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Power Platform Community / Forums / Power Automate / Regarding the Power Au...
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Regarding the Power Automate error

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"I encountered an error in Power Automate Desktop with the message: 'An error occurred while communicating with the cloud service. Please ensure that access to the required cloud service is not blocked and try again.' Due to this error, I can't run my created flows. I haven't connected to OneDrive before. If you know of a solution, please let me know."

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  • Pizanauta Profile Picture
    31 on at
    I'm not sure if your case is like mine because my flows have disappeared. If it is, here you are a solution.
     
    Process to Retrieve Flows in Power Automate from OneDrive
     
    Thanks to this post https://community.powerplatform.com/forums/thread/details/?threadid=cf1f11ef-e280-41ee-bdf1-df736a98061b and the method suggested by @kostasc  (with some modifications) I have been able to recover all my missing flows.
     
    Here is my method and here you can see a video with the procedure: https://youtu.be/8UZdClDsQcs
     
    1. Initial File Location
    • In File Explorer or your browser, go to the folder on your OneDrive where the files for your flows are stored locally. In my case the route is OneDrive\apps\Graphics but it can vary depending on the configuration: OneDrive\apps\graph or OneDrive\applications\graph or OneDrive\applications\power automate...)
    • This folder should contain your lost streams which are made up of 2 files each, one of them with no extension and the other with a .meta extension.
    1. Create a new flow
    • Open Power Automate Desktop, create a new flow (it may be empty), and save it. This will generate two new files (one without an extension and one with the .meta extension.
    • Locate these 2 files.
     
    1. Prepare the .meta file
    • Edit the newly created .meta file using Notepad.
    • This file is in Base64 format, so you'll need to decode it.
    • Copy the content and code it into base64decode.org. (In my case and for convenience, I have two tabs open on this page, one with the decoder and the other with the encoder)
    • Copy the decoded result into the tab where we will encode it later.
    • Save the decoded result in Excel, Word, or anywhere you can easily see it; Then we'll compare it to one of the flows you want to recover.
    • In my case, the file once decoded has this value: {"id":"fb30b571-9f62-40de-a575-e7d299c4d547","name":"RESTORE","description":null,"projectCTag":"\"c:{ADAAE994-77A7-4A34-9454-E10394D6539E},1\""}
    1. Compare the .meta file of the new stream and the stream to be recovered
    • Edit the .meta file  of one of the old flows you want to recover and decode it in the same way you did with the new flow.
    • In my case the value of this file was: {"id":"9e92e9ce-37bd-4201-ad4b-a826b05ac474","name":"EXTAE DATA Informa.es","description":"The flow asks you to enter a URL of the https://www.informa.es/directorio-empresas page (e.g.: https://www.informa.es/directorio-empresas/Localidad_ALCAZAR-SAN-JUAN-CIUDAD-REAL.html), goes through all the pages of the list and extracts the data in an excel sheet","projectCTag":"aYzpGQjZDQ0E3NTQwN0EyNUFCITgwMzYuMjYw"}
    • Place both decoded results next to each other and observe the differences (in this case I have marked the differences in red in the new file, obviously the intermediate string will change for each file, it will also have to be changed but first it must be identified).
     
    NEW .met FILE .meta FILE OF THE FLOW TO BE RETRIEVED
    {"id":"fb30b571-9f62-40de-a575-e7d299c4d547","name":"RESTORE","description":null,"projectCTag":"\"c:{ADAAE994-77A7-4A34-9454-E10394D6539E},1\""} {"id":"9e92e9ce-37bd-4201-ad4b-a826b05ac474","name":"EXTAE DATA Informa.es","description":"The flow asks for a URL of the https://www.informa.es/directorio-empresas page (e.g.: https://www.informa.es/directorio-empresas/Localidad_ALCAZAR-SAN-JUAN-CIUDAD-REAL.html), goes through all the pages of the list and extracts the data in an excel sheet","projectCTag":"aYzpGQjZDQ0E3NTQwN0EyNUFCITgwMzYuMjYw"}
    Important note: The part you're interested in is the projectCTag part. Note the differences in formatting, as you'll need to adapt the old flow to match the new format.
    1. Copy the flow files to your OneDrive folder
    • In the event that the files of the flow to be recovered were not in the OneDrive folder for any reason, copy it to it, if it is already in the folder, you can skip this step.
    1. Preparing Fiddler to capture the correct cTag
    • Open Fiddler Classic and apply a filter to show only URLs containing v1.0. This will make it easier for you to find the update URL. 
    • Go back to Power Automate Desktop and select the option to refresh your flows.
    1. Capture the cTag of the flow from Fiddler
    • In Fiddler, find the latest graph.microsoft.com//v1.0/me/drive/approot/children  update and double-click it
    • Adjust the view in the bottom right pane to show the JSON of the values.
    • If there are many files in the folder, you can collapse the tree at the bottom, this will make it easier for you to find the necessary file
    • Navigate through the {} values  until you find the flow whose name matches the flow you want to recover (example: 9e92e9ce-37bd-4201-ad4b-a826b05ac474). Each value {} corresponds to a file, one for the file without extension and another for the file with .meta extension, the one we are interested in is the one that corresponds to the file without extension
    • Once the file is located we can see the cTag value which will be something like this: cTag="c:{56357189-14BC-4FEA-B82C-66E003CD3DF2},1" (if you look closely it almost has the format we are interested in, although not exactly, so what we really need is the central string marked in bold)
    • Note: If Fiddler does not capture the packets I recommend checking on "Capture HTTPS traffic" which is in options.
     
    1. Formatting the cTag for the Recovery File
    • Adjust the cTag with the format we got the new file but with the code/string obtained in Fiddler (example: "projectCTag":"\"c:{56357189-14BC-4FEA-B82C-66E003CD3DF2},1\""} instead of the old flow format.
    1. Encode the .meta file of the stream to be retrieved
    • Copy the result of the decoding of the .meta file into the window you have prepared for the Encoding (If you had already copied it in step 3 you will already have this part ready)
    • In the code to be encoded, replace the entire projectCTag part with the string that we formatted in point 8

    Important: beware of spaces, line breaks, quotation marks or anything else that could generate an erroneous code
    • Re-encode the file in Base64
    • Copy the encoded result.
    1. Update the flow's .meta file
    • If you didn't have it open, open the. The goal of the flow to be retrieved and replaces the content with the new text that we have just encoded in Base64.
    • Save your changes.
    1. Update flows in Power Automate
    • Go back to Power Automate Desktop and select the option to refresh your flows.
    • If there were no errors, the flow should appear and be ready to use.
     
    Hope this solution is useful for everyone facing this problem!
    Cheers!

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