Hello,
I would like to share with you a strange thing that happens to me with Sharepoint Designer 2013.
I designed two list workflows with SPD 2013 for a Sharepoint Online platform.

Both workflows works in the engine as designed, but sometimes happens that in SPD they just don't open in the designer view, even if they do not give errors in the execution view

The error message is that Sharepoint Designer has encountered an error and needs to be restarted. (Obviously restarting does not solve).
Sometimes happens also that the workflows opens but blank, with no steps.

Since this is an online platform, I can't consult logs.

I am thinking to open a ticket with Microsoft, but I would like also to ask to the community if someone encountered this and can suggest a way to troubleshoot what happened and why.

Thanks!

Hi,

According to your description, my understanding is that the workflow cannot be opened in SharePoint Designer and sometimes it opened with no steps.

Did this issue occur with other workflows and did it occur often with the same workflow?

I recommend to uninstall SharePoint Designer, delete all the files in the three locations below:

1. C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WebsiteCache
2. C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\SharePoint Designer\ProxyAssemblyCache
3. C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Web Server Extensions\Cache

After that reboot the client and re-install SharePoint Designer 2013 with the latest updates packaged to see if the issue still occurs.

If the issue still occurs with the same workflow, it may be caused by a known issue or by manual manipulation of the XAML in SharePoint Designer 2013 that can corrupt the workflow, then we need to recreate the workflow.

Best regards.

Thanks

I have the same symptoms, clearing the 3 caches listed makes no difference. SPD 2013 64-bit. Workflows open fine from SPD with same credentials on another machine on the same network.