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An Unhandled Exception occurred when opening a workflow

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Created/Edited - 4/16/2026 by Markelio Hoxhallari | Alteryx

Summary

An Unhandled Exception occurred when opening a workflow

Environment

Alteryx Designer

All versions

Error: 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.

Cause

This issue may occur when trying to open a particular workflow which the path or file name are too long.

Resolution

Solution

To identify the issue we need to check the recent error log: %ProgramData%\Alteryx\ErrorLogs

To find the logs, copy the error log above and paste it into the search bar in Windows. This search should take you straight to the folder where these logs live.

Below is an example of the error

Alteryx Designer x64 - 2019.4.8.22007
Type: System.IO.PathTooLongException
Message: The specified path, file name, or both are too long. The fully qualified file name must be less than 260 characters, and the directory name must be less than 248 characters.
Source: mscorlib
OS Version: Microsoft Windows NT 6.2.9200.0
OS Is x64 Capable: True
Selected Plugin: None
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-8850H CPU @ 2.60GHz
Private Memory: 318885888
--------------------------------------------
   at System.IO.Path.LegacyNormalizePath(String path, Boolean fullCheck, Int32 maxPathLength, Boolean expandShortPaths)
   at System.IO.Path.InternalGetDirectoryName(String path)
   at AlteryxGuiToolkit.Staging.StagingFolderCleanup.IsStagedPackageFile(String fileName)
   at AlteryxGuiToolkit.MainWindow.<>c__DisplayClass215_0.b__0()
   at AlteryxGuiToolkit.MainWindow.OpenOrImportFile(String fileName, Boolean bAddToMRU, Boolean bShowError)
   at AlteryxGuiToolkit.MainWindow.OpenInstance(String path)
   at AlteryxGuiToolkit.MainWindow.WndProc(Message& m)

The error logs shows the following message "The specified path, file name, or both are too long. The fully qualified file name must be less than 260 characters, and the directory name must be less than 248 characters."

The message indicates that the path or filename or both are too long.
1. Renaming the file or changing/renaming the path solves the issue.
2. Another solution might be to move the workflow to a location with a shorter path.

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