MSP Error "We're Sorry..." opening a project due to special character issue in Notes

Products

• Clarity PPM On Premise
• Clarity PPM SaaS

Issue/Introduction

You receive error "We're sorry. There seems to be a problem with this file that keeps us from opening it. Please try using a backup copy if available." when attempting to open a project from Clarity after migrating from the Microsoft Project (MSP) Legacy Interface to the MSP New Driver. 

Environment

Release : All Supported

Clarity MSP New Driver (migrating from Legacy Driver)

Cause

This issue happens if switching from the Legacy Driver to New Driver. The error is due to a certain type of special character in one or more task notes associated with line breaks (You will see:  in the xml).

Steps to confirm root cause:

1. Drag the XML to a new Chrome browser tab window.
2. Wait for the XML to fully load and then you will see an error message similar to the below that will tell you the first line in the XML that has the issue.

error on line 499570 at column 15: xmlParseCharRef: invalid xmlChar value 11

Below is a rendering of the page up to the first error.

    3. Open the XML

    4. Review the row the error is associated within the XML and you will notice the #x000B;

Line breaks aren’t able to be used with Microsoft Project XML due to a known MSP limitation with XML. The legacy driver would allow this, so that is how users were able to save projects back to Clarity and open successfully before migrating to the new driver. If a user tries to add line breaks into notes going forward, they’ll see this error: MSP Save Error: "Attempted to read or write protected memory..." due to line breaks in notes when trying to save the project back to Clarity.

So, going forward, users shouldn’t run into the "We’re sorry" error after the impacted projects have been fixed, but instead can run into the "Attempted to read or write protected memory" error if they try to add new notes to the project in MSP with line breaks and then attempt to save the project back to Clarity.

Resolution

Determine impacted tasks:

1. Open the XML file
2. Do a find for all tasks that have this character combination: #x000B;

Fix the Impacted Tasks in Clarity:

See if you are able to update the task note from within Clarity to remove the line breaks:

1. Click on the Task
2. Click on the Notes link on the right-hand side of the task
3. Update the line that has the special character

If you get an error trying to access the notes, another option is you can delete the task and recreate it. If that isn't a viable option, please open a case with Broadcom support for assistance. (Note that if the task has actuals, you will receive an error that the task can't be deleted, but in MSP, the task will show under a "Deleted Tasks" section, and the Note should then be removed).

Important: Before deleting the task, take note of the data in the task including any dates, assignments, etc, as it will need to be recreated.

Additional Information

Note: for the "We're Sorry" error, removing the mpp from the prdocument table has not been known to help. See Remove a MSP project from the prdocument table for the impact of removing from the prdocument table.