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Help stopped working

Help stopped working after I installed the TestStand 2012 update. Anyone know of a fix?

 

The error is "Help not available" "Help on this topic was not found. Please run setup to install help."   This occurs when F1 is pressed or any other Help related thing attempts to show help.

 

I don't want to reinstall unless there is no other choice. Thanks for any "help". Opps! A pun!  LOL

 

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Hi Pat,

 

Can you tell us a little bit more about this issue? Where you upgrading from TestStand 2012 to TestStand 2012 SP1?

 

You might try re-running the installer but selecting documentation as the only component, and see if that repairs the issue.

Tom
TestStand Documentation
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It's fixed now and I think I figured out why it failed. Thanks for the reply, though. 🙂

 

I had updated from 2012 to 2012 SP1 along with some other updates (NI-SWITCH and DAQmx) using NI Update Service. This install failed (see below) but I then reinstalled by copying the installation files to a different location. The Help system then stopped working. So this morning I downloaded the EXE and reinstalled (not using the NI Update Service) and noticed that the TestStand default program selections did not include Documentation. It must have thought it was installed. After selecting this option and finishing the install the problem is fixed. Maybe there is a bug in the installer that breaks the Help system if Documentation is not selected or it broke because the first install did not complete.

 

Something to note: During the first installation attempt there was a directory access error due to the installer attempting to access some files in the default Update folder which is buried in the Program Files (x86) NI folder and the TestStand part of the installation could not continue. I found that this directory location is configurable, in the NI Update Service options, so I changed it to a folder which I had access to (company IT restricts access to some folders and I do not have administrator privileges). Installation then completed normally (this is the 3rd attempt). What I noticed at the end of installation was a message saying "Merging with Microsoft Help" or something to that effect. This part was probably missed in the first installation because it had failed part way through and I did not select to install Documentation in the second installation because I didn't realize it was broken by the first.

 

So in the future, if an install fails, it's best to reinstall all options that you use, because they may have gotten corrupted. My bad, for being lazy... 😉

 

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