Clarity

A user is trying to open a project in MS Project Read-Write and is getting the following error in MS Project:

When click on OK, the next message is as follows:

What could be the cause of these messages?

Where can we find a list of all the possible errors / issues with MS Project Integrator and usage?

Hi Youka,

Hope you are doing well. I believe you are using CA PPM 15.1 because the problem that you are facing is basically a a known issue when it comes to opening a project in MSP. When opening a project with MS Project (MSP) 2013 with the New Driver, the project opens with an 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." or may be missing tasks, charge codes, and/or task notes. (Symptoms vary based on MSP Bit level used). 

This is a know issue and is supposed to be fixed in CA PPM 15.2. A defect was logged for the same: CLRT-80925. 

Thanks,

Abhisek Dhar

Thank you for your feedback.  I checked release 15.2 defect list and could not locate CLRT-80925 as a resolved defect.  How can I validate that it is resolved with release 15.2?

This defect (CLRT-80925) is also known as DE29596.

DE30535/CLRT-81494 is heavily related to this so both were treated as the same defect and fixed as a unit.

You can find that this has been fixed here:

Resolved Defects - CA PPM - 15.2 - CA Technologies Documentation 

as:

CLRT-81494, DE30535, DE30876, DE31582 (S3): LONG HYPHEN IS REMOVED IN MSP (Issues saving projects back to Microsoft Project)

Even though that this states a specific case, this was involving many different issues that were caused by the presense of some special characters. As mentioned earlier, these were all treated as a single issue (as they shared the root cause) and can appear either on load or on save, despite the description, as it is based on specific steps to reproduce for a given defect.

The fixes have been backported to 14.3.0.10, 14.4.0.6 and 15.1.0.3 as well.

Hope that this helps you.

Perfect!  I have all the info needed now!

Do you know the "New Driver" # referred to in your comment "When opening a project with MS Project (MSP) 2013 with the New Driver"? 

As per this document from CA PPM, How do Microsoft Project monthly patches impact CA PPM?   since December 2016 patches, there are no test impacts. 

Hello Youka,

The KB article you refer is about the issues introduced by MS Project patches and only tested in conjunction of our new driver. That does not mean that MSP is completely bug-free nor that our driver is completely bug-free either. These tests are done at the time the MSP patch is released and some have been reported past this date, for this reason, I would recommend that you get the latest MSP patch that is ok to use (as of this writing, May 2017 patch for MSP) and also our latest patch.

Remember to update all the client applications when updating PPM to a new release or patch (this would include MSP integration apps, OWB, and XOG client).

The workaround for this problem is: 

For MSP 2013 (x32): Open the local XML file on your computer using a program such as Notepad++. Notepad++ will throw an error such as: "XML Parsing error at line X: xmlParseCharRef: invalid xmlChar value". Line X shows the task name/note that contains the special character that needs to be changed/ removed in PPM to allow the project to open in MSP without error.

For MSP 2013 (x64): Remove and retype tasks, charge codes, and/or notes that are blank or missing from MS Project in PPM.

More details you will find in this technical document: Special characters in Task Name, Task Notes, and Charge Codes have entire entries removed from project when opening proj… 

Hope that helps. 

Thanks,

Abhisek Dhar

This has NOT been fixed in version 15.2, at least from a project ID/Code perspective. We just had a user see this error pop up when we have a ":" in the project ID. We removed it and everything was fine. But I'm not sure if this has been fully fixed in version 15.2.

I think that this might be a different issue as the original report, specially because this would be for the Project ID and for a different set of characters than the expected ones... if you can still reproduce this, can you please open a new case with Support?

Thanks