[issue35228] Index search in CHM help crashes viewer
New submission from Christian Ullrich <chris@chrullrich.net>: Typing into the index keyword field frequently crashes the CHM viewer with the first or second character. The Python CHMs are the only ones that I see this crash with; it started around 3.6 or so.
From event log:
Faulting application name: hh.exe, version: 10.0.17134.1, time stamp: 0xa0eff942 Faulting module name: hhctrl.ocx, version: 10.0.17134.48, time stamp: 0x412ce02a Exception code: 0xc0000005 Fault offset: 0x00000000000387b2 Faulting process ID: 0x3558 Faulting application start time: 0x01d47b3f8db53eef Faulting application path: C:\Windows\hh.exe Faulting module path: C:\Windows\System32\hhctrl.ocx Report ID: 53f84d38-adb4-4c0b-bd45-9bce02406e6f Faulting package full name: Faulting package-relative application ID: This particular crash involved the file from 3.7.1: sha1(doc\python371.chm) = 1c0e2d861cadc759436bfac0a767c5bb633423f9 ---------- assignee: docs@python components: Documentation, Windows messages: 329824 nosy: chrullrich, docs@python, paul.moore, steve.dower, tim.golden, zach.ware priority: normal severity: normal status: open title: Index search in CHM help crashes viewer type: behavior versions: Python 3.7 _______________________________________ Python tracker <report@bugs.python.org> <https://bugs.python.org/issue35228> _______________________________________
Ma Lin <malincns@163.com> added the comment: I suffered this problem more than one years. Here is a solution, before compiling the chm, modify like this: --- D:\Python-3.7.1\Doc\build\htmlhelp\python371.hhp Sun Dec 02 13:12:37 2018 +++ D:\fix_crash\python371.hhp Sun Dec 02 13:05:57 2018 @@ -1,6 +1,6 @@ [OPTIONS] Binary TOC=No -Binary Index=No +Binary Index=Yes Compiled file=python371.chm Contents file=python371.hhc Default Window=python371 The chm will generate a binary file python371.chw in the same folder when first opened. No longer crash, but duplicated entries don't show Title anymore, see the attached picture. ---------- nosy: +Ma Lin Added file: https://bugs.python.org/file47967/binary_index.png _______________________________________ Python tracker <report@bugs.python.org> <https://bugs.python.org/issue35228> _______________________________________
Christian Ullrich <chris@chrullrich.net> added the comment: Ma Lin, thanks for the suggestion! Yes, it looks like this option fixes the problem. I can reproduce the crash at will with a .chm built without this option, and not at all with one that has it on. If the .chm's directory is not writable, the .chw will be created, and later reused from, %APPDATA%\Microsoft\HTML Help. Unfortunately, sphinx apparently has no facility for setting this option to Yes in the generated .hhp file, so it will have to be modified before compilation. ---------- _______________________________________ Python tracker <report@bugs.python.org> <https://bugs.python.org/issue35228> _______________________________________
Ma Lin <malincns@163.com> added the comment: I solved this thoroughly: Format disk C: and install a clean Windows 10. Don't forget to backup important files in C:\Users\<user name>\ folder. ---------- _______________________________________ Python tracker <report@bugs.python.org> <https://bugs.python.org/issue35228> _______________________________________
Keelung Yang <csoapy@gmail.com> added the comment: It's reoccurable in Python 3.8.3 (tags/v3.8.3:6f8c832, May 13 2020, 22:37:02) [MSC v.1924 64 bit (AMD64)] on windows version 10.0.19041.264 Just need to open "Python 3.8 Manuals (64-bit)" --> index --> input 'p' on keyboard. ---------- nosy: +Keelung Yang _______________________________________ Python tracker <report@bugs.python.org> <https://bugs.python.org/issue35228> _______________________________________
Steve Dower <steve.dower@python.org> added the comment: Can anyone confirm that you've got an active code page of something other than 1252 ("standard" US English)? I'm not able to reproduce this easily, and I wonder if it's because of that setting. Easiest way to check is in Python:
import locale locale.getpreferredencoding() 'cp1252'
---------- versions: +Python 3.10, Python 3.8, Python 3.9 _______________________________________ Python tracker <report@bugs.python.org> <https://bugs.python.org/issue35228> _______________________________________
Inada Naoki <songofacandy@gmail.com> added the comment: I think it's time to abandon chm file. It is too old. MS doesn't maintain it anymore. Let's promote ePub and PDF instead. ---------- nosy: +inada.naoki _______________________________________ Python tracker <report@bugs.python.org> <https://bugs.python.org/issue35228> _______________________________________
Steve Dower <steve.dower@python.org> added the comment:
Let's promote ePub and PDF instead.
