SharePoint Create file creats file without content

[Lars21]

Hi all, 

sometimes when I use the SharePoint action "create file" to creat files from email pdf-attachments the file that gets created misses his content. These files are 4bytes "big" and can't be opened.

The create file action look's like this at the moment:

When this phenomenon happens it makes no differents, if the content comes from the filter array or direct from the email dynamic content. 
My problem is that the flow can work one time and if I create a similar one or an identical one in an other enviroment the flow creates empty documents. 
I don't know how and why this happens and it makes me crazy. It's like a coin toss maybe the flow works, maybe it doesn't.  The last time this problem happend I needed to include a get attachements action in the flow and with the "content-bytes" dynamic content the files were created.

I hope you can help me here

[Koen5]

Dear Lars,

While I do not know the cause of your peculiar problem, I do have some questions/remarks which may help.

• Are you sure the attachments have content originally? 100% sure? Sometimes email attachments are just images/other files.
• Can you try reproduce the error? Does it happen with the same content/email all the time ... and when does this happen, what time/date, etc. Try your best to continuously create the same error, this helps you identify the cause.
• Did you try building in delays? Sometimes, especially when using files across 'applications' like Outlook, Sharepoint, OneDrive ... it seems that PowerAutomate needs some time to 'settle' in between actions. It seems that new files need some time to get registered or something. So try to put in a delay of a few minutes between key actions.
• When you get attachments, please prevent corrupt attachments. View the following link to help with this: https://tomriha.com/how-to-avoid-corrupt-email-attachment-in-power-automate/

Hope some tips may help you get to the cause.

Happy flowing,

Koen

[Lars21]

Hi @Koen5 ,

thanks for reaching out. My problem is, that I do not know how to trigger this misbehaivor.
I can build the flow and it works fine all the time, or I bulid the flow and does not work all the time.
I do not know the variables which I need to trigger to get this error.
Your suggestion to build in delays sounds really good, but until I know how to trigger it, I can't follow through with it.

The blog entry you shared with me and my own temporary solution have in common to use the content bytes from get attachments instead of the attachment content, can you tell me he difference between them?

[Koen5]

Dear Lars,

Just a thought ... while it may be more effective to identify the cause ... if we cannot, we cannot.

Then why not cover the symptoms instead?

You know that a file on the sharepoint with a size of 4 kb or around there is likely going to be a dud, right? So put a check on it and depending on the frequency and possibly other verifications that this is really a dud, either re-run the flow with the same email/input to replace this dud or drop an alert to relevant people to do a manual check & action ... and then amend the file.

Happy flowing,

Koen

[Lars21]

Hi @Koen5,

thanks for a quick answer. Here comes the funny part of the story. The flow was working fine in a working environment. Then I decided to implement exact the check's you are suggesting. After the rework the flow started to produce just 4Bytes files. 

So I tried to reconfigure/recreate the create item action - same result.

As a next step I created the flow from scratch - same result.

So I decided to create a solution with content bytes and it worked (yay), but know I need to reconfigure the other parts to this change.