Attachment content cannot be null or empty

(1) Share

Report

Posted on by abhender

Hi all,

I know this question has been asked before but there was no solution so I figured I'd ask again.

I built a simple but fairly long flow that takes the information from a SharePoint list entered from Powerapps, translates it, then creates two different pdf's (Spanish and English) and sends it out in an email to multiple recipients.

The flow works 50% of the time with the other 50% occurring at the very last step [send an email(V2)], giving me the error:

Parameter 'Attachment Content' cannot be null or empty.
clientRequestId: 37adc4f7-288a-4616-b4f8-cdd7cf65835b

The attachment content is not null, I have dynamic files running, there is nothing hard coded, I have even tried adding delays and switching around the flow.

The only temporary fix is building the flow from scratch each time which is terribly time consuming.

Any help is appreciated! TIA

Categories:

General topics

I have the same question (0)

All responses (13)

Answers (1)

Sort by

jinivthakkar 4,187 on at

Like (0)

Report
Copy link

Link copied!

Can you please share screenshots ? and if there are multiple attachments are you iterating in a loop and then getting attachment content for each file ?

Please check this link :

https://www.techmeet360.com/blog/how-to-send-an-email-attachment-using-microsoft-flow/

Was this reply helpful? Yes No
HEATFreight 1,024 on at

Like (0)

Report
Copy link

Link copied!
I have an attachment which is clearly not empty, yet my flow has an email error.

"body":{"status":400,"message":"Parameter 'Attachment Content' cannot be null or empty.\r\nclientRequestId: 2c948bd4-b51d-4097-861f-44dfdccb8d14","error":{"message":"Parameter 'Attachment Content' cannot be null or empty."},"source":"office365-wus.azconn-wus-01.p.azurewebsites.net"}}

The output from the "Get file content using path" action is this

{ "$content-type": "application/pdf", "$content": "JVBERi0xLjQKJaqr....=" }

And the attachment is attached using the normal way (not as an array). Like
Name.pdf

and
@body('Get_file_content_using_path')?['body']

How can this be null? Is this a transient issue that will fix itself? I worry that I am over my OneDrive data quota, and not sure how to fix.

Was this reply helpful? Yes No
HEATFreight 1,024 on at

Like (0)

Report
Copy link

Link copied!
Ok now I have passed in the attachment as an array via a compose function:
{ "Name": @{outputs('Get_file_metadata_using_path')?['body/DisplayName']}, "Content": @{body('Get_file_content_using_path')?['body']} }

And the compose:
@{variables('Array')}

Attachments (Send an email V2):
[ { "Name": "Name.pdf", "Content": { "$content-type": "application/pdf", "$content": "JVBERi0xLjQKJaqrrK0KMSAwIG9iago8PAo...=" } } ]

Error details:
The 'inputs.parameters' of workflow operation 'Send_an_email_(V2)' of type 'OpenApiConnection' is not valid. Error details: The API operation 'SendEmailV2' is missing required property 'emailMessage/Attachments/0/ContentBytes'.

Was this reply helpful? Yes No
gpohlod 38 on at

Like (0)

Report
Copy link

Link copied!

Hi @abhender ,

Are you sending one email or multiple emails at the same time?

If multiple emails, try adding a delay of 20 seconds between emails and see if that helps. It seems to have solved my issue.

Was this reply helpful? Yes No
HEATFreight 1,024 on at

Like (0)

Report
Copy link

Link copied!
Hey @abhender, I solved my problem by figuring out the difference between "Content" and "ContentBytes".

Certain scenarios require one or the other, and I don't really understand it, but I know when to use each one for my use cases. If you are having trouble, switch to the other and see if it fixes the problem, like:

{ "Name": @{outputs('Get_file_metadata_using_path')?['body/DisplayName']}, "Content": @{body('Get_file_content_using_path')?['body']} }
vs.
{ "Name": @{outputs('Get_file_metadata_using_path')?['body/DisplayName']}, "ContentBytes": @{body('Get_file_content_using_path')?['body']} }

Was this reply helpful? Yes No
Ian @ SU 6 on at

Like (0)

Report
Copy link

Link copied!

I am getting the same issues, sending one email with 2 attachments. Both attachments are valid, as saving them to OneDrive works consistently immediately before the send as email. I tried the suggestion from @HEATFreight; the default in my PowerApps is to use "ContentBytes": for the attachment, and it gives me an error if I change it to "Content": I am wondering if it could be a timeout issue, as it seems more likely when the attachments are larger (around 2Mb in my task - a PDF). It also works fine sometimes, and not others, with no change to the script.

Was this reply helpful? Yes No
gpohlod 38 on at

Like (0)

Report
Copy link

Link copied!

Hey @goodingip ,

I found it's very inconsistent and the only way I've been able to get it working consistently was to build it as a solution that calls child flows. The parent flow passes the path info of the file to the child flow which gets it from in my case SharePoint, then attaches the email and sends and returns to the parent flow, so it can call the next email.

Was this reply helpful? Yes No
Verified answer

abhender 13 on at

Like (0)

Report
Copy link

Link copied!

Thanks everyone for the replies, the flow started working shortly after I posted this message. The fix was that I had to upload all of the translated versions (documents) to the SharePoint list first as an attachment. Unlike before, I just had my array pulling the generated files as soon as they became translated. Then I used the whole "get attachments" scenario to grab them all again and put them in an array to be emailed. (There are some skipped steps below but they're not pertinent to the flow working). Hope this helps.

Was this reply helpful? Yes No
Ian @ SU 6 on at

Like (0)

Report
Copy link

Link copied!

That's helpful advice, thanks @gpohlod. I think what is happening in our case is that the licence I'm using isn't meaty enough (PowerApps Plan 2), so we're getting arbitrarily cut off when we do something complex. I've see it randomly stop at other points in our flow, so in our case it doesn't seem to be anything per se to do with the email attachments.

See Limits and configuration - Power Automate | Microsoft Docs for how Microsoft have chosen to limit flow functionality unless you buy a per-flow plan. I borrowed a Dynamics 365 licence and it instantly fixed the problem. As a charity, I'm trying to do stuff without fancy licencing, but in this case we're going to have to pay to get the business efficiency we are looking for.

Was this reply helpful? Yes No
everstab 6 on at

Like (0)

Report
Copy link

Link copied!

Hi,
I am getting the empty content error message when trying to attach attachments from a SharePoint list to an approval, even though the attachments are NOT empty. I believe my flow is correct and it does work up until the approval. I even put in a 5 minute delay since I work in a non-profit and some posts said our version of Power Automate may not be as robust in performance. I am still getting the same error. Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks,
Pat

Was this reply helpful? Yes No