How can I clear the "system cannot find the file specified" error message when generating output?

You can check the topic for errors.

Description

When generating output, the OT log shows this error message for a topic: The system cannot find the file specified. When I look at the map in the MadCap IXIA CCMS, the topic is present without any errors.

Solution

This error message does not mean that the topic is missing from MadCap IXIA CCMS. It means that the topic is missing from the Output Generator's job folder because the OT was not able to validate it. It usually points to a structural error in the topic. To troubleshoot the issue, try the following steps one at a time and generate the output after each one:
  1. Open the topic in the Oxygen editor to see if it has any error messages. If so, resolve the error messages.
  2. Comment the entire body out of the topic. For example, the entire conbody. If the output works, start adding in content little by little to find the element that is causing the problem.
  3. Create a new topic and remove the offending topic from the map.
  4. Check other topics in the map to make sure that they are well formed. For example, make sure all xref elements contain valid attributes. The error sometimes occurs if another topic has an invalid format attribute on an xref.