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Flow connection issues? Or something else?

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Posted on by CM-09021137-0

Hi folks,

Was hoping to get some help with an issue I am currently having.

I have a flow that includes a switch that will channel information to a specific spreadsheet. I need to add the information into a table but the 3/5 flows get stuck on the "Add a row into a table" action. Here is a snippet of the flow:

"Lab 1" works correctly when it needs to, but "Lab 2" and "Lab 3" unfortunately is having the issue, despite being identical.

The excel file is on my onedrive, if that helps.

Retry error message that I'm getting:

Has anyone had this issue before / know where I'm going wrong?

Thanks in advance for any help!

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abm abm 32,985 Most Valuable Professional on at

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Hi

It could be another session of that Excel sheet is already open. What error are you getting? Leave it running and see what exception it produces. Once you have those errors please post it here.

Thanks

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David_MA 14,485 Super User 2026 Season 1 on at

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Are there other Excel actions that do anything on the spreadsheet you are adding a row to prior to the switch? If so, that action could be putting a lock on the Excel file, which can last up to ten minutes. Although, if you do, the approval action should allow enough time to clear the lock unless people are completing the approvals very quickly (or you are testing and complete the approval as soon as you get it). If that is the case, add a 10-minute delay before the Excel add a row action to see if that resolves the problem.

You said lab one is working (although the screen shot you uploaded doesn't show a completed successful run with lab one). Except for the switch value, is the add a row action for lab 2 or 3 configured differently. If so, what is different? You said they were configured them same. If so, have you tried moving the condition outside of the switch? I am guessing the condition is based on the outcome of the approval action. If so, create a variable to store the outcome, and then after the approval, set the value of the outcome using the variable. That way, the condition can be used for all of the approvals to add the row.

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CM-09021137-0 15 on at

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@abm abm thanks for your response. Here is a snippet of the error I am getting:

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CM-09021137-0 15 on at

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@David MA thank you for your response.

The only actions prior to the switch is a "get response details" from a microsoft form.

In terms of the configurations, each add a row is added to a table with their own workbooks, depending on the switch value. Everything is the same apart from the file it gets added to.

In my initial troubleshooting of this problem, I had moved the add a row action to before the switch, to make sure it wasn't the condition, and the same issue occurs.

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David_MA 14,485 Super User 2026 Season 1 on at

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I did something in a flow I have to force the add a row action to fail:

Open the flow run, and copy the output of the action so we can see the error message generated by the action. It should give you a clue to the problem.

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CM-09021137-0 15 on at

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@David_MA here is the raw output of the failed action:

{

    "statusCode": 504,

    "headers": {

        "Cache-Control": "no-store, no-cache",

        "Pragma": "no-cache",

        "Strict-Transport-Security": "max-age=31536000; includeSubDomains",

        "x-ms-datasourceerror": "True",

        "x-ms-request-id": "b722073a-e99d-4f4e-b0f3-d494c77d2df9;e45324e9-73d9-4dc7-963e-4ab3c56fcd16;cc8c6020-88dc-4ebc-9283-46c342c9e7fb;fe862cab-e476-4908-a9d9-b6796c62e0c5;89a1f3c8-da25-4a21-bd87-6adf25529edd",

        "X-Content-Type-Options": "nosniff",

        "X-Frame-Options": "DENY",

        "x-ms-environment-id": "default-2fac7cdd-7f67-4362-90f2-358bdbb8f812",

        "x-ms-tenant-id": "2fac7cdd-7f67-4362-90f2-358bdbb8f812",

        "x-ms-subscription-id": "Default-2fac7cdd-7f67-4362-90f2-358bdbb8f812",

        "x-ms-dlp-re": "-|-",

        "x-ms-dlp-gu": "-|-",

        "x-ms-dlp-ef": "-|-/-|-|-|-",

        "x-ms-mip-sl": "-|-|-|-",

        "x-ms-au-creator-id": "9d2f3183-ff3a-4e39-a050-8c141b60d306",

        "Timing-Allow-Origin": "*",

        "x-ms-apihub-cached-response": "false",

        "x-ms-apihub-obo": "false",

        "Date": "Fri, 13 Feb 2026 07:56:10 GMT",

        "Content-Length": "860",

        "Content-Type": "application/json",

        "Expires": "-1"

    },

    "body": {

        "error": {

            "code": 504,

            "source": "flow-apim-msmanaged-na-eastus2-01.azure-apim.net",

            "clientRequestId": "51dec84e-af68-44d6-abc6-c1a9c2385f06",

            "message": "BadGateway",

            "innerError": {

                "status": 504,

                "message": "Request to Graph API has timed out. Error code is 'UnknownError'. Error message is 'Gateway Timeout'.\r\nclientRequestId: 51dec84e-af68-44d6-abc6-c1a9c2385f06\r\nserviceRequestId: b722073a-e99d-4f4e-b0f3-d494c77d2df9;e45324e9-73d9-4dc7-963e-4ab3c56fcd16;cc8c6020-88dc-4ebc-9283-46c342c9e7fb;fe862cab-e476-4908-a9d9-b6796c62e0c5;89a1f3c8-da25-4a21-bd87-6adf25529edd",

                "error": {

                    "message": "Request to Graph API has timed out. Error code is 'UnknownError'. Error message is 'Gateway Timeout'."

                },

                "source": "excelonline-cus.azconn-cus-001.p.azurewebsites.net"

            }

        }

    }

}

To be honest, I'm not entirely sure what this means...

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David_MA 14,485 Super User 2026 Season 1 on at

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The Microsoft Graph API is a way for apps and automations to access and work with Microsoft 365 data using a single, consistent interface. The add a row to a table action probably handles this through a Graph API call, which is why it is mentioned in the error. Unfortunately, the error is not too helpful. It just means that the system waited, nothing came back fast enough, and it gave up.

Can you show how the Excel action is configured? If we see no issues with how it is configured, I would suggest that you put the Add a row into a table action into a do until action. Set it up like this:

Create a Boolean variable named Row Added and set the default value to false.

Set the Do until to run until Row Added equals true

Then add you add a row action into the do until loop.

After this action, add two parrallel actions.

One will be a delay of 10 minutes. Configure the delay to only run if the add a row action fails.

The other will set the Row Added variable to true so the loop ends.

It will look something like this:

Based on what you've shown, I don't understand why it should be happening, but the only issue that I see could be happening is that there is a lock placed on the Excel file and the flow cannot add the row. Using the do until will allow the flow to try six times to add the row before the do until action times out.

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CM-09021137-0 15 on at

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@David MA , do you mean the parameters? If so, see below,

----

I have actually created new copies of the excel workbooks and configured it to the new one. I am still having the same issue, so I assume that rules out the file being locked.

Thanks for your help and I will definitely try your do until method.

kind regards

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David_MA 14,485 Super User 2026 Season 1 on at

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I think I may see the issue, and yes, the image you uploaded of the Excel action is what I needed. Here is one of my workflows, which provides the clue:

It appears that you entered a custom value for the Table name since I do not see the drop-down icon in the action (circled in red). This would indicate that the spreadsheet does not have the type of tables that the Power Automate actions require. If it did, you would be able to choose the table from a drop-down menu. The Excel actions need a table created as shown here: Create and format tables - Microsoft Support.

Format the data in your spreadsheet as a table, then update your workflow to choose the table using the drop-down menu. If you cannot do that for some reason, you'll need to directly make the call to the Graph API using an HTTP request to do what you want. If you need to do that, I would search the internet for how or post a new question in the forums.

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