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

[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.

[trice602]

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

[TheAnker]

    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.

[TheAnker · Accepted solution]

    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.

[hosino]

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

[hdhanh]

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?

[TheAnker]

Hello, @hdhanh ! Sorry for the long reply. Yes, I replaced the cTag for all the files in the Apps folder.

[MABL]

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.