Symptoms

When viewing a local (not uploaded to a server) HTML documentation, Google Chrome will show an error when trying to search within the documentation.

Solutions

HelpNDoc's HTML documentation generated using the default HTML template uses an AJAX call to retrieve the search data. This provides faster loading times for the overall documentation. However, when the HTML documentation is viewed locally, using the file:// protocol, Google Chrome will not allow the AJAX call.

  • To work around this limitation, Chrome can be launched with the "--allow-file-access-from-files" command line switch. As an example, run:
    • chrome.exe --allow-file-access-from-files
  • Another possible solution is to serve the local documentation via a server such as Apache or IIS, and therefore viewing your documentation using the http:// protocol. Google Chrome won't have the same restriction in that particular case.