SWhelp launch's with script errors? 1

[chriskh]

Hello, Has anyone encountered a problem when they open their SWhelp file (Solidworks.chm)? This can happen on any version of SW, and its linked to Internet Explorer. From the SWHelp menu, go to the SWHelp option, and when the help window launches, the error appears. On some help pages it dosent do it, but if you click on to one of the hyperlinks, it then outputs the error. The error appears inside a window with the title "Internet Explorer Script Error". And has a large yellow exclaimation icon. It also has the following information, Error : Object dosent support the property or method.

I have seen this problem several times in the past. I think it used to be caused by not having an up to date version of IE, or not having a certain DLL file in Windows. I had also fixed the error years ago on a NT6.0 PC by un-installing IE, clean un-installing SW, re-installing SW, and then re-installing IE, and this fixed it. The problem is occurring on a brand new XP PC, with Internet Explorer version 6.0.2900. I will be trying the above un-install/re-install routine anyway, but I would be grateful to find out if anyone knows an exact, "quick" fix.

I have checked the SW website and went to the link about "Missing Icons", and from the Microsoft website downloaded and installed "Critical Update 811630 / 822989" but the problem still occurs. I had also removed Service Pack 2, and re-applied it, but no difference. The SW Knowledgebase also didnt turn up much on a search such as help, helpfile, help file error etc.


Any ideas?

thank-you
chriskh

 

[ctopher]

What version and SP are you running?

Chris
Sr. Mechanical Designer, CAD
SolidWorks 05 SP0.1 / PDMWorks 05
ctopher's home site

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

You can turn the scripting error messages off from Tools > Internet options > Advanced.
Checkmark the Disable script debugging (Internet Explorer) & Disable script debugging (Other).
Uncheck the Display a notification about every script error

This may not help the pages display better, but it should eliminate those annoying error messages.

& all the best.

 

[chriskh]

Hi Guys,

The install is running 2005 SP0.1. Thank-you so much for the suggestions on internet explorer settings in the advanced tab, I was not aware of these. Unfortuntely, it didnt stop the errors from popping up, we also rebooted after setting them, but no difference. I will investigate a clean un-install/re-install.

thanks again !

chriskh

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

Before re-installing, check ALL of the posts in the Solidworks Installation area of the FAQ section.

Also SP1.1 has just been released.

& all the best.

 

[maser]

Hi Chriskh

Also have a problem with the help file did you manage to sort yours out?

Thanks

Maser

 

[chriskh]

Hi Maser,

Just so you know, the problem PC wasnt mine, however I think our hardware supplier has since re-installed XP and this might have fixed it?

Our hardware supplier reckons XP SK2 is to blame, because the PC was working and tested with XP SPK1a when it was shipped. ( mmmm but did they test the help files in SW? ). Their suggestion was to remove XP SPK2, re-apply XP2 SPK1a. If that didnt work to try going back to a early restore point of XP, or a repair or re-install. This is all OK, but the PC's hard-disk's have a Raid 1 configuration, and I didnt want to mess about with re-installing XP incase the raid array would work properly afterwards ( I'm new to Raid !).

I also got the following info back from SW. I hope some of this helps?

######################################################
Chris,

Further to our conversation about script errors I am sending a summary of things to try to resolve this that I’ve found in our database. This is as much for future reference as anything:

See Microsoft Knowledge Base article

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;312456)

that refers to the ‘hhctrl.ocx’ ActiveX file that can cause this error if the file is of an incorrect version. I suggest checking Microsoft’s site for any IE updates and if none are available you may want to get the hhctrl.ocx file from a system where the help file does not generate the error and put it on the problematic system, backing up the originals of course.

On Windows XP SP2 there have been some problems with help documentation (need to relax some security settings to view some documents (Tools-Internet Options-Advanced-> 'Allow active content to run in files on My Computer'). This particular issue with the script error(s) was been reported to development on SPR#232174 (fixed 2005sp1)

As you know there were similar problems when accessing the help, where a message appears stating, "This page provides potentially unsafe information to an ActiveX control". This particular problem was to be related to a version conflict between comcat.dll and ole32.dll files on the computer, since they are a matched pair. However, some applications may update one without updating the other resulting in a mismatch.

