Answered

How to get more details on an error condition with PAD?

(0) Share

Report

Posted on by ApexOrigin

150

With WinAutomation, I immediately and reliably received an email as soon as a process failed, and the email had a line number and function name for the failure. Also in the WA console I could see this information.

With PAD, it sometimes sends me an email with the failure and the process, but no line number or function. And it seems like sometimes it waits to, or doesn't, send me flow errors instead of emailing them immediately.

For example, this error I received today is pretty useless because the error could have happened in one of many places and it's very hard to duplicate every scenario for each use in my large and complex process.

Anyone know how to get better info on errors, or is this another area that Microsoft has let us down?

Categories:

Power Automate Desktop

I have the same question (0)

All responses (6)

Answers (3)

Sort by

Verified answer

ThomasFonn 273 on at

Like
a
(1)

Report
Copy link

Link copied!

Hello @ApexOrigin

use @momlo's approach for the exact line,

You could use "On Error block" blocks to capture and log where the error is happening. ~~You probably won't get the line number, as it would be hard to maintain,~~ You can narrow it down to the specific block by assigning an error message to the specific action you try to do.

Example of logging
Sorry that the image is in Swedish, but it should look similar in other languages

Was this reply helpful? Yes No
Verified answer

momlo 1,527 Super User 2024 Season 1 on at

Like
a
(2)

Report
Copy link

Link copied!

Hi @ApexOrigin ,

You can use On Error block to build logic where you can then use Get Last Error which, basically holds all th information you cna get, including, message, details, sub-flow, action number in sub-flow etc.

See here:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-automate/desktop-flows/errors

Was this reply helpful? Yes No
Verified answer

VJR 7,635 on at

Like
a
(1)

Report
Copy link

Link copied!

You can perhaps get some information from the Get Last Error action and print it to a log file or send an email.

With the help of string functions you can extract the line number.

Use it in conjunction with the On block error.

Was this reply helpful? Yes No
ApexOrigin 150 on at

Like
a
(0)

Report
Copy link

Link copied!

I am late, but I wanted to say thank you to @ThomasFonn and @momlo and @VJR for the replies.

Yes, the On Block has been a lifesaver for me to debug my subflows, especially the ones that process over 100K lines of log files and run into a problem somewhere in the middle. It would be very impractical to wait days for the step through approach to reach the error condition.

Question: Can you put an On Block to cover the entire main flow with all its calls to subflows, or does it need to be in each subflow to give the details?

Was this reply helpful? Yes No
momlo 1,527 Super User 2024 Season 1 on at

Like
a
(1)

Report
Copy link

Link copied!

Yes, you can cover the entire main flow - just put on an error block and then all actions within that block.
This is what I do as a standard way to manage situations when desktop flow fails due to errors not captured by my error handling dedicated to sub-flows, loops, actions or specific regions of the flow.
In such cases where the error is not handled anywhere "beneath" the main flow, it is captured by the main error block, which I call my "CleanFail" sub-flow designed to ensure all apps/files are closed, unnecessary files removed etc.

Was this reply helpful? Yes No
ApexOrigin 150 on at

Like
a
(0)

Report
Copy link

Link copied!

Excellent! Thank you again, momlo!

Was this reply helpful? Yes No