Error 222 Cannot start application for the specified document. Check your program associations. Failed to generate managed workspace configuration file.

Product(s) and Version(s):  

MicroStation integrated to ProjectWise Explorer 

Problem:   

Design files, with Managed Workspace association, were failing to open from ProjectWise Explorer. The following error message is displayed, 

Last Error [222] 
Cannot start application for the specified document. Check your program associations. 
Failed to generate managed workspace configuration file. 

On removing the Managed Workspace associations from the file, the file opens perfectly. 

Troubleshooting Steps:  

The root cause of this issue was a MicroStation configuration variable which was defined incorrectly in the Managed Workspace configuration. Such configuration variables can be defined in the ProjectWise CSBs (Configuration Settings Block) or, the CFG files included with the CSBs. 

To capture the issue, the following parameters were turned up for the pwc log on the user’s machine: 

• Pwise.dms 
• Pwise.dms.workspace 

The following link details how to gather elevated ProjectWise Explorer Client logs to capture the issue: 
https://communities.bentley.com/products/projectwise/w/wiki/64778/projectwise-log-elevation-and-gathering-process 

In this case, the following ERROR lines were observed in the pwc.log file, 

2023-09-25 16:15:52,868 ERROR [0x00007bf4] pwise.dms.workspace - (): With error 10 failed to expand macro MS_PLTFILES value '$(dms_project (_DGNDIR)\' 
2023-09-25 16:15:52,869 FATAL [0x00007bf4] pwise.dms.workspace - collectCompiledFileContent(): Failed. 
2023-09-25 16:15:54,277 ERROR [0x000057f8] pwise.dms.workspace - Failed to compile configuration files. Compilation failed with aaApi error [10] and error message [(null)]. 
2023-09-25 16:15:54,277 ERROR [0x000057f8] pwise.dms.workspace - Failed to create final configuration file. 
2023-09-25 16:15:54,278 ERROR [0x000057f8] pwise.dms.workspace - Configuration file generation for the document [440615, 14] failed. 
2023-09-25 16:15:58,083 ERROR [0x000057f8] pwise.dms - Error 222 "Cannot start application for the specified document. Check your program associations. Failed to generate managed workspace configuration file." 

The above ERROR lines in the pwc.log indicates that the variable of MS_PLTFILES is defined incorrectly in one of the CFG files or ProjectWise CSBs. As a result, the configuration file fails to generate for the design files. 

The pwc.log file indicates the format of the statement is '$(dms_project (_DGNDIR)\' which is incorrect.  
 
The correct format is: 
$(dms_project (_DGNDIR))

Solution: 

Once you find the offending variable from the log file, the next step is to find the variable and correct it in either the ProjectWise CSB’s, or the workspace config files in ProjectWise Explorer.  

The following solution follows the example log file mentioned above. 

Finding the variable in the ProjectWise CSB’s 

To find out whether the variable is defined incorrectly in any of the ProjectWise CSBs & correct it, please follow the steps given below: 

1. In ProjectWise Administrator tool, browse to Workspaces> Managed. Right click on the first CSB that is defined under Predefined level & go to Properties.
   
    
2. In the Properties dialog box, go to the Configuration tab. Use the button shown below to float the Configuration Variables window.  
   Correct the format of the configuration variable of MS_PLTFILES, if it exists in this CSB. 
   
   

Repeat the process for all the CSBs in all the levels namely, 
Predefined, Global, Application, Customer, Organization/Site, Workspace, Workset/Project, Role, User 

Finding the variable in the ProjectWise workspace config files 

To find out whether the variable is defined incorrectly in any of the included PW CFGs and correct it, please follow the steps given below: 

1. In ProjectWise Explorer, follow the steps given below to purge the local working directory: 
   1. Click on Tools menu & select ‘Local Document Organizer...’ 
      
      
   2. Look into the ‘Checked Out Documents’ tab and check in any files observed in this tab. 
      
      
      
   3. Look into the ‘Copies’,‘Workspace Copies’ and ‘Exports’ tab. If any items are observedin any of these tabs, select all of them in bulk, right click and select ‘Purge Copy’. This will purge all files from the local working directory. 
      
      
      
2. Delete all the folders inside the local working directory, including the ‘Workspaces’ folder.  
   The local working directory is usually present in the following location, 
   C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Bentley\pwworkdir 
   
   The local working directory can be found using the following steps given below, 
   In ProjectWise, select Tools > Options and on the Settings tab, expand the Working Directory leaf and the ‘When Using ProjectWise Explorer’ leaf.  
   
   This will show your local file root folder which will contain many subfolders named for the folder ID from ProjectWise with either a “d” or “dms” as the first character(s) of the folder names, before the folder ID numbers.
   More information on ProjectWise local working directory can be found in the following Help documentation link, 
   https://docs.bentley.com/LIVECONTENT/WEB/PROJECTWISE%20ADMINISTRATOR%20HELP-V10/EN/GUID-4E1A21E3-8610-40DC-918C-F4D03881478C.html 
3. Please open the design file from PW Explorer and wait for it to fail with the error on managed workspace.
4. By now, all the applicable cfgs (or any other file in the Managed Workspace configuration) would have been copied out to the local working directory.
5. Browse to the local working directory to observe what files have been copied out. Use the Windows Search functionality to find the CFG files containing the incorrect variable (MS_PLTFILES in this example). 
6. Alternately, use the Windows Search function to find all the files having extension of cfg. You can search using the keyword *.cfg. 
7. The individual cfg files can be opened one-by-one using Notepad++ or any similar ASCII editor. Search across the files for the statement of,  
   $(dms_project (_DGNDIR)) 
8. Correct the formatting of the variable in the corresponding CFG file inside ProjectWise Explorer, wherever it exists. Upload the corrected CFG file inside ProjectWise. Use the dms folder ID to locate the necessary ProjectWise folder where the CFG should be corrected. 

Sometimes, files of different extensions (other than cfg) can be included in the Managed Workspace configuration using %include statements. These files need to be reviewed for the variable of MS_PLTFILES as well.