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terminate in a child flow does not return message

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Posted on by BD-06121850-0

I have a flow in which I am calling a child flow
in the child flow if there is an error it terminates and I've set the code and message

when control returns to the parent flow (immediately after the Terminate, based on timing), it records (502) "failed to get a response"

shouldn't it be the code set in the terminate and/or at least the message from the terminate?

especially since "respond to a power app or flow" cannot be set to anything other than success

(technically I could use the success to return the error message and then test if the "successful" message was actually an error, but that's quite tedious since I really have over a dozen flows calling each other, particularly since "terminate" looks like it should be doing this... but clearly isn't)

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SudeepGhatakNZ 14,394 Most Valuable Professional on at

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This behavior is a known limitation in Power Automate when using the "Terminate" action in a child flow. When a child flow terminates with an error, the parent flow often interprets this as a failure in the HTTP communication (resulting in a 502 error) instead of directly reflecting the custom code or message set in the "Terminate" action.

Instead of relying on "Terminate," you can use "Respond to a Power App or Flow" to send an error message back to the parent flow. For example:

{
"status": "success",
"error": true,
"code": "CustomErrorCode",
"message": "Custom error message"
}

In your Parent flow, parse the response and conditionally handle the error based on the error flag or code.

Another option is to wrap the "Run a Child Flow" step in a Scope.
After the child flow, add a parallel Scope to handle failures using the "Configure run after" settings (set to trigger on failure).

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BD-06121850-0 4 on at

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not "often", always

Is there no way to fail the "call child flow" and return a message?

The work around you described is obvious, but it is also tedious because "respond to power app or flow" only succeeds.

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Chriddle 8,436 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

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Just respond and then terminate ;)

The flow doesn't stop just because you respond.

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BD-06121850-0 4 on at

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this is the problem with that:

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