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"When an item is created or modified" running when there are no changes

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Posted on by UkiMagic

I have a number of flows, each pointing at a separate SharePoint list, which run at all times of the day and night even though no changes have been made to the lists. Are there any common causes for this? The lists are very small (2-10 entries) and contain the key contacts for each SharePoint site (department). The lists probably only change, via manual entry, a handful of times throughout the year. There are no other flows pointing to the lists.

The flow's design is to detect any changes and then pull updated user fields from Azure AD and write them in special fields in the list. When I check for list changes, I only see my own entries as making changes, because I am the owner of the flow. I am not manually editing any of the lists.

I've opened a ticket with Microsoft but they are "still researching". I was just wondering if there might be common causes for something like this.

Thanks.

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Using flows

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ScottShearer 25,270 Most Valuable Professional on at

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@UkiMagic

You have an infinite loop - the flow fires when you update an item. The Flow then updates the same list item causing the Flow to start again......

The is a very simple technique that you can use to avoid infinite loops. Please see my blog post where I explain the technique.

If you copy the expression in my blog post, be sure to replace the quotes with single quotes as I explain in the post.

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UkiMagic 10 on at

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Hi Scott,

I did think about that, but the flow only seems to fire a few times and then it stops for a number of hours and then starts again. Is it possible that it's all still the same infinite loop? I will try your suggestion and see if it fixes the issue.

Thanks!

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Ukiman1014 on at

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Hello Scott,

Yes, that did solve the issue! Genius! I understand that the flow writes a value into the "StopRun" field, but I don't understand how the field is cleared when a user makes and edit. Can you briefly explain? I am making the assumption it has something to do with turning on versioning and making it multiline.

Thank you again for your help! As a side note, Microsoft closed the ticket on me with no resolution. (Grr 😡.) They obviously had no idea what to do with it. Actually, from their email signature, they seemed to be an outside company contracted by Microsoft. I sent them a bit of a nastygram back but I also pointed them to this solution, so maybe they won't bug out on someone else next time, haha.

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ScottShearer 25,270 Most Valuable Professional on at

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@Ukiman1014

The magic in the solution is the use of a multi-line text column configured as an "append text" column. Every time there is an edit to the item, SharePoint clears out the value - you don't need to worry about it. The values of previous edits are stored in the version history - that's why you have to have versioning turned on to configure a column in that way.

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Ukiman1014 on at

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Thanks for the explanation, Scott! I've learned a little more about how SharePoint works.

BTW, I can't seem to mark my post as "solved". This is all I see when I look at the options for this post or for you replies. 🤷🏻‍♂️

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ScottShearer 25,270 Most Valuable Professional on at

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I marked it as Solved for you.

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