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Performance (between steps)

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Posted on by dcullenleics

Hi,

I'm running a desktop flow using the play button (not in debug mode) and the application appears to run really slowly, there seems to be a delay between steps (a few seconds). Actually pasting into a text field goes quickly but it just seems to wait/hang between steps.

Is there a way for me to debug what is happening? I didn't think there was meant to be any delay between steps if running is normal made. My flow isn't particularly large (100 actions).

Am I somehow been throttled because I'm using the free trial for 90 days? Is it calling the web to run it?

Any help much appreciated.

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Power Automate Desktop

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Srini007 3,467 Super User 2026 Season 1 on at

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Hi @dcullenleics

It really depends on what actions you are using, and any timeouts / delays you have in the flow

Alternatively, if you are doing large operations then it will take time as well

You can build a small workflow where it take the timestamp, you can keep after the action, so that you can see which action is consuming more time

Also, it's better you have good organized code as well into subflows, also check you have the proper closure of actions when it comes to Excel / database kind of actions

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Srini

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dcullenleics 36 on at

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I'm starting to think it could be an issue with tunnelling through our proxy server.

Do we know if the actions are downloaded to the machine or is there constant calls between the client and Microsoft cloud to know what to do next?

I have definitely organized into sub-flows and all I am doing is reading from a CSV into variables in a loop and then mainly using the "Populate text field in window" action and then a few "Send keys" actions to navigate around tabs (Alt+2) for example.

I will add some timestamps to get some better data.

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Agnius Bartninkas Most Valuable Professional on at

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It's not that it downloads each action from the cloud. It downloads all of them initially before it starts the flow. But there is a constant connection to the cloud to log every single action. So, yes, there is constant communication between PAD and the cloud.

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dcullenleics 36 on at

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Thanks for confirming that.

Do we know what particular URLs from this list (IP address configuration - Power Automate | Microsoft Learn) are doing the logging? I could potentially whitelist that URL to go direct rather than through a proxy.

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Agnius Bartninkas Most Valuable Professional on at

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As far as I know, that's not explicitly stated. But perhaps you can track your network traffic through the proxy when you run your flow and see what it's doing in the background. Try whitelisting those.

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dcullenleics 36 on at

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So I've done some digging in the logs. It looks as though there is a significant delay on "Populate text field in window" (see screenshot).

Is there any particular reason this would be happening that you can think of?

I have just found another post ('Populate text field in window' takes a long time - Power Platform Community (microsoft.com)) which seems like the same issue.

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Agnius Bartninkas Most Valuable Professional on at

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That's because the flow must first find the element before it can populate it. It takes a while to find a UI element in most cases. That's just how it is. But it also depends a bit on the way your selector is built. If it includes the entire hierarchy from top to bottom, this usually works a bit faster. If it only includes a few parent elements (or none at all), it takes longer for the flow to find the element.

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Srini007 3,467 Super User 2026 Season 1 on at

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Hi @dcullenleics

For every UI based actions there will some default timeout to wait if the element is not found unless you place a custom timeout value, Maybe this action has 30 seconds default timeout.

But this will not the case if the element is found, then it will not wait that many seconds, As @Agnius said it depends on how you construct you selector also

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Pavel_NaNoi 1,074 on at

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Sometimes the selectors can just be plain awful and do this kind of thing (Just try Words' top-bar menus, a minute per inner menu button). In this case a possible simple work-around would be to simply select the field via a click and then use Send Keys. Not the most comfortable work-around but it will work.

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dcullenleics 36 on at

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I found it to work much faster by clicking into the first form field using "Click UI element in window" and then using Send keys to send the data and tabbing into the next fields. The UI selector was just unworkable.

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