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Java application stopped working with PAD

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Posted on by Dynamo

Hello,

I've been using PAD to automate small process with a Java application. The process is run daily and has been working flawlessly for past few months. However, today I noticed that the automation has failed because it can't find the elements within the application anymore, only the tab part of the application. Nothing has really changed (updated PAD but the problem stayed) and Java version or it's installation hasn't been modified.

What could be the problem?

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Power Automate Desktop

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Dynamo 50 on at

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Bumping this. It seems that downgrading the PAD to previous version make the elements work again but then the cloud runs are disabled (as it prompts to update PAD...)

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azimzicar 72 on at

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Sorry I don't have a solution but a suggestion.

Try this operation on another machine where PAD hasn't been installed and see if the behaviour is the same. This will help you narrow down to the root cause. You should know if the issue is with a bug on latest version of PAD or simply your machine.

If it turns out to be your machine, you can remove PAD alogn with any leftover files and then reinstall clean.

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Dynamo 50 on at

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Hello, it seems that the problem is indeed with the new version of PAD as the functionality was the same in another machine. So older PAD version = elements are found, cloud runs won't work, newest PAD version = elements not found, cloud runs available

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Agnius Bartninkas Most Valuable Professional on at

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Bumping this up, because we experience the same issue with one of the clients, using a JAVA-based ERP system. It's failing since Friday, when we updated their version of PAD.

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azimzicar 72 on at

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probably best to raise as bug and log support ticket with Microsoft. from what @Dynamo has mentioned, this appears to be an issued with the PAD software

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Agnius Bartninkas Most Valuable Professional on at

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I already have raised this with MS. Will come back when I have more info.

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Dynamo 50 on at

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Hello there, I've also raised a ticket about this and referenced this thread as it seems that we're not alone with this issue.

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Agnius Bartninkas Most Valuable Professional on at

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I had some communication with MS support and they suggested looking into the following (unedited):
Make sure you have Java installed in your machine. You may check this by:
First, let's open a command window or terminal and enter: > java –version
If Java is not installed in your machine, then you will receive an error message as:
'java' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file.
Java Access Bridge from Control Panel should be disabled
Go to ‘Control Panel->Ease of Access->Optimize visual display->Java Access Bridge from Oracle, Inc. Providing Assistive Technology access to Java applications’ and disable (uncheck) the ‘Enable Java Access Bridge’ option.

Specific files must exist in the Java folder(s) of the machine after the PAD installation.
You may check the installed Java version and installation path in your machine by:
Type ‘Configure Java’ in the Search bar of Windows
Open Java control panel
Go to ‘Java’ tab

Click on ‘View’
Check values in ‘Path’ column. Row with ‘Architecture’ equal to x86 refers to 32-bit Java installation, while the row with value ‘x86x64’ refers to 64-bit Java installation.

You may check the below files:
For 64-bit Java installation:
File ‘PAD.Java.Bridge.Native.dll’ should have been replaced in folder ‘C:\Program Files\Java\jre1.8.0_271\bin’. (jre1.8.0_271 could be replaced with your machine’s Java installation)
File ‘accessibility.properties’ should have been replaced in folder ‘C:\Program Files\Java\jre1.8.0_271\lib’. (jre1.8.0_271 could be replaced with your machine’s Java installation)
If you edit the file with a notepad, it should have the following value: “assistive_technologies=com.sun.java.accessibility.AccessBridge, microsoft.flows.rpa.JavaBridge”
File ‘PAD.JavaBridge.jar’ should have been inserted in folder ‘C:\Program Files\Java\jre1.8.0_271\lib\ext’. (jre1.8.0_271 could be replaced with your machine’s Java installation)
For 32-bit Java installation:
Same actions for the same files as above but in folder path ‘C:\Program Files (x86) \Java…’
Make sure there isn't an '.accessibility.properties' file present in your user folder.
Check ‘C:\Users\user’ if a file with name ‘.accessibility.properties’ is present. If yes, then please rename it.
Ensure that 'VC_redist.x64.exe' and/or 'VC_redist.x86.exe' have been executed.

We have tried most of the following (especially re. having Java installed properly and having the Java Access Bridge set up, which is something we always do, when working with Java apps).

The thing, however, is that what my team did last night was as follows:
Uninstall PAD to install an earlier version that worked fine with Java (we had a setup file saved from earlier). This made the PAD flows work fine, but then cloud flows could not start them. This was a temporary solution, while MS works on resolving the issue.
MS then asked us to provide a version number for the PAD version that was not working. So, my team updated it again. But, alas, it was now working fine with the latest version, too.
Checked that the latest version is still the same as the one that 'did not work' yesterday, indicating that MS did not really patch the issue yet.
So, basically, it seems like re-installing PAD did the trick.

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Agnius Bartninkas Most Valuable Professional on at

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We were prompted to update to version 2.14.173.21294 today, which made the issue re-appear.
However, reverting back to 2.13.163.21263 solved the issue and this version still works with cloud flows, so at least we can live with that for now. But if you do have Java-related processes, I suggest not updating to 2.14 for now.

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Agnius Bartninkas Most Valuable Professional on at

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The issue seems to only appear when updating an existing installation of PAD to a later version.
But when PAD is uninstalled from the machine and then installed again, it works fine.
We have confirmed this with both v2.13 and v2.14. Updating the app causes the issue. Re-installing it fixes the issue.

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