Flow triggers and runs only once, but the actions/results happen twice

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Posted on by MichielVH

I have a problem with an automatic flow which is behaving very strange since last week.

The total flow is quite complex and has two parallel branches, but in short, this is what it does:

The trigger is when a MS Form is filled in, the Forms results are pushed to an Excel file on SharePoint (add row to Excel table). The Excel file is dynamic, based on the results of the Forms data. At the same time, a new folder is created on SharePoint and the images (from the Forms file upload) are uploaded in that folder. Then you receive an email notification.

This has worked fine for weeks before. Since last week, the flow still runs correctly, but the same data/Forms results appear double in Excel (two identical Excel rows with the same data/timestamp). Also, the notification email is sent twice. But the flow itself is triggered only once, and in the run history, the flow has run only once every time.

So it looks as if the flow runs twice, but it is not registered as such in the flow run history. And when you manually "re-run" the last instance, the flow correctly runs once more and the results are not doubled.

No other flows are running with the same trigger.

Can anyone help me?

I could post print screens or add a copy/export of the flow, if that would help?

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Using flows

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v-xiaochen-msft on at

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Hi @MichielVH ,

Could you share your flow screenshots?

Best Regards,

Wearsky

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MichielVH 15 on at

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Hello @v-xiaochen-msft
Yes sure, see below. It is in Dutch, but I suppose you'll recognise all the actions.

Trigger: Forms - "When a reaction is sent" - "Get reaction details"
Excel "Get a row" - this is a table with a list of municipalities & a corresponding year, used to recreate the SharePoint URL later.
1. Trigger

Overview of the flow

Both parallels come together in an email notification.

(Left parallel)
SharePoint - "Get file contents" - fetch an Excel template
SharePoint - "Create file" - create an Excel table

Get the file ID of the newly created Excel by recreating the URL and sending an HTTP request to SharePoint.
(for addressing the Excel with a dynamic URL later)

Excel - "Add a row to a table" - fixed master table to match the field with the Forms data

Excel - "Add a row to a table" - use the above row (body) to add to the Excel with dynamic URL

(Right parallel)
SharePoint - "Create a folder"
Parse JSON - Forms image uploads

For each image of the previous step, get the image and copy it to SharePoint in the newly created folder.

The strange thing is, the images are not uploaded twice, or if they are, they are of course replaced. But usually this would result in an error? In the SharePoint version history, I don't see anything suspicious.

As mentioned before, this exact flow worked perfectly normal before, and all of a sudden, it started to do this double run. So I don't know if the problem is to be found in the flow itself.

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v-xiaochen-msft on at

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Hi @MichielVH ,

It's weird.

Could you check this parameter 's output firstly?

Is it because this parameter causes some duplicate behavior?

You could check the flow run history.

Best Regards,

Wearsky

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MichielVH 15 on at

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Hello @v-xiaochen-msft

The result of the 'Send email' looks fine.
This is the email address of the user who filled in the Form. By the way, it is only an internal form (therefore the system knows the email address of the users).

Here an example of the Excel with the double rows:

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MichielVH 15 on at

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I finally found the problem.

The flow itself was not running twice, but the same flow (an older version) was running inside a Solution. But not a Solution I created myself, but in the "Standard Solution", hidden deep between hundreds of rows. I don't know how it happened; I experimented with Solutions a short while at that time (creating a custom Solution which I afterwards deleted), but I can't remember inserting this flow in this Standard Solution.

Only after modifying the original flow, I began to see that the two runs differed. So I knew this flow had to be running somewhere else.

So I searched for the flow name inside Solutions and found it, deleted and now everything's fine!

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