Student projects won't open

[martinwork]

Describe the bug

Arising from support ticket https://support.microbit.org/helpdesk/tickets/84549 (private)

"Student can see projects on makecode.microbit.org but any projects created before today will not open. An orange box states "Sorry, we can not load this project." The student is able to create a new project and open it. We tried duplicating a previous project but the duplicate will not open either. Student tried logging in from another computer and had the same issue. The student is trying to finish his midterm project and currently can't access any of the code. We have tried clearing caches already."

The student is logging in with Google.

What can we do to investigate the cause or recover the projects?

micro:bit version (please complete the following information):
not hardware related

Desktop (please complete the following information):

• OS: [e.g. iOS] macOS
• Browser [e.g. chrome, safari] Chrome and Safari
• Version [e.g. 22]

[microbit-carlos]

Just to confirm, the projects are saved in their Google account, is that right?
@martinwork is there anyway we can try to replicate this? Does the user have any old hex file that doesn't open in MakeCode anymore, or something?

If they have multiple projects in MakeCode they might be able to download them as a zip file if they select more than 1:

Once they have a hex file, in the meantime, we could also try to "extract it" with the pxt cli tool (pxt extract my_project.hex), maybe we can get the code that way.

[martinwork]

Thanks @microbit-carlos...

Just to confirm, the projects are saved in their Google account, is that right?

That's my understanding: they are logging in using Google, and have tried to log in from another computer.

is there anyway we can try to replicate this?

That's my question really...

Does the user have any old hex file that doesn't open in MakeCode anymore, or something?

I'll ask. I don't think they have been saving hex files. I have suggested that's my favourite way to backup important work.

If they have multiple projects in MakeCode they might be able to download them as a zip file if they select more than 1:

That's a good idea. I'll suggest it.

[abchatra]

@eanders-ms can we lookup in the cloud?

[martinwork]

@microbit-carlos @abchatra @eanders-ms The student has tried again today, and can now open all projects.
Could this be a network error?
Would there be a clue in the browser console?

"Please thank Carlos for the suggestion.

The student's MacBook Air is running Sonoma 14.0 and Chrome 131.0.6778.109.

Today the student logged into makecode.microbit.org as usual and was able to open all of his past projects without any trouble. I'm not aware of any changes to his Macbook, but we quickly saved a backup of the .hex files!"

[abchatra]

This is interesting. This is not a case of "dog ate my homework" right?

[microbit-carlos]

Looks like the ticket was raised by a teacher and they mentioned things they tried together, so it looks genuine.

[martinwork]

I've relayed the question through the ticket.