topic Re: Trouble opening projects (Failed to open project) in ArcGIS Pro Questions

Trouble opening projects (Failed to open project)

Valentin_ — Thu, 11 Jul 2024 02:48:28 GMT

Hi all,

I'm having trouble opening my projects.

If I just open ArcGIS Pro and click on one of the Recent Projects, it will show me "Failed to open project" (see screenshot below).
If in ArcGIS Pro I click on "Open another project" and then browse to my project, I get a slightly different message saying that "project file does not exist in its last saved location" (see screenshot below).
If I navigate to my project file in Windows Explorer and try to open it directly, ArcGIS Pro opens but doesn't show the project and freezes (see screenshot below).

The only way I found was to open ArcGIS Pro, click "Start without a template", and then go to Project>Open and then select a Recent project. But this is not convenient and something should be wrong with my ArcGIS (and if nobody has a solution, maybe someone with the same problem will find this post and use the same walkaround).

I tried to follow the solutions in the following threads as they got similar messages as I do but my unpacking folder is already a local folder.

https://community.esri.com/t5/arcgis-pro-questions/arcgis-pro-2-4-2-failed-to-open-project/td-p/334411

https://community.esri.com/t5/arcgis-pro-questions/failed-to-open-project-project-does-not-exist-in/td-p/569701

Does anybody have an idea?

Many thanks!

Running ArcGIS Pro 3.3.1 on Windows 11.

Re: Trouble opening projects (Failed to open project)

DanPatterson — Thu, 11 Jul 2024 09:30:15 GMT

Save a project—ArcGIS Pro | Documentation

onedrive isn't a place to store projects,

Cloud storage services, such as Microsoft OneDrive and Google Drive, are not supported unless stated otherwise in the documentation about specific tools and functionality.

you might consider packaging one of your projects and move it to a local file location, unpackage and open it there

Package Project (Data Management)—ArcGIS Pro | Documentation

Re: Trouble opening projects (Failed to open project)

MicZatorsky_AEC — Thu, 11 Jul 2024 18:57:13 GMT

OneDrive for one is perfectly fine. It is not recognised as officially supported, but in my company many people have used it successfully for half a decade. Personally I have only one problem with 100s of APRXs.

OneDrive for many, is a trainwreck waiting to happen, don't do it. For collaboration we use supported file systems.

If you are using OneDrive (for just you), I find it helps to set the entire folder to 'always keep on this device' and pause syncing for a couple of hours while you work, and check it has fully sync'd at the end. Never open a file from another computer if one has not fully synced.

Re: Trouble opening projects (Failed to open project)

Valentin_ — Thu, 11 Jul 2024 22:41:09 GMT

Dear Dan, Dear Mic,

Many thanks for your answers!

I thought OneDrive was not the issue because the same happens with project saved on my local drive. I should investigate this and find whether I do have other related files that point toward a cloud folder (but it's not the default gdb or toolbox, those are all set to a local directory).

And yes, I do not use OneDrive for shared files. I'm working alone on these projects.

Thanks again!

Valentin

Re: Trouble opening projects (Failed to open project)

ShaneONeill_144 — Fri, 12 Jul 2024 12:22:07 GMT

I would suggest not storing your projects on OneDrive as Dan has said, I've seen this cause issues in the past - a local drive would work best for storing them. It could be worth try a clean uninstall and reinstall of ArcGIS Pro to see if that resolves the issue?

Re: Trouble opening projects (Failed to open project)

Valentin_ — Mon, 15 Jul 2024 00:40:13 GMT

Many thanks for the advice Shane!

I did a full new clean reinstall as described in the link. Unfortunately, even with a fully local project, the problem remains. I'll probably just continue using the workaround of starting a new project without template each time I open ArcGIS before opening my project.

Re: Trouble opening projects (Failed to open project)

ChrisGreen5 — Fri, 30 Aug 2024 00:30:15 GMT

FWIW, I had the same thing happen out of the blue w/ locally saved projects I had successfully used for months. I'm not sure what series of events caused it, and I literally had opened a go-to project successfully to work on, saved it, and then tried to go back into it without success. Valentin, I think I saw what you were talking about w/ the environment freezing. I couldn't click any of Pro's tabs after I clicked through the error message you mentioned. I also had success "starting without a template", creating a new project, and then using Pro. However, when I saved and closed that new project, I could not re-open it. I tried a couple things like repairing Pro, but to no avail. What seems to have cleared it up for me was a soft-reset detailed here: https://support.esri.com/en-us/knowledge-base/how-to-perform-an-arcgis-pro-soft-reset-000027631

Fingers crossed that the above really fixed it for me, and I figured I'd share this. -cg

Re: Trouble opening projects (Failed to open project)

harb — Mon, 15 Sep 2025 05:49:47 GMT

I have the exact same issue. Windows 10, ArcGIS Pro 3.3.0. All of my work is on a local drive.

I can't recall what triggered it, though I wish I could!

I'm using the same workaround... open Pro, Start without a template, then Project > Open.

No solution, but if I fix it, I'll report back.

Re: Trouble opening projects (Failed to open project)

LindaWaters — Fri, 20 Feb 2026 21:07:29 GMT

Has anyone found a solution to this? My computer started doing this out of the blue today. Even a complete uninstall and reinstall of arcgis didnt fix this issue.~There is no cloud storage involved, and no project, existing or new, will open.