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Alteryx Designer Desktop Knowledge Base

Definitive answers from Designer Desktop experts.

Unhandled Exception Occurred, Now What?

lepome
Alteryx Alumni (Retired)
Created

Unhandled Exception Occurred, Now What?


Where do you start when you see "An Unhandled Exception occurred"?  There could be a wide range of causes for this kind of error, so the resolution requires that you collect some more information.
 

Prerequisites

  • Alteryx Designer or Alteryx Server
    • All versions
 

Procedure


The error information shown below is vague, so when you see it, you might not immediately know what to do about it. 
An Unhandled Exception occurred.

A previous action may not have completed successfully.

Click OK to send the development team the error log so that we can fix this error in a subsequent release. 

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This error message is a catch-all.  What it means is that you've done something beyond what the programmers expected. 
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  1. Pay close attention to what you were doing when the error occurred.  Were you modifying a tool's configuration or issuing some sort of command like opening, running, or saving something?
  2. Look for Error Logs that might have been generated for the error.
    1.  If Error Logs have been created, they'll be in %ProgramData%\Alteryx\ErrorLogs.  ProgramData is a hidden directory, so you may need to paste that path into your File Explorer or set it to show Hidden Items:
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    2. If the ErrorLogs directory exists, open it and look for appropriate time stamps, including within subdirectories.
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    3. If there is a log that has an appropriate time stamp, particularly in the AlteryxGui subdirectory, open it in an editor like Notepad or Notepad++, and see what it says beside "Message:".  There are some examples below:
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    4. If there are no relevant logs in the Alteryx\ErrorLogs directory, then you should pull the Windows Event logs.
    5. If you can tell what the problem is, go ahead and fix it.  Even if you cannot interpret the messages in the logs, then at least you can search Community with more information than just "Unhandled Exception."
    6. If you cannot find relevant information in the Community, then please open a case by contacting Customer Support and describe what you were doing when you saw the Unhandled Exception, preferably with a full screen shot that includes context.  Also, provide the error logs you found.


Additional Resources

Comments
RWvanLeeuwen
11 - Bolide

Story of my recent life working with Alteryx is continuously receiving the message: "Object reference not set to an instance of an object." before Designer becomes utterly unusable. Please fix this!!

SaadNaser
8 - Asteroid

Actually i have this message in the 
C:\ProgramData\Alteryx\ErrorLogs\AlteryxGUI

 

Message: Invalid URI: The format of the URI could not be determined.

 

what is the solution for this error?

 

lepome
Alteryx Alumni (Retired)

@SaadNaser 
I would conclude that somewhere there is a URL that is not a valid format.  The full error message might tell you where. 
Possible places I can think of would be in the connected galleries or in a phone home configuration.  If you cannot find more detail from the full message, then start by looking at the %AppData%\Alteryx\Engine\UserSettings.xml and the C:\ProgramData\Alteryx\RuntimeSettings.xml to see whether you can find any URLs that either have typos in the http:// or https://  or don't end with a .TLD.  Please note that the RuntimeSettings.xml is almost always on the C: drive, even if the Designer (or Server) was installed to a different location.  Also, ProgramData is a hidden directory, so you might need to paste or type in the path.

As always, users who have paid licenses can open a case with Support.  It will be most efficient if you include

  • a screenshot showing the error in context,
  • the file you mentioned,
  • the version of software you are running, and
  • a narrative description of what you do when the errors occur. 

If things had been working correctly in the past, please mention that along with anything you know has recently changed in your computing environment.  The Customer Support Engineer (CSE) will need that information to determine what the root cause is and to help you correct it.

RWvanLeeuwen
11 - Bolide

I want to add to my previous reply, that i have reached out to support. I am just referring to the fact that a Complete Uninstall of Alteryx Designer is not a silver bullet.