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How to restore all of the desktop flows in PAD? Please help

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Posted on 25 Aug 2023 13:20:21 by TheAnker

Hello everyone! So, I was reinstalling Windows 11 a few days ago and foolishly messed up with the OneDrive folder and lost all my flows in PAD. Previously that folder was on my D drive and the data needed for the Power Automate Desktop were there. After a fresh install of OneDrive, it placed its folder on the C drive (C:\Users\MyName\OneDrive), so I moved it to my D drive not knowing how to do it properly (I should have done it by selecting "Unlink this PC" and then move the folder). Then the OneDrive app said something about two copies of the same file. I copied the contents of the OneDrive folder (which is on the D drive) to another place (just to save it), precisely the \Apps\Power Automate Desktop For Windows folder, which is about 74 MB.

While I was reinstalling all the other apps I went to onedrive.live.com and saw all the junk files (as I thought) in the Recycle Bin and deleted them. At that moment I didn't know that was a big mistake. I thought I'd place a copy of an Apps folder (previously copied) back to the OneDrive folder on my D drive and it will sync again. Sometime later I reinstalled Power Automate Desktop and realized that all of my flows were gone (there were 5 flows).

I decided to reinstall OneDrive and PAD apps; I tried deleting the Power Automate Desktop For Windows folder and placing the copy back. No results. Therefore, I went to this forum and stumbled upon this thread https://powerusers.microsoft.com/t5/Power-Automate-Desktop/PAD-Flow-Disappeared/m-p/1687349 with the solution to a problem similar to mine. But the link there is unavailable for me. It is said something about "Access token is empty".

I've installed the Wireshark Portable version for this purpose, but don't know where to look for the cTag and name values. So all I did was open my PAD console -> press Refresh in My flows tab -> capture the packets in the Wireshark. I see the packets and all that info for each packet, but, as I said, don't know where to find those values. I would really appreciate all your help. Thank you in advance.

PS: Power Automate Desktop For Windows folder in OneDrive consists of 10 files (2 for each of my flows as I can understand, one with no extension and one with .meta) and .cnt file.

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Pizanauta

31 on 14 Nov 2024 at 15:51:20

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How to restore all of the desktop flows in PAD? Please help

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

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.

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.

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\""}

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

PetrosF-MSFT on 26 Aug 2024 at 13:04:28

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How to restore all of the desktop flows in PAD? Please help

Here is how to recover a deleted desktop flow - https://learn.microsoft.com/power-automate/desktop-flows/how-to/restore-deleted-desktop-flow
MABL 14 on 14 May 2024 at 17:21:05

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Re: How to restore all of the desktop flows in PAD? Please help

Hi @TheAnker,

Thanks to you and @kostasc, between the two posts, I managed to recover 100% of my flows. In my case, I "negligently" deleted the flows from my OneDrive folder, and a few seconds later, the nightmare began. Although I restored them from the recycle bin, it didn't help me much because Power Automate Desktop lost all reference to the flows (I think this happened because I logged out and logged back in during the initial moments, but I'm not sure now).

Fortunately, after several hours and with your help from these posts, I managed to recover all my flows by adapting to my circumstances. Refreshing in Power Automate Desktop was no longer triggering any flow calls. Consequently, I had to create a flow to generate new IDs and replace them with the old ones. I had so many flows that I ended up writing a Python script to automate the process. If I find the time, I'll create a more detailed manual and share the script.

Best regards and thank you so much.
TheAnker 92 on 01 Nov 2023 at 12:45:00

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Re: How to restore all of the desktop flows in PAD? Please help

Hello, @hdhanh ! Sorry for the long reply. Yes, I replaced the cTag for all the files in the Apps folder.
hdhanh 13 on 16 Oct 2023 at 04:18:12

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Re: How to restore all of the desktop flows in PAD? Please help

Dear @TheAnker
I replaced the cTag in the .meta file with a cTag of the same name but without the extension
But still no flow appears in PAD.
Did I go wrong in any step?
Do I need to replace cTag for all files in the Apps folder?
hosino 58 on 06 Oct 2023 at 12:53:37

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Re: How to restore all of the desktop flows in PAD? Please help

I can’t belive that I can recover all my flow with this method, big thanks.
Verified answer

TheAnker 92 on 26 Aug 2023 at 16:46:03

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Re: How to restore all of the desktop flows in PAD? Please help

I'd like to report that I've managed to regain access/restore all of my flows (dozens of hours of work). This solution helped in my case. Big thank you to @kostasc . I was trying to find those cTag and name values and couldn't get the place I should be searching for them; I was using Wireshark (never used it before). But in that solution author used another network tracing tool called Fiddler (it is not free as I can understand, but you get a free trial for 10 days and you need to create an account after the installation; maybe there is a free version, idk).
And luckily after installing it, I immediately found the cTag and name values. Don't forget to open your Power Automate Desktop console, then navigate to My flows and click refresh, so the Fiddler can capture the packets. I should mention I was recommended by the Fiddler to check "Capture HTTPS traffic" (you'll see it in the settings). This link I was talking about previously (https://graph.microsoft.com//v1.0/me/drive/special/approot/children) is actually a URL you should be looking at in the URL column in Fiddler (left window). After clicking it you will see the Request and Response windows to the right. Go to the Body tab in the Response window at the bottom and there will be all your cTags and flow names. Other steps you can find in that post I linked here.
Hope that these details will help someone else who finds themselves alone with this problem. Good luck.
TheAnker 92 on 25 Aug 2023 at 19:29:14

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Re: How to restore all of the desktop flows in PAD? Please help

Yes, I saw those posts. If I go to https://make.powerautomate.com/ (according to this link Solved: Re: How to restore deleted desktop flow? - Power Platform Community (microsoft.com) ) I can't select the Sandbox/Restore environment, because I only have Default environment on that page, and if I click Admin Center in the Settings there it asks me to enter credentials for work or school account because I can't log in with my personal account. As for the second post, I am getting an error while I create a flow as the article suggests (see the screenshot).
PS: Could you try opening that link (in the solution I found) or is it broken for you too? Maybe it is a screenshot of where I should look for those values in the network trace tool. Nevertheless, thank you for your efforts.

25-08-2023_22-06-...
trice602 13,911 Super User 2025 Season 1 on 25 Aug 2023 at 17:57:58

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Re: How to restore all of the desktop flows in PAD? Please help

Hi @TheAnker ,

Here's a post marked as a solution for desktop flows too: Solved: Re: How to restore deleted desktop flow? - Power Platform Community (microsoft.com)

Please see this article on how to recover: Restore deleted flows in Power Automate - Power Automate | Microsoft Learn