Automating login to website

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Posted on by Baldo

Hi all,

Bit of a Power BI Desktop novice, having some issues with the first thing I try of course 🙂

So simply trying to login to a website in order to navigate the site and download a file, everything post login works but can't for the life of me get the login on the site to work. I've looked through some other inconclusive questions raised on this forum but can't find to solution to my issue.

What I'm doing:

- Launch the browser with your website

- Stored the credentials in variables within PAD.

(For password I've tried storing it direct encrypted, currently just stored on the variable as normal text whilst I try and get this thing working)

- "Populate Text field on web page" to enter the username/pwd, the fields are populating, emulate typing is enabled, tried flicking between unfocus text box and other settings etc, not had any effect)

- "Press button on webpage" to hit the submit button

The username input/password input and login button are all ui elements, the inputs were created using the populate text fields were created by the web recorder if that's beneficial info.

There are no popups/captchas etc to complicate things.

Result from site is simply

Invalid username/password

If I manually press the login button the same response is returned, it seems if i retype the credentials into the web page without refreshing it can then sign in. Worth noting I'm 100% sure the credentials in PAD are correct.

If I f12

error: {data: "username", message: "Login failed", code: "-32000"}

Any help much appreciated,

Baldo

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Power Automate Desktop

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MichaelAnnis 5,727 Moderator on at

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Are there any special characters in your password that may need to be doubled? Example("%" or "/" should be "%%" or "//" respectively.) Some characters are restricted use for PAD and will cause an error if attempted or will not be entered in as you think they should be.

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Baldo 16 on at

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There is an exclamation mark, which I wouldn't generally consider an issue, but it would fit the issue quite nicely, will test and confirm, if the users I'm doing this for will let me change it that is.

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Baldo 16 on at

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Hi @MichaelAnnis Thanks for the suggestion but after testing it seems to pass exclamation marks just fine, and that's really the only thing of note in the credentials.

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MichaelAnnis 5,727 Moderator on at

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After populating the password, disable the rest of the commands and try using SendKeys {Tab} (as many as need to get to the button) and the {Enter}.

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VJR 7,635 on at

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Hi @Baldo

- Some websites require that you actually type the credentials (for security reasons), so I would suggest to type the username and password using Sendkeys.

- Yes you are sure about the uname/pwd but some characters are not visible to the naked eye like Tab or new line or carriage return, line feed. If you have manually typed in the uname/pwd in the variables then this issue should not arise, but if they are fetched from an Excel file for example then invisible characters get attached to it.

But still it is worth checking if some garbage characters are going with the credentials. This is done by writing the credentials to a text file and then viewing that same text file in a hex editor like Notepad++. When you select "Show all characters" in this editor it will show all the invisible characters.

Here is the how the difference looks.
Notepad does not show the carriage return line feed characters, but the same is visible when "Show all characters" is done in Notepad++.

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MichaelAnnis 5,727 Moderator on at

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Also, if this is an attended flow, there is another option. It’s setting the username and password to the clipboard and having the user paste it in. I have this in a process where I have several websites with different usernames and password, so I didn’t want to program each website. Instead, the bot opens up the link, copies the username, and prompts the user to paste the username in and click ok, then it copies the password and prompts the user to paste the password.

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Baldo 16 on at

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Hi @MichaelAnnis and @VJR

Finally working using a combination of your suggestions, using send keys to tab through to the login button and also to enter the username and password through this method as well. Thanks to both of you for your help, much appreciated.

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