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"If window contains" returns false; Selector "Test" returns true

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Posted on by Jared.Leonard

Having some trouble with a seeming mismatch in behavior between "If window contains" on a given UI selector and the "Test" button under a that selector. I have a loop that monitors for that UI selector to appear, and on each run the "If window contains" condition doesn't run, yet whenever I stop the flow and run "Test" on that UI selector, the correct element gets highlighted and Power Automate confirms that the selector was found on the page. Has anyone run into a similar issue?

In this instance I am using selectors for application windows, not web, and I am trying to define selectors for and SAP dialog window.

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Power Automate Desktop

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Agnius Bartninkas Most Valuable Professional on at

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Based on the previous topic, it seems like the state of the window can actually be cached and as such, it would likely not work well in a loop. See this topic for reference: https://powerusers.microsoft.com/t5/Power-Automate-Desktop/If-window-contains-not-refreshing-through-flow/m-p/2320493

Instead, I would suggest using Wait for window content to make it wait. You can make it time out after some period of time, but still continue without throwing an error via the On error options of the action. Then use If window contains to check if it has actually appeared after the wait. This would be a better approach than using a loop, and likely unaffected by the bug in caching the window state.

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Jared.Leonard 40 on at

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Huh, that cacheing seems like a major issue for UI Automation, I hope they iron that out soon. I couldn't implement my logic exactly the way you said, because I have two separate windows/selectors I am waiting on, but the Wait for window content step does seem to pick up on the selector properly, even if it takes a few loop iterations to update. I implemented it like this in case it helps anyone who stumbles upon this:

Where the On block error is set to "Go to end of block".

Thanks for your reply!
Jared.Leonard 40 on at

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On second inspection, I've tried the described logic on a flow that's been running for about 18 minutes and the caching seems to occur with Wait for window content too, despite it picking up the selector fairly quickly on a separate run. Is there a way to manually invalidate the cache or force a refresh?
Jared.Leonard 40 on at

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Never mind, switched the hanging Wait to target a button within the window being waited on, works like a charm!
Agnius Bartninkas Most Valuable Professional on at

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Thank you for sharing your findings. Great stuff.

I do agree this is a major issue and hope MS resolves it. For now at least we are aware of it and have some workarounds available.

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