Release 2.27.177.22340 has broken my web automations

[Cobyc]

With the release of 2.27 and the new updated Edge extension, my automations are not working any more.

My Developer tools are enabled as per the requirements.

The web page I'm interacting with uses a lot of javascript to navigate to and from pages , it's 3rd party so I don't have any access to code.

Running any sort of javascript before calling a standard function like 'Press button on web page' will highlight the button but then the flow hangs and in the console of the developer tools I get a message

'Refused to run the JavaScript URL because it violates the following Content Security Policy directive: "script-src 'self' 'wasm-unsafe-eval'". Either the 'unsafe-inline' keyword, a hash ('sha256-...'), or a nonce ('nonce-...') is required to enable inline execution. Note that hashes do not apply to event handlers, style attributes and javascript: navigations unless the 'unsafe-hashes' keyword is present'

This then also blocks the website from taking any user input, manual or automated.

I can't even roll back because you can't download version 2.26 anywhere and when I tried an older one I did download 2.23, I get a message that the flow can't be opened in the old version because it was edited in a newer version.. great.. just great! so now none of my automations work!!

EDIT:

I get that error even after removing the 'Run javaScript function on web page' methods, I also get it after using a 'Get details of element on web page' method.

This is ridiculous!! 

[BalamuruganDev]

Hello @Cobyc ,

Try to re install PAD and browser addons, restart machine, disable previous version browser addon if exist.

Thanks,

BD

[Cobyc]

@BalamuruganDev Thanks for the suggestion , but I have done all of that, I set up a small test for the specific web page and the behaviour was the same.

I managed to find an install of 2.26 on a different machine, so it is all working again. 

Our company will probably look at a different automation tool as this kind of behaviour is causing too much disruption.

[wnzn]

I have had the same experience with multiple updates which were supposed to fix issues but just introduced others. At this point, it still has not run issue free since we started out a year ago. I think your company is taking the right decision as this tool is just not mature enough to be used in any serious scenario.

[Dynamo]

Hi,

can you provide the 2.26 installation package? I'm having a similar issue.

[maykolrypka]

Hello! I'm having the same issue, could someone provide the URL to download an older version?

[LeonCao]

Hello, same issue, here. it's not only break the flow. it break the data. I think the browser add on defect will clear the table data some here. I need find a way to roll back to last version .  

[Miguelbernal]

hi everybody

i know how it feel's had this kind of problem and get no answer, so here is link to the 2.26 version:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-2OrjOz7u2SOtFq57mcHKT1iGcdMWlPB/view?usp=share_link

if you are working with pad, make sure always have copy of older installers, for multiple issues with the new versions.

have a Nice day

[MichaelNelson]

I think we located the source of this issue. At least we ran into it ourselves. Before updating, we were using the Chrome Power Automate Desktop extension (Legacy). When we installed the most recent update, a new Power Automate Chrome extension was added instead, and PAD no longer work with the (Legacy) extension version.

The problem is, if we are trying to click a link that has an HREF of a javascript command, it won't work. So this sort of link will work: 

<a href="https://www.google.com">Go To Google Directly</a>

But this sort of link will not.

<a href='javascript&colon;goToGoogle()' id="link">Go To Google via JS</a>

It USED to using the (Legacy) extension, but Chrome's "Manifest v3" stuff has forced that version into retirement. And this new version of the Chrome extension blocks javascript HREF references.

I think Power Automate Desktop needs to detect if has been blocked or, if possible, circumvent the restriction in the new extension. As it stands now, the "Click Link" command fails on these and the script hangs there forever.

As a sort-term solution, we have started replacing the link click with a javascript command to the browser. The command looks like this: document.querySelector("paste CSS selector here in these quotes").click()

Then we follow it with a "wait for element" to allow the page to load before the PAD code continues.

[beebul]

Yes I noticed this happens with those types of links too Michael, however unfortunately for me I can't modify the HTML as I am using a huge organisation web application that I can't modify.

I've had to roll back to an older version of PAD but I will do some tests with the legacy extensions.

Thanks for identifying the problem clearly and succinctly... Hopefully someone who can fix it will read this! 

David

[momlo]

@beebul You don't need to modify the page source; what Michael is saying is you can replace action in PAD with "run JS on the web page," where you call JS action to mimic clicking on the link/button/element.

This is very often faster in some scenarios than actions in PAD too

[MichaelNelson]

That is exactly right!

The action won't work in Firefox, but it does in Chrome. It requires you know a little bit of Javascript, enough to select the element. You can use the same CSS selector that Power Automate generates though.

In this example you see my disabled step I replaced with a "Run javascript on web page" step. In this case I used "get element by ID". If I used a query selector, it would look like this:  document.querySelector('a[id="link"]'.click()

There are 2 major downsides to this workaround you should be aware of. (1) It will not tell you if your code failed or not. PAD just sends/runs the JS on the page and then keeps going. So if the code errors, the script won't know. (2) Since PAD just keeps going, it will not wait for your code to finish executing. It just moves to the next step. This is why a "Wait for" PAD step is a must after using the JS workaround here.

Hopefully this is temporary and Microsoft can address the issue. Or at least let us know if it is unavoidable due to Manifest v3 changes and that we should learn to get used to it.

[beebul]

Oh got it right! Yeah I can do that, I'm good with javascript ... okay cheers guys 👍

[ianwuk]

@Cobyc  @Miguelbernal  @beebul  @MichaelNelson  @momlo 

There seems to be another update to PAD released today (2.28.135.23016).  When I updated it it broke my web automation flow (Send Keys doesn't send data to the UI element). 

Not sure if it is just me affected by this, but I just wanted to let you know.  I can't go back to an older version of PAD as it says that my flow was created in a newer version of PAD, and I need to upgrade to the latest version.

Update - I managed to fix this.  It seems its related to the browser extension.  Remove all PAD browser extensions, restart, then add it again via the PAD Tools link and try once more - that worked for me.

[momlo]

thanks @ianwuk for letting know.

I always test new ver on test env before updating prod, and what you wrote below is included in my standard update process. Aso started updating via standalone exe instead of built-in update so i have the older version to revert back in case of issues.

Remove all PAD browser extensions, restart, then add it again via the PAD Tools link and try once more - that worked for me.

[ianwuk]

@momlo What you do makes perfect sense.  I guess I have more faith in MS than most people to not do that, or maybe I was silly to think that MS fully test these releases before giving them to us to avoid issues like this.

[momlo]

haha, not that I do not trust MS, but I will not risk blowing up prod machines with faulty updates.

In early 2000 McAfee blew up my 100s machines (100s of thousands globally) because of a faulty auto-update of their signature database - no love for auto updates from there 😄 🙂 

[beebul]

Until the next update that does the same...

[ianwuk]

@beebul I know what you mean.  Kind of worried about updating to any future versions now...

[beebul]

I have to use the MS store version as I don't have admin rights to my work machine and that means I get silent updates.