Some additional information from Microsoft regarding this topic is available at:

http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q201/3/64.asp

http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q241/3/85.ASP

Please see the resolution instructions from Microsoft in the 2nd link above. Please note that the information on the above pages refers to Windows NT, specifically the compatible dll version numbers. As the customer is running on XP find out the version numbers of the comcat.dll and ole32.dll files on his machine and compare these with the version numbers of the equivalent files on another machine (where the Help works!) running the same OS / Service Pack revision.
##########################################

 

[maser]

Hi Chris

Apreciate the feedback, I have just searched the program folder with windows search for Solidworks.chm and I do not seem to have that file?

I then carried out another search for chm files (*.chm) and came up with a large number of files some work okay however the majority are only 1KB in size and dont work.

The program works great, will I have to reinstal or can I just get hold of the help files?

Thanks

Maser

 

[chriskh]

Hi Maser,

Sounds like the files have not been installed properly?
Yes you can just download them from the following link :

http://www.solidworks.com/pages/services/subscription/downloads3.html

The file you want is : swHelpEnglish.zip

You must be a subscription support customer to get into that area though, so have your SW serial number handy. If you cant get into that area, ask your VAR to stick the files on a CD, or email them if you have a good download/email bandwidth. Once the helpfile is downloaded just unzip all the files to SWINSTALLFOLDER/lang/english

The SW help file on its own is about 16MB, most of the other help files are around 500KB each.

You also dont need to run SW to get into this help file. I have a shortcut on my desktop for this, and I can open the help just on its own without SW running.

best regards
chris

 

[maser]

Hi Chris

Thanks for the reply, I will get hold of our VAR and ask for a new set of files.

Once again apreciate your help with this.

Best regards

Maser

 

[SBaugh]

I'm fighting this same error since I got my new machine back up and running. I tried your suggestion chriskh. That didn't fix the issue. I figured what the heck I'll try it can't hurt, since I install SW SP1.1 from SP1.1 CD's. The problem is in windows.

FYI - I tried your suggestions to CBL... no luck either.

I have been reading up on this and the only info I have found are on older OS systems. The problem in the past was the Comcat.dll was not registered or in the correct location. After that file was registered the problem went away.

If someone finds an answer post it, otherwise when I get time to find the problem to my issue I will post it here.

Regards,

Scott Baugh, CSWP
3DVision Technologies

http://www.3dvisiontech.com

http://www.scottjbaugh.com

faq731-376
faq559-716 - SW Fora Users

 

[gsagolla]

We had the same issue on a number of our workstations all running XP SP1, SW2005 SP2.0. Whenever we opened the sldworks.chm help file (and a few others as well) we encountered the Explorer scripte error "Object dosent support the property or method." We finally tracked the problem back to the HHACTIVEX.DLL component of the help system. Here's how we fixed it on our system:

[ol]
[li]From an administrator account, open a new command prompt
[Start --> Run... --> cmd]

[/li]

[li]Switch to the windows/system32 directory
[tt][blue]cd \WINDOWS\SYSTEM32[/blue][/tt]

[/li]

[li]Un-register the HHACTIVEX.DLL control
[tt][blue]regsvr32.exe /u HHACTIVEX.DLL[/blue][/tt]

[/li]

[li]Re-register the HHACTIVEX.DLL control
[tt][blue]regsvr32.exe HHACTIVEX.DLL[/blue][/tt]

[/li]
[/ol]

 

[SBaugh]

THANKS gsagolla!!

SW has been working on this for me, for 2 weeks now and they have yet to find an answer on how to fix it.

Thanks - star for you!

Regards,

Scott Baugh, CSWP
3DVision Technologies

http://www.3dvisiontech.com

http://www.scottjbaugh.com

faq731-376
faq559-716 - SW Fora Users