This is probably the first major impact 2010 issue I’ve experienced, not the first issue let’s be clear, but the one causing significant impact to at least two of my major customers who are now well into production.
Problem:
For no apparent reason when attempting to Save a project from Microsoft Project Professional 2007 to the Project Server 2010 the following error is displayed:
(Text for Google: The file cannot be opened. … Project files saved in a version earlier than Microsoft Project 98 can’t be opened. If your file is from an earlier version … save in MPX format …)
After selecting Ok, any subsequent attempts to save report the following error:
(Text: An unexpected error occurred during command execution.)
This problem ONLY occurs with Project 2007 client version and attempting to open and save the file in Project 2010 will work as expected. Also it’s worth noting that once the error appears on one client, all clients will be unable to save the project.
Finally it is definitely not related to legacy projects, I have seen it occur on a test dozen line project based on a blank template.
Cause:
Unknown at this stage, although it is definitely some sort of corruption, likely in the Resource Sheet which can be proved by deleting all resources and resaving which will work immediately! It seems that the 2010 client has better error handling / correcting or perhaps that the 2007 client is introducing some errors!
Resolution:
We’ve (as in we at EPM Partners) have spent many hours on this issue with Microsoft as it seriously impacted one of Microsoft’s largest Asia-Pac 2010 customers, in the end with the support of a Microsoft PFE (onsite engineer) a resolution was found in the yet-to-be-released beta October Cumulative Update for Project Pro 2007.
So there is light at the end of the tunnel, however the problem is not yet closed, so far with over a week of testing post-cu this issue hasn’t reoccurred, but this is definitely one to watch out for!
Hi Martin, keep up the good work on the blog. Its like a reflection of some of the issues we are seeing over here.
Have you found out if the Oct2010 CU addresses the issue you mentioned in the 2007 client? (unexpected command execurtion error in saving etc)
thanks
David.
Hi David,
Good to hear from you David, been a while since we spoke back in my good old MS days, I hope things are well for you!
Yes so far so good actually, our most heavily affected customer who ended up with the pre-release hotfix mentioned above has not had the issue reoccur since installing. So now we are definitely recommending to all customers to upgrade 2007 clients.
Martin
Thank you for publishing this issue and fix! This sounds exactly like what is happening to us. Do you know if the fix has been released by microsoft yet? I tried searching their website, but I couldn’t find any information on it. Thanks!
Megan
Hi,
Yes the fix was included in the October 2010 Project Pro CU update, so you could find it in any of the cumulative updates released since then.
Personally I’m using the December update for most of my customers but looking to move to the Feb one now..
Thanks ton. We installed SP3 for Microsoft Project Professional 2007 and the issue was fixed.
Thanks again,
Swaminathan B