Help Text breaks 7.3.0 upgrade

Following an upgrade from 7.0.3 to 7.3.0, we found that attempting to edit or create content caused the content editor to fail with the message:

An error occurred generating HTML from XML using the “” style sheet for the request submitted by session id b6b6579ce50a4ffd356a90ac81e0d366270534f5.
An exception occurred while processing the ContentEditor XML document through the file:sys_resources/stylesheets/activeEdit.xsl style sheet: java.lang.StackOverflowError

The exact same message appears in the forum thread Help Text in on Content Editor leading to the realization that we had implemented help text by following the guidance laid out in that thread.

Removing the helpText PSXParam elements from the content item and shared field definitions allows the content editor to display again.

It appears the new help text mechanism is very similar to the one laid out in that forum post. Is there a migration path?

Going on the theory that someone in the future might run across the same problem… here’s how to fix it.

The help text solution we had been using in 7.0.3 and earlier was a “New_Efficient_Help_Text_Templates” patch that we’d received from Percussion support. (In fact, the person who implemented it in our system first found the same forum thread I did.)

The steps to undo that patch and have your existing helptext show up in 7.1 and later are:

Edit rx_resources\stylesheets\rx_Templates.xsl and remove the three helpText templates. (In our case, the only thing remaining was a control for sys_FileWord.)

In rxconfig\Server\ContentEditors\shared, edit all the shared field definition files (*.xml) and search for PSXParam elements with name=“helpText”. Change all of them to <PSXParam name=“helptext”> . (NOTE: lowercase ‘t’).

Finally, in ObjectStore, edit all the content type definition files (psx_ce*) and again search for PSXParam elements with name=“helpText”. Change all of them to <PSXParam name=“helptext”> .

You’ll have to restart Rhythmyx in order for the change to go into effect.

I found that this new routine also breaks the “Preview File” links for sys_File controls. See this thread for more info.