How To Deal With SharePoint Designer Soap Server Error

If you are attempting to edit a SharePoint site using SharePoint Designer and you receive a Soap Server error:

 

This usually means there are some SharePoint Webparts on your site that have errors on them and they need to be deleted.  These webpart errors are causing your site to not open.

Browse to your SharePoint site and append:  ?contents=1 at the end of the url
i.e.
http://yoururl?contents=1

This will bring up the Web Part Page Maintenance page.  Here it will display all webparts on your site.  You might see something like this:

Webpart Title:  Error
Type:  ErrorWebPart
Open on Page:  Yes or No

Check off all Webparts that are throwing errors and delete them all.

Attempt to try and reopen your site using SharePoint Designer again.  If you already have SharePoint Designer open you might have to close out of it completely and reopen it so it will reestablish a new connection to your site.

You should now be able to edit your site using SharePoint Designer.

A good practice is to often check your Web Part Page Maintenance page to see if there are any webpart errors.  If so delete them all.