Many times project application crash can happen due to bad data in the project plan, which could happen during opening or saving the project plan. There is no fixed answer to what causes corruption, however some known conditions are as below, which could help to narrow down or conclude certain crashing behavior.
• Unexpected shutdown of project application
• Closing project applications before saving job is completed
• Copying and pasting links
• Using project plans as templates
• Opening mpp file from network share for editing (related to MPP files saved on
network share)
• Different patch levels of clients and server
• Network connectivity issue , like WI-FI/VPN connection dropping frequent
• Third party add-ins
• Outdated printer drivers
• Duplicate resource
• Corrupt local cache.
• Antivirus
• Corrupt Enterprise global.
• Application is not updated with recent "Stable" CU for long time.
• Bug (Should be able to repro the issue with specific set of instructions
irrespective of user or system)
Every time Project or any office application crashes make sure to click on "Send information to Microsoft". Microsoft servers collects this information to analyze the pattern which eventually identifies common scenario to be fixed via hotfix\cu or Service pack.
Most common method to fix small corruption is "Save for sharing" round-trip. XML round-trip should be treated as last option, since this method is known for loosing lot of information when project plan is resaved in MPP.
I agree this is not the complete list and I will be happy to see comments and looking forward to update this list
Hope this helps.
Hrishi Deshpande