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Send Keys using UI Element takes several minutes

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Posted on by RyClements

I have flows that I have created in the past that have send keys actions that would work near instantaneously. But recently something has changed where those flows will now get stuck on those actions for several minutes. After it gets through the first one, it will process others just fine. But I even tested a new flow simply using notepad to type the word "Hello" and there was a several minute delay before it finally executed the action. Any ideas on why this would happen?

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Power Automate Desktop

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Agnius Bartninkas Most Valuable Professional on at

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Send keys work quickly when you send them to the foreground window. When you send them to a specific UI element, they will always take a while to find the specific element. The same applies to any UI automation actions.

Also, if it's the first action in your flow, usually some time passes before it compiles the flow and gets ready to run it.

Finally, I can see you have enabled verbose logging, which logs every single action with details in local logs. If you turn that off, it might run slower.

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RyClements 4 on at

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Thank you for the response! I started using this app about 6 months ago and this has never been an issue. Its never taken more than a couple seconds to reference a UI element until very recently. As if a switch were flipped. I also have coworkers that use this app with the same programs and they are not having the same issues as me.

Most of my flows do not have this as the first action. The flow will work seamlessly until it reaches an action that references a UI element. Unfortunately, using the foreground window isnt always an option as most of my flows need to go back and forth from different windows to gather and input information. I did find that using "Title and/or class" appears to be a decent workaround but does add a couple extra steps and would be different than the steps my coworkers are taking which could make things slightly inconvenient when sharing flows.

The verbose logging was something I enabled just as an attempt to try anything to resolve the issue. The problem persisted regardless if verbose logging was enabled or disabled.

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Agnius Bartninkas Most Valuable Professional on at

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If you can easily reproduce the issue, while others don't experience it using the same version, I suggest you submit a ticket to MS support.

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SammiBoi 5 on at

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Following as I'm having the same issue where it takes a long time to initial the first UI element but once completed it runs fine.

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