Unable to do "Save As" of MPP File

Make sure that Project Pro is at Service Pack 3.

Chances are that you have some corruption some where in the project plan. There are 4 likely places the problem could be hiding:
1) Resources
2) Tasks
3) Assignments
4) Metadata, such as Calendars or custom field definitions.

Be careful following this procedure not to save over your original file!!!
Pt I
1) Delete all of the Resources from the project plan. Do this by going to the Resource sheet and selecting all lines and then pressing delete.
2) Try to save the project. If the save fails skip to part II
3) Since the save succeed you now know that the problem was with the Resources or their assignments. Revert to a copy of the project with all resources. Find out which resource:
4) Delete half of the resources and try to save. if the save succeeds, revert to an older copy and try deleting 1/4 of the resources. In this way you can determine the resource causing the problem
[Sometimes more than one resource can be causing the problem. This makes toubleshooting more difficult, but the same principles can be followed.]

Pt II
1) If it wasn't a resource causing the problem, start looking at tasks. Delete all the tasks and try to save. If the project save fails go to part III.
2) Revert to a project with all of the tasks. Delete half the tasks and try to save. Continue doing this binary search to find out what task might be causing the problem, similar to what's described above for Resources.

Pt III
1) Problem in the metadata or hidden stuff.
2) Delete all tasks and all resources. If the project saves successfully, you probably missed something in the earlier steps go back to part I or II
3) If the save still fails, it will probably be fastest to just select all tasks and paste them to a new project plan. Otherwise you can use the "Organizer" to try deleting custom fields. I'd start with the calendars.


This procedure has helped me root out a lot of corruption...
James Fraser

The problem is occuring with ALL projects. This includes old files as well as new. Additionally it is affecting ALL users.

You are not using Project Pro, connected to a PRoject Server are you? If so, I would suspect problems with your Global Template.

If not, I agree with dbase118. Look at software updates.


James Fraser

There were quite a few. We are trying to see if there was something in those packs, but I wanted to see if anybody had seen this problem.

If you can find out which packs were installed it would be easier to track down the problem. The problem is what you describe is a typical behavior when a service pack or update/upgrade goes bad so its hard to specifically say which one it could be.

Ive seen something on this related to the Portfolio Analyzer Service Packs. If you are running Portfolio that might be a place to start looking.

Is it usually because the SP was defective to start, or something went wrong during the install (and a reinstall would fix it)?

Many times a reinstall will correct BUT...I have also seen cases where the SP for one program causes conflicts with another program especially if you have multi-generational software. Like a service pack for Office 2003 causing issues with Project 2007 and vice versa.

I would certainly try a reinstall first. If you can remove the pack in question and verify that the save as function works OK without the service pack.

It was determined (within the past 5 min) that there was a security patch that was installed that caused the problem. Our IT dept is working on a work-around, but they have identified what we need to uninstall to get it to work.