Issue with Selectors of UI element

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Posted on by trice602

16,269 Super User 2026 Season 1

Hi all,

I am looking for some reference material (links, blogs, videos) where I can learn more about configuring the Default Selector of a UI element in Power Automate Desktop. I have successfully clicked on this button more than 15,000 times in unattended runs and now I am having an issue clicking on this button. I have verified nothing has changed in the UI or code. While I have been successful by adding variables here and figuring out what I need to do to get flows to run, admittedly I don't understand everything here with selectors.

Any links and comments are greatly appreciated! Thanks, Tom

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Agnius Bartninkas Most Valuable Professional on at

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Are you sure the Id of that <div> is not dynamic? Have you tried recapturing it as a new selector and comparing the result? Maybe the element in your web page has changed. It does happen.

The two most useful links for modifying selectors that I've been referencing are this article: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-automate/desktop-flows/build-custom-selectors and this YouTube video: https://youtu.be/2PcyBa22Jj8

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trice602 16,269 Super User 2026 Season 1 on at

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Thanks @Agnius ,

I did all the regular troubleshooting steps: 1) revisited the output 2) checked the selector for changes and 3) recaptured the step and compared to the original for differences (all exactly the same), 4) re-ran with new step, and 5) added a delay and retries. The last thing I will try is watching this run and see if I see something. The issue that I haven't been unable to understand in PAD yet is this is running on a lot of different VMs and other attended and unattended solutions very successfully (I'm guessing 15,000+ runs is a success) but occasionally, this happens and it's a guess what is the root cause on my part.

Thanks for the links and your time! Much appreciated. Tom

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trice602 16,269 Super User 2026 Season 1 on at

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Update: there was a file (that gets uploaded) locked at the beginning of the flow and appears to be the root cause. While I can't be 100% sure, I deleted the file and see this very reliable flow running again. Thanks again @Agnius !

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Agnius Bartninkas Most Valuable Professional on at

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No problem. Whenever you have a flow running in production that is related to any sort of UI automation, I would recommend having a Take screenshot action on error to save you a screenshot of what the screen looked like at the time of the error. Helps a lot in debugging. Especially unattended flows.

Good luck!

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