Excluded topics show up in search results

[eccc]

We're having an issue with topics excluded with DITAVAL showing up in the responsive webhelp search results. We have a master DITAVAL file referenced in a ditavalref element in our ditamap, and in addition we have filters specific to different transformation scenarios in oXygen.

The filters in the transformation scenarios work as they should, and topics excluded at the ditamap level are not included in the output, but the filters in the DITAVAL file only exclude topics from the TOC and the topics themselves are included in the generated output and search index, which causes them to show up in the search results.

Any idea what's wrong with this setup? We get errors such as "No specified rule for 'product=19.2' was found in the ditaval file." during the gen-list, filter, and branch-filter tasks.

[Costin]

Hi eccc,

There is a couple of scenarios I could think off, that could cause this issue, regarding the presence in search results or in the output of topics that were excluded through a DITAVAL.
- either there are some HTML leftovers in the output folder, corresponding to topics that were published using a previous scenario and, as long as the HTML files are still present in the output, they are also considered by the indexer.
- or there might be topics that, even if they are excluded in the DITAVAL, are indirectly referred by other topics.

Therefore, you should first edit the transformation scenario, go to the "Parameters" tab, look for the "clean.output" parameter and set its value to "yes". Apply changes and re-run the transformation.

If your excluded topics are still indexed by the search engine (if you can still find them in the search results), then you should check if you have any other references to them. For that you could check your DITA Map for such references, using the "Validate and Check for Completeness" action from the toolbar of the DITA Maps Manager view, then remove such references (if any returned in the results view).

Regards,
Costin

[eccc]

Hi Costin,

I'm afraid I've already tried both suggestions to no avail. I've also tried deleting the existing output by hand before starting the transformation scenario again.

Antti

[eccc]

As a workaround, we can use the @processing-role="resource-only" attribute in conjunction with the @product attribute for topics that we want to exclude on the ditamap level, but it's not an ideal solution.

[Costin]

Hi,

If you have also checked for indirect references, using the "Validate and Check for Completeness action" as I advised, but that's not the case, to investigate the cause further, we need you to send us a sample DITA Map - in an as minimal form as possible - and a DITAVAL file, samples which you can use to reproduce the issue with.

Regards,
Costin