Find a good viewer we can bundle with the installer with equivalent search/index functionality and we can consider it. More realistically, including the docs as unbundled HTML files and relying on the default browser is probably an all-around better idea. ---------- _______________________________________ Python tracker <report@bugs.python.org> <https://bugs.python.org/issue35228> _______________________________________
Václav Dvořák <vashek@gmail.com> added the comment: @steve.dower: I have cp1250 and I've had this issue for years now, on several Windows versions. Hoping Microsoft will fix it is obviously futile; can I ask for the Python community to apply the workaround suggested by Ma Lin please? Thanks. ---------- nosy: +Václav Dvořák _______________________________________ Python tracker <report@bugs.python.org> <https://bugs.python.org/issue35228> _______________________________________
Steve Dower <steve.dower@python.org> added the comment: We either need someone to contribute a fix to sphinxcontrib\htmlhelp\templates\project.hhp (bearing in mind that this *must* be optional, as it breaks search), or write code to patch the generated file between generation and use (which is probably hard). And I'm not yet comfortable breaking search for it (as shown in the screenshot). I'd rather switch to distributing regular HTML files if there isn't a way to have both. ---------- _______________________________________ Python tracker <report@bugs.python.org> <https://bugs.python.org/issue35228> _______________________________________
Ma Lin <malincns@163.com> added the comment:
More realistically, including the docs as unbundled HTML files and relying on the default browser is probably an all-around better idea.
CHM's index function is very convenient, I almost always use this feature when I use CHM. How about use tkinter to write a doc indexing tool, it reads the indexes in this page: https://docs.python.org/3/genindex-all.html Its behavior is the same as CHM's index, except that the link is opened in browser. This indexing tool can be packaged with Python installer, just like IDLE, then MacOS/Linux users can also use the index. ---------- _______________________________________ Python tracker <report@bugs.python.org> <https://bugs.python.org/issue35228> _______________________________________
Václav Dvořák <vashek@gmail.com> added the comment: I have just apparently discovered a workaround! (Thanks to @chrullrich whose comment gave me the hint.) Maybe it's been obvious to everybody this whole time but I have only now found out that when I delete the file %APPDATA%\Microsoft\HTML Help\hh.dat (in my case c:\Users\dvorak\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\HTML Help\hh.dat), the problem seems to go away. I'm so happy I just had to share. :) I also have another, possibly naive idea. While Microsoft has ignored this issue for years, they have recently "helped the community release their distribution of Python to the Microsoft Store" (https://devblogs.microsoft.com/python/python-in-the-windows-10-may-2019-upda...), and by "they", apparently I mean the very same Steve Dower who comments here, as I just realized. :-D (So... thanks, Steve.) So I'm thinking, as we actually have a Microsoft insider here, wouldn't it be possible to make Microsoft fix the viewer so that it, I don't know, possibly DOESN'T CRASH? I assume that Microsoft has plenty of those crash reports in some database? ---------- _______________________________________ Python tracker <report@bugs.python.org> <https://bugs.python.org/issue35228> _______________________________________
Ma Lin <malincns@163.com> added the comment:
when I delete the file %APPDATA%\Microsoft\HTML Help\hh.dat, the problem seems to go away.
It doesn't work for me. Moreover, `Binary Index=Yes` no longer works on my PC. A few days ago, I installed a clean Windows 10 2004, then CHM's index cannot be used. ---------- _______________________________________ Python tracker <report@bugs.python.org> <https://bugs.python.org/issue35228> _______________________________________
Christoph Zwerschke <cito@online.de> added the comment: Had the same problem for years and wondered why nobody else complained. Still reproducable with Win 10 Pro 2004, Python 3.8, cp1252 locale. Deleting hh.dat did not solve the problem for me. ---------- nosy: +cito _______________________________________ Python tracker <report@bugs.python.org> <https://bugs.python.org/issue35228> _______________________________________
Steve Dower <steve.dower@python.org> added the comment: So I found the "owner" of the HTML Help component in Windows (I put owner in quotes because this tool is _very_ maintenance mode, so nothing short of a critical vulnerability is going to be touched) and he helped me do some debugging. In short, the index file is either corrupt, or it is not parsed correctly. I can reliably reproduce the crash with the following steps: 1. Open the Python docs 2. Switch to the Index tab 3. Double-click on any second-level (indented) entry 4. Modify the text in the Index search box We haven't yet gone deep enough to be able to tell whether the help compiler is at fault, or the loader. If anyone has the time and inclination, testing with older versions (if you can find them) of the HTML Help compiler may find a version that works. Unfortunately, the older copies we used to use were on the Subversion server, which is long gone now. Alternatively, if anyone knows of a similar tool that we can redistribute easily with CPython (i.e. it's not as big as Zeal) and is significantly better than just using the user's default browser, I'd be interested to hear about it (as would the rest of the developer world, I'm sure - this is a fairly popular format!). ---------- _______________________________________ Python tracker <report@bugs.python.org> <https://bugs.python.org/issue35228> _______________________________________
participants (7)
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Christian Ullrich -
Christoph Zwerschke
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Inada Naoki
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Keelung Yang
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Ma Lin
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Steve Dower
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Václav Dvořák