Bug: Grey Screen of Death

[mr-dang]

Last week when I saved over an existing app in the cloud, there was a 3 minute delay when clicking the app in a browser before it would be open. It shows what I term the "Grey Screen of Death" while I wait. It is colored by the programed color if I open the app from Dynamics 365. That delay gradually increased to 5 minutes this week. It was alright as long as the app eventually opened. No big deal. I can wait a few minutes for the app to be ready.

However, today, my app was stuck at the grey screen of death after some small changes I saved last night. To be clear, on my computer that I use to edit the app, the app opens in regular Chrome Browser. But when I open the app in incognito mode to simulate a public computer, it will not open. I tested in a limited user account and my main account. Neither worked in incognito and neither worked on the Chromebook.

Today few of the students in class were able to open the app on their Chromebooks. I tried clearing browsing data, but I was still stuck at the grey screen. I do not see any loading progress that would suggest that the app were loading in the background. If there is a pattern to who was able to open the app, it would be that the students who use the apps more seemed to be the ones who were able to still access the app.

Besides clearing the browsing data and restarting the computer, what can I try to get the app working again?

app-id: 77f47c8d-b8e3-a457-432c-ae5d33933b0f

[mr-dang]

Update:

• This is not limited to one app as I originally thought. 
• Everything works fine on a regular Windows 10 computer, regular Chrome browser. Even Windows Phone browser works. 
• On desktop Edge browser, a Chromebook regular browser, or a Chrome incognito window, the app does not load and is stuck on the grey screen of death.

Summary

• All apps consistently work on regular Chrome browser, any user
• All apps consistently do not work on other devices/browsers, any user

Is there a setting I need to clear to make PowerApps work again?

[mr-dang]

Update 2:

• Apps in other environments are also not opening on non-Chrome browser. 
• Switching from one WiFi network did not change outcome. Apps still open in a regular Chrome browser and Studio, but nothing else.

[Thomas_F]

I am also getting the Grey screen with Dynamic 365 on IE 11 (error also occuring in private browsing mode). This error really needs to be fixed if using my app amongst colleagues is going to be a viable option.

T Forster

[sarafankit]

It seems we had a bug with our deployments yesterday which we were able to identify and fix. Can you please try again and let us know if continue to see issues.

Sorry about the downtime you faced.

Regards

[mr-dang]

Confirmed that the fix on Friday worked, but it seems a new bug that might be related has come up:

I saved onto my old app, but now it will not open. I get an error like "The app did not open correctly" on a white screen.

Error logged in the screenshot below:

[mr-dang]

Session ID:bfca046a-287d-d253-ab42-22fe3b82c468

[mr-dang]

I was able to locate a saved version of my app that was able to be opened in the webplayer. I made one change at a time, saved it to the cloud, and attempted to open it.

Problems:

• It takes a very consistent 10 minutes (about 10:20) before the app communicates or fails to communicate. This means that if I wanted to experiment to find out exactly what was causing my app not to open in the webplayer, I would need to wait 10 minutes each time I did this. This was previously a consistent 5 and 3 minutes as described in my earlier post.
• The only app that takes 10 minutes to see if it can open is my heavy app. (400+KB) The others work fine. This is leading me to wonder if there is a limit to the size/complexity of the apps.
• What I have found so far in experimenting is that there is no pattern to what changes can be saved that still work in the webplayer. For instance, I have narrowed down what caused the app not to open: a toggle was added with some Patching, a condition was added for a button to be visible/invisible, a Gallery was sorted. There was no circular reference. The changes were routine things.
• I have been very patient to wait 10 minutes each time I made a change to pinpoint the problem, but I think there is a bottleneck or something on the back-end since the timing is so consistent. When I look at the trace log, each action takes 1000+ms when I have to wait the 10 minutes. Compare that to when an app does not require waiting in which case actions take 155ms or less. I have msapp files that I can share that are able to open and others that are not able to open in the webplayer.

[mr-dang]

The good news is that adding a Flow is NOT the cause of my problems. I originally was afraid that it was the addition of a Flow that corrupted my file; this was the case in older versions of PowerApps. It's a relief that I have been able to operate my first Flow in my apps.

The bad news is that I am still not able to pinpoint why some versions of my app cannot be opened in the webplayer. I am able to add the Flow, but I cannot add a simple formula to go with it to reset my TextInput fields after it runs.

TextInput.Reset: resetfeedback

Button.OnSelect: 
UpdateContext({resetfeedback: !resetfeedback});
UpdateContext({resetfeedback: !resetfeedback})

It's very odd. I have similar resets written everywhere. I have settled with sticking to whatever version is working right now for my users.

[Ryanmch]

I have vertified the 10+ minute duration is happening during the packaging of the app. I will forward the information to the team handling packaging for further investigation.

Thanks,

Ryan