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Power Platform Community / Forums / Power Apps / Unable to open a Solut...
Power Apps
Suggested Answer

Unable to open a Solution‑aware Canvas App in Edit Mode

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Posted on by Microsoft Employee
Problem Statement

Unable to open a Solution‑aware Canvas App in Edit Mode within Power Apps Studio.

While attempting to edit the application, the Studio initiates the loading sequence but subsequently displays the following error:

“Error opening file: There was an error opening the file.”

The issue occurs consistently across users and browsers.
App Name: 8DPS

App Type: Canvas App

App Location: Inside Solution

Power Apps Release (Latest Version)

 

Current Behavior

Application launches successfully in Run (Play) Mode.

Application consistently fails to open in Edit Mode.

Studio displays the file load failure message.

Maker Portal restore attempts initially failed due to active authoring lock on the app.

Studio runtime fallback attempts using explicit legacy authoring version also failed.




 

 

Troubleshooting Steps Performed

The following steps were attempted:
Portal‑Level Remediation

Verified that the app opens successfully in Run Mode.

Attempted to open the app across multiple browsers and systems.

Cleared browser cache and performed InPrivate session testing.

Restored previous published versions of the app.

Created a duplicate copy of the app using Save As.

Exported and imported the application package.

Attempted to remove and re‑add the app from the Solution.

 

 

Authoring Runtime Compatibility Attempt

Attempted to open the app in Edit Mode by explicitly forcing a lower Studio runtime via the URL parameter:

 

?studio-version=v3.25041.10.329841775

App continued to fail with identical load error.

 

Feature Configuration Check

App was identified to have Experimental Features enabled.

Unable to open the app in Studio to disable Experimental features due to edit‑mode load failure.

 

 

Restore Attempt

Restore to older published versions initially failed with error:

Restore failed. '8DPS' is locked by user with object id …

Indicates existence of an active backend authoring session lock.

 

 

Network Diagnostics

Developer Tools were used to capture network activity during Edit attempt:

No authorization (401), forbidden (403), or server errors encountered for:

Canvas App definition download

Authoring service calls

Solution layer resolution

App package appears to download successfully.

Only the following non‑blocking errors were observed:

 

Static UI resource fetch (PowerAppsWizards.json) returning 404

User profile photo fetch from Graph returning 404

Telemetry POST to Dataverse table msdfm_efforts returning 400

 

No failures were observed for calls retrieving the app definition or initializing the authoring session.
 

Given that:

The app is solution‑aware.

Experimental features were enabled.

App runtime is functional.

Restore and Save As did not resolve the issue.

Forced legacy Studio runtime fails.

Network calls succeed in retrieving the app definition.
​​​​​​​

 

This indicates a failure at the Client‑Side Authoring Deserialization Stage after successful download of the MSApp authoring package.

Categories:
I have the same question (0)
  • Suggested answer
    11manish Profile Picture
    701 on at
    Based on the analysis, the issue is most likely caused by a client-side authoring failure in Microsoft Power Apps Studio, specifically during the deserialization of the app package (MSApp).
     
     Root Causes could be 
    Corrupted authoring metadata
    • The app package downloads successfully but fails to load in Studio
    • Indicates corruption inside the app definition (not runtime)
    Experimental Features conflict
    • Experimental features were enabled
    • These can introduce unstable or incompatible schema changes
     
    Solution:
    Restore if possible, otherwise rebuild or escalate to Microsoft

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