My experience with connector/connection problems, and multiple connections to same connector

[martinav]

This post is not a problem post, but an attempt to provide some practical information regarding connector problems and resolutions that I have experienced over the last almost 2 years.  Bulleted for simplicity.

Symptoms:

Flows fail  today that worked yesterday.  Multiple connections may or may not show up in your connector list (but not necessarily any errors).  You have an action in your flow that has an error message showing a datasource with a "_1" at the end.   

I will summarize (one, more, or none of these issues may be the source of your issues, but these details are worthy of note to help resolve the issue).

1. Essentially, every user has their own connections to data.  They are established when the app is first run by a user, and they log into their 365 account when prompted.  The connections in your list are not reflective of everyone.
2. It is not possible to avoid multiple connections to a single connector.  It just happens.  Someone may be able to explain how it happens, but I have not found a pattern.
3. Messing with connections can have detrimental effect on your flows.  Deleting and reconnecting in order to eliminate multiple connections, in my experience, does not give you desired results.  In fact, it may reappear as you attempt to reconnect to your flows that fail.  It may be required to do a "Save As" on a flow, and replace the flow in powerapps.  Delete it from PowerApps in View/Datasources, then reattach new one from Action/Flows (Function recently renamed to:   Action/Power Automate)
4. The activity in step three ONLY affects you.  If your users are having issues with connections, that activity does not affect his connections.  Or does not entirely.  I'm still a bit unsure about that.  
5. If you have multiple connections to a connector, a failed flow might be fixed by going the the "..." and selecting another connection in the list.  They all appear the same, so it is indistinguishable which connection is which.  But, changing it may resolve an issue.  I think that if you have the same connector selected for every action using that connector, then that is the best chance for success.
6. Just because your connections work today, does not mean you might have an issue with these tomorrow.  Despite no connection errors appearing when you check them in the connections menu.  I have had to do step 3 or 4 with flows that worked the day before, and suddenly do not.
7. Despite the detail of item 4., it is RARE that a flow failure affects a single user, but I have seen it happen.

Please add to this with your experience.  I will update the first entry to make it up to date.

[v-alzhan-msft]

Hi @martinav ,

Thank you for your sharing!

Best regards,

Alice       

Community Support Team _ Alice Zhang
If this post helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly.

[A2H2WZZ]

To your point about inevitably having multiple connections to the same connector I definitely agree. One reason that I have for this is the different types of credentials for the connector if it is to a SQL server. When you set up the connection you can specify what type of credentials to use (Windows, or SQL) and I have made two connections to the same source, one with each of these. The trick is to rename the connector to denote this. The ability to rename them has not always been available or at least has not always been apparent. Just go into your connector and click the (...) and go to edit. Then just update the display name to make it more unique so you can distinguish it from others that are connected to the same thing.

Connection 1 : "Database_Server_SQLCreds"
Connection 2 : "Database_Server_WindowsCreds"

[martinav · Accepted solution]

@A2H2WZZ ,

Oh!  This is very good.  I'm glad they can be renamed now.

Question is... If I rename it, I assume it will not affect current flows, as things in these systems are generally linked by UUIDs and such other than names.  But, I do not want to assume.  I can rename now, and not cause havoc?

My duplicate connector issue has not been different accounts.  In my case, I do not know what generates the extras, but they pop up now and then.  I have never been able to associate it with any particular action on my part.

[martinav]

@A2H2WZZ ,

I also just noticed... Not all connections have the ability to edit name (yet??).  Sharepoint is the one that is a huge issue for me.  Outlook is another, but that one cannot be renamed.

[martinav]

I was going to give renaming my SP connections, and I find that rename is not an editable item.  So, no go on SP either.  Bummer, this one has been a real pain.

[schenley]

To share for anyone who, like me, comes across this issue years later and the suggested steps don't help - I was able to resolve this by going to:

My Account > App Permissions

and revoking permissions for Power Apps and one that said something about Power Apps and Power Automate. 

The next time I loaded the app in question, it prompted me for permission to use my account to access SharePoint.  After that, I was able to use the flows in the app.