Hi team,
I’d like to report the following incident from a school teacher here in Hong Kong:
Summary
A teacher at a Hong Kong primary school (保良局雨川小學, Po Leung Kuk Riverain Primary School) is unable to upload a 25.2 MB .aia project file to ai2a.appinventor.mit.edu. The error occurs consistently across two different accounts, multiple browsers, and two different networks (school and home). The same file uploads successfully from other accounts on different machines.
Environment
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Server: ai2a.appinventor.mit.edu
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Accounts tested:
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mokws@site.plkrps.edu.hk (teacher's account — has 14+ existing projects dating back to 2019, most recently modified Jul 13, 2026)
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cs05@site.plkrps.edu.hk (shared student/class account — empty project list)
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Browsers tested: Multiple (Chrome, others — teacher confirmed trying different browsers)
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Networks tested: School network AND home residential network — same error on both
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File: riverain6d01.aia — 25.2 MB (well under the 30 MB limit)
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Error message: "Server error: could not upload project. Please try again later!" (English) / "伺服器故障：無法上傳專案，請稍後重試！" (Traditional Chinese)
Timeline
- Mid-to-late June 2026: Teacher successfully uploaded 4 similar-sized .aia files to the same account (mokws@site.plkrps.edu.hk) using the school network. No issues.
- Early July 2026 onward: Upload consistently fails. The teacher has been unable to upload any new project files since.
- July 13, 2026: Teacher contacted us (MIT Hong Kong Innovation Node). We tested the exact same riverain6d01.aia file (25.2 MB) from our own accounts (Gmail and @mit.edu) on both macOS and Windows — uploaded successfully with no issues on both the old and new App Inventor interfaces.
- July 14, 2026: Teacher confirmed the issue persists on her home network (not school). Also tested with a different account (cs05@site.plkrps.edu.hk) — same error.
What has been ruled out
- Network: Fails on both school network and home residential network. Our uploads from a different network (at the Node) succeed.
- Browser: Teacher has tried multiple browsers. Same error.
- Account: Two different accounts under the same school domain (@site.plkrps.edu.hk) both fail.
- File size: The file is 25.2 MB, well under the 30 MB limit. The exact same file uploads fine from our accounts (Gmail and @mit.edu).
- File corruption: We received the file and uploaded it successfully ourselves so it’s not corrupted.
What this points to
The common factor across all failed attempts is the school email domain (@site.plkrps.edu.hk). Both accounts under this domain fail, while accounts outside this domain we have tried succeed with the same file. This suggests a possible server-side issue related to:
- A storage quota or rate limit applied at the domain/organization level on the ai2a server
- A server-side regression introduced around early July 2026 that affects certain Google Workspace for Education domain accounts
- A possible issue with how the ai2a server authenticates or allocates storage for accounts from this specific domain
Screenshots
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Screenshot 1 — mokws@site.plkrps.edu.hk (Chrome, Traditional Chinese, home network): Error banner: "伺服器故障：無法上傳專案，請稍後重試！". Account has 14+ existing projects (most recent modification: Jul 13, 2026). Teacher has been an active App Inventor user since 2019.
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Screenshot 2 — cs05@site.plkrps.edu.hk (Chrome Incognito, English, home network): Error banner: "Server error: could not upload project. Please try again later!". Project list is empty.
Linked file - https://drive.google.com/file/d/145IqIr8JBFFxDUJc3T-lb1iZsWKbH_IR/view?usp=sharing
- riverain6d01.aia (25.2 MB) — the file that fails to upload from the teacher's accounts but succeeds from ours.
Request
Could the server team please investigate whether there is a domain-level or account-level issue affecting @site.plkrps.edu.hk accounts on ai2a.appinventor.mit.edu? The teacher has been using the platform for years and this issue only started in July 2026.
Many thanks!
Cheers,
Edward
Technical Manager
MIT Hong Kong Innovation Node
