MSP: Project hangs opening even though XML appears to fully load

Products

Clarity PPM On Premise Clarity PPM SaaS

Issue/Introduction

Some projects will not open in Microsoft Project (MSP) when exporting from Clarity with the MSP New Driver.

You may see a message "The last time you opened this project it caused a serious error" which is a generic warning MSP generates when there was an issue the last time the project opened that causes MSP to crash.
No errors or warnings are generated in the MSP Logs folder in Libraries/Documents.
If you review the XML related to the problem project, the XML appears to fully load as there is a </Project> tag at the end of the file.

For steps on how to enable XML if it is not being generated automatically in the workstation's documents folder, see XML, MPP and MSP Logs for Troubleshooting MSP Issues.

Environment

Clarity versions through 15.7
This issue appears to apply to certain Microsoft Project updates including:
- MSP 2013 SP1 with the March / April 2018 updates
- MSP 2016 with February / March 2018 updates

It's also been seen with click to run versions of MSP

Cause

In 15.7 and lower, this issue is due to using an unsupported method of copying and pasting tasks in MSP (highlighting of an entire row and pasting it). This copies the Text3 data that contains task unique information into the second task.

Resolution

Avoidance:

Use the supported method of copying and pasting of tasks in MSP when working with Clarity documented at: MSP copying and pasting tasks - supported method for Clarity

Starting in Clarity 15.7.1, an enhancement has been allowed to support copying and pasting of tasks.

Note, you must also upgrade your MSP Driver to see this change
See Copy and Paste Project Tasks in MSP for more details on this change.
See MSP: Copying entire task rows duplicates or moves some tasks for a defect that may cause similar symptoms - fixed in 15.9.2 and 15.9.1 patch 1.

To fix impacted projects:

Note: After implementing the below solution:

Users who previously attempted to open the project may still see the below message since the last time the project didn't open successfully.
- "The last time you opened this project it caused a serious error"
Click Yes to the message to proceed with opening the project.

Solution: Remove the project from the prdocument table temporarily.

GCP SaaS customers, please open a case to request the fix for this
See Remove a MSP project from the prdocument table for the impact and steps to remove

The other option would be to downgrade to the Microsoft Project February 2016 update as this issue is not reproducible there.

While this update is supported in 14.x and higher, downgrading to this update causes risks of other issues that Microsoft has fixed in updates higher then February 2016, so downgrading should be used with caution and only after testing for any side effects.
For details on supported MSP Updates with Clarity, see Microsoft Project monthly patches impact with Clarity