it resolved the problem. Since I don't use IE the fact that I'm back on IE9 has no material effect for me.

 

[Steve Pitts]

Dear old Windows managed to 'upgrade' me back onto IE10, and that exhibited the same issue. Uninstalling that and falling back to IE9 again eliminated the nsrInit error. Reverting to IE9 is a perfectly acceptable solution for me, but I wonder whether others are running IE10 or IE11 in 64 bit Windows 7 without help system issues??

 

[Alpengreis]

Some (maybe last) ideas about it:

FIRST: MAKE A BACKUP OF YOUR SYSTEM!

Have you tried this from site:
http://www.robworley.com/2005/03/what-does-cannot-open-the-file-mkmsitstore-mean/
...

Delete the file “hh.dat”, which you should find in this subdirectory:

\Documents and Settings\%username%\Application Data\Microsoft\HTML Help

This file stores information about all the HTML Help files on your system (Favorites, window size and position, etc.), and can cause the files to misbehave if it has somehow been corrupted.​

or this from same URL (probably as ADMINISTRATOR) ...

“Open a CMD window, type the following on the command line:

regsvr32 %systemroot%\system32\hhctrl.ocx
regsvr32 %systemroot%\system32\itss.dll

You will receive a success message after each of these commands.”​

AND ...

Ensure, that you don't have special (non english) characters (such as "[") in related path name.​

If this also not helps, i'm out of idea(s). Also, it could be a good thing to reinstall your OS (clean installation).

Greetings
Alpengreis

 

[Steve Pitts]

I made the mistake of spending yet more time on this, but none of the above makes any difference with IE10 - only rolling back to IE9 does the trick. Anyway, thanks for trying to help, and as I've said, I can live with it.