PowerApps Crashing in Browser (App not Studio)

[PaulD1]

I am investigating a Canvas App being run in Chrome (though I can confirm the issue occurs in New Edge as well) which is prone to regular crashes and has been for over a year.

When this occurs, the 'spinning wheel of death' appears for a few seconds and the App restarts itself.

The App does not crash when being run in Studio.

We have found some repeatable steps that cause the App to crash - navigating screens and interacting with controls in a specific order.

I have followed these steps while Performance Monitor is running and can see the individual calls recorded (5 getRows actions) immediately prior to a crash but none of these will cause the crash on its own - so I suspect this is not related to the network calls, but something happening internally that does not show up in Performance Monitor.

The App is quite large, 28 screens and around 50 (SQL) datasources (tables and views in the same database).

I'd welcome suggestions for how to progress... 

[jlindstrom]

You are definitely stretching the limits of canvas apps. With 28 screens, are you under the 500 control limit? Keep in mind that some controls like forms are multiple controls--a data card, a label, an input field, etc. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powerapps/maker/canvas-apps/performance-tips

please watch this session:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3ILG7OsLz4. It's a great session from Alison Mulligan about how to use a gallery to avoid overloading your apps with a bunch of controls.

Have you optimized your sql server? if queries are long running it can cause issues like this.

You should open a support ticket to troubleshoot the issue.

[PaulD1]

Thanks @jlindstrom 

I did not build the App and agree it is definitely stretching the limits. I've advised the users we should move to a different technology for this, however, it is my responsibility to get it running as well as I can in the mean time.

I have rationalised the screens and controls and optimised the SQL DB as far as I reasonably can, which does seem to have reduced the frequency of crashes considerably.

I'm in the process of raising a support ticket - the good thing is that the crashes are repeatable so easy to demonstrate to the support team.

[jlindstrom]

I'm not the biggest expert on Power Apps based on SQL but I used to work with SQL a lot, just wondering if something could be locking one of the tables.

[v-xida-msft]

Hi @PaulD1 ,

Regarding the issue that you mentioned, I agree with @jlindstrom 's thought almost. I think this issue may be related to canvas app performance/Runtime issue.

In order to make your canvas app in a good performance, please Don’t connect to more than 30 data sources from the same app. Currently, I could not reproduce your issue on my side.

In addition, please consider turn on the "Explicit column selection" option, "Delayed load" option and "Use non-blocking OnStart rule" within Advanced settings of App settings of your app, then re-published your canvas app.

I agree with you almost. Maybe an assisted support ticket would help in your scenario.

Regards,

[PaulD1]

@jlindstrom Thanks for the idea.

I don't think that is the case - if I click Screen 1, select an item from DropDown X, click on Screen 2, then click on Screen 1 again, the App consistently crashes.

If I do the same but leave out one step or add an additional step (e.g. click a different control or click Screen 3 before going back to Screen 1) the App does not crash.

The same network calls (filters) are run in either case and the database is light on data entry, so it does not look like a locking or time-out issue. In fact in Performance monitor I can see the durations for the getRows is very short.

[jlindstrom]

@v-xida-msft @Correct me if I’m wrong but 50 sql tables is still just one data source. Even though multiple tables it is just one connection that has to authenticate

[PaulD1]

Thanks @v-xida-msft 

I already had 'delayed load' turned on.

I turned on Explicit Columns Selection and the non-blocking on-start rule as well (normally I have these off as we have found they can cause issues in this particular App) and republished but we observe the same crashing behaviour.

I'll see what comes back from the support ticket. I think this App is just to large for the platform to handle but it would be great to know the specific cause (in case we can work around it) and it is frustrating that there seem to be no logs or tools available to reveal what it is happening when the App just crashes out.

[v-xida-msft]

Hi @PaulD1 ,

Thanks for your feedback. If you could solve your problem from the support ticket, please feel free to share the solution here, so we or any other users could learn from it.😁

Regards,

[PaulD1]

Microsoft support advise that this is a known issue, but there is no known work-around and no ETA on when the issue may be resolved - for now we just have to live with it and hope that eventually the cause is determined and fixed in a future Power Apps update.