Index search in CHM help crashes viewer

[chrullrich]

BPO	35228
Nosy	@pfmoore, @Cito, @tjguk, @methane, @zware, @zooba, @chrullrich, @animalize
Files	binary_index.png

^{Note: these values reflect the state of the issue at the time it was migrated and might not reflect the current state.}

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GitHub fields:

assignee = None
closed_at = None
created_at = <Date 2018-11-13.11:06:57.832>
labels = ['type-bug', '3.8', '3.9', '3.10', '3.7', 'OS-windows', 'docs']
title = 'Index search in CHM help crashes viewer'
updated_at = <Date 2022-03-14.09:08:41.761>
user = 'https://github.com/chrullrich'

bugs.python.org fields:

activity = <Date 2022-03-14.09:08:41.761>
actor = 'methane'
assignee = 'docs@python'
closed = False
closed_date = None
closer = None
components = ['Documentation', 'Windows']
creation = <Date 2018-11-13.11:06:57.832>
creator = 'chrullrich'
dependencies = []
files = ['47967']
hgrepos = []
issue_num = 35228
keywords = []
message_count = 18.0
messages = ['329824', '330867', '330871', '332525', '370448', '370581', '370586', '370605', '370919', '371012', '375994', '375997', '376033', '376112', '376405', '408759', '413167', '415123']
nosy_count = 14.0
nosy_names = ['paul.moore', 'cito', 'tim.golden', 'methane', 'Zero', 'docs@python', 'zach.ware', 'steve.dower', 'chrullrich', 'malin', 'V\xc3\xa1clav Dvo\xc5\x99\xc3\xa1k', 'Charles G.', 'Keelung Yang', 'danny1221']
pr_nums = []
priority = 'normal'
resolution = None
stage = None
status = 'open'
superseder = None
type = 'behavior'
url = 'https://bugs.python.org/issue35228'
versions = ['Python 3.7', 'Python 3.8', 'Python 3.9', 'Python 3.10']

[chrullrich]

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

[animalize]

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.

[chrullrich]

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.

[animalize]

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.

[KeelungYang]

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.

[zooba]

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'

[methane]

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.

[zooba]

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.

[VclavDvok]

@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.

[zooba]

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.

[animalize]

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.

[VclavDvok]

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-update/), 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?

[animalize]

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.

[Cito]

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.

[zooba]

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!).

[CharlesG]

My previous Windows version (Win 10 1803) does not have this crashing problem. It only crashed after upgrading to 21H1. So I replaced hhctrl.ocx in system32 (Win 10 21H1) with hhctrl.ocx from Windows.old.

2019/03/19 11:45 696.320 hhctrl.ocx
2021/09/23 03:29 729.600 hhctrl.ocx.old

[danny1221]

I found another workaround to alleviate this problem.

My envrionments: Win 10 Pro 2004, Python 3.9.6, cp936 locale

When I open the Python CHM help file, e.g. double click, Win10 actually uses the command:
"C:\Windows\hh.exe" D:/Python/Python39/Doc/python396.chm
But when I try "C:\Windows\SysWOW64\hh.exe" D:/Python/Python39/Doc/python396.chm
Magic happens, crash problem just vanished :)

[methane]

I know chm is handy. But Microsoft abandoned it already.
I think we should stop providing chm.