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Sometimes triggers, sometimes doesn't - "When a new email arrives"

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Posted on by mchien

Flow seems to have a hard time triggering off emails.
Much like this link, I have an Exchange mailbox and using the Office 365 Outlook connector, I'm taking the attachments in the incoming email and bringing it into a SharePoint list.
Every email I've tested with had attachments, but I noticed that not every email triggers the Flow. I even sent identical emails many times and like only 20% of them triggers.
Here's my flow - it's a simple and basic one, but I really don't get why some emails trigger and others don't

Untitled picture.png

EDIT: I'm sending in .pdf and .docx files. Though that shouldn't make a difference, as i have said, exam same email may or may not work.

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v-yamao-msft on at

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Hi mchien,

Thanks for sharing with us the screenshot for the flow.

According to the screenshot, I create a similar flow to test this issue.

I also select “Yes” for both two fields “Has Attachment” and “Include Attachments”.

Then when an email with attachment is sent to Inbox, the flow would be triggered. It has nothing to do with the file type.

When an email which no attachment is sent to Inbox, the flow won’t run.

To trigger the flow, please make sure that all the emails come with attachment.

Besides, only when an email arrives in Inbox can the flow be triggered. Please check if the email arrives in the proper folder.

Best regards,
Mabel Mao

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mchien 75 on at

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For testing, I have always sent the email with an attachment, and the email always arrives at it's location without fail as I keep close watch on the inbox.

As I have said, I would send the exact same email (same attachment) and only one gets caught (as in one triggered). Let's say I sent five identical emails, only one is caught and triggered. The remaining occurences have no trace, not even error, hence never triggered the flow.

Maybe there is a limitation that i'm not aware of? Maybe the flow trigger can only handle one trigger with X period of time, where any other incoming triggers gets thrown away? Because for sure they aren't queued, otherwise I would have gotten many more items in the Flow history

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Wdhtaggart 6 on at

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I have the same issue except I am not even adding criteria.

The flow should trigger on every email that is received but it is very inconsistent.

As a test, I sent 4 emails from 4 different accounts and only 2 triggered a workflow.

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graham-oriley 38 on at

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I'm also experiencing the same issue.

Not sure why. The trigger just doesn't fire.

Is there a way to trace the trigger to see if it is receiving an error before our flows start?

Regards,
Graham

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Community Power Pla... on at

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I'm having the same issue.

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Community Power Pla... on at

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I'm having the same problem.

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B_Leaman 4 on at

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We're having the same issue. Our flow is triggered on an email arriving to the inbox with a particular keyword in the subject and an attachment. The email is generated from another server whenever pertinent information has changed. Currently it generates an email (including the attachment) 4-6 times daily, no closer that 15 minutes apart and usually 1-4 hours apart.

Today the latest 2 emails did NOT trigger the flow to run. There was at least 1 earlier in the week that was missed too. There's nothing in the log, but the emails are there in the in-box. We won't be able to scale this solution up to all our locations if FLOW isn't a reliable tool.

--Bryan

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Shamiso 4 on at

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I am having the same issue. Did anyone ever found a solution for this? Please share.

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khansalina 4 on at

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I also have the same issue, it's just that the trigger I make is different. My flow should run when a new file is created in a specific folder.
If anyone has a solution for this, please kindly share.

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m4ngo5 90 on at

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I'm not experiencing this issue, but here are three things I would look at.

Are the message attachments to large for Exchange? Max size is 50MB or admin set limit, whichever is lower. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/connectors/office365/#triggers
Try using the "When a new email arrives (webhook)" version of the connector instead. You'll need to fetch the attachment separately, but this is a worthy debugging effort.

Increase the number of retries on the trigger. You can find this in settings under the three dot menu in the top right corner of the trigger. By default it makes 4 retry attempts.

Let us know if one of these steps works for anyone!

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