Import error: Attribute "href" must be declared for element type "topicref"

This error occurs when a map has the @href attribute on a topicref, which is not allowed in DRM environments.

Description

You receive a message in the Import Errors dialog similar to this:

Unable to import dita file: Unable to import file in the generic type. [Attribute "href" must be declared for element type "elementName".] file : .../.../filename.dita

DRM does not allow the use of @href on any elements except for external references (for example, <xref href="www.madcapsoftware.com" scope=external/>. All references to content objects—in this case, a map's reference to a topic—must be done using @keyref.

Usually, any non-external @href attributes are automatically refactored to @keyref during a content import but an error in the DTD catalog can prevent this from happening, causing this error. To resolve it, you need to make a few changes to the DTD catalog.

Solution

  1. Open the TEXTML Administration perspective and connect to the content store.
  2. Check out and open system/plugins/com.ixiasoft.dita13.dtd/catalog.xml.
  3. Find the following entries:
    <public publicId="-//IXIA//ELEMENTS DITA Global Href Constraints//EN" uri="dtd/drm/constraint-href-global.mod"/>
<public publicId="-//IXIA//ELEMENTS DITA Topic Href Constraints//EN" uri="dtd/drm/constraint-href-topic.mod"/>
<public publicId="-//IXIA//ELEMENTS DITA Map Href Constraints//EN" uri="dtd/drm/constraint-href-map.mod"/>
  4. Change them to:
    <public publicId="-//IXIA//ELEMENTS DITA Global Href Constraints//EN" uri="dtd/drm/constraint-null.mod"/>
<public publicId="-//IXIA//ELEMENTS DITA Topic Href Constraints//EN" uri="dtd/drm/constraint-null.mod"/>
<public publicId="-//IXIA//ELEMENTS DITA Map Href Constraints//EN" uri="dtd/drm/constraint-null.mod"/>
  5. Save your changes and check in catalog.xml.
  6. Restart the CCMS.