Flow Works Half the time, breaks the other half - Issues with ' For Each Row' ??

[TylerBen]

Hey guys,

Prety straight forward process here 

Inputs:

Goal:

Everyday, 1 flow checks the DATE and 1 flow checks the INITIALEMAIL Column (2 days apart). 

IF: today() = InitialEmail

     Send Email to 'Lead Hand Day - Email' - Your Audit stations is Line 8 Station 'Day Station'

Ive attached my flow here (and also as an attachment as the above looks too small to read).

FLOW INPUTS:

The 'Look at All Dates in Date Column' in my flow has it as ISO 8601, no advanced parameters, 

'ForEach Row' - just pulls the only available option of 'Body/Value'

If Today() = InitialEmail Date [screen shot is below] but all dates are formatted with MM-dd-yyyy, and im comparing utcNow() against the items in InitialEmail.

THE ISSUE:

1) I get varying success... sometimes when I 'test' it will run and send emails, sometimes it fails. Sometimes it will work for 2 weeks and then it fails. I'm probably batting 50% which makes no sense. 

the times that it does fail it fails at the 'Foreach Row (for Each Week)'. I thought it would function more along the lines of 'try action on row 1 (true/false), try action on row 2 (true/false), try action on row 3 (true/false)' but it feels that if it tries to run the action on row 1 and fails it just stops the entire flow (again, only 50% of the time). 

What am I missing here? 

[wskinnermctc]

Can you show a screen shot of a failed flow? Are there any error messages?

I think when an action fails inside of a condition, the failure shows at the top condition instead of like where it actually happens in the branches. I don't have an exact example of this, but I remember it being annoying when I was trying to find where a the problem occured.

What is the full comparision in your "IF Today() = InitialEmail Date"

is it:

formatDateTime(utcNow(),'MM-dd-yyyy') is equal to formatDateTime(items('Foreach_Row_(For_Each_Week)')?['InitialEmail'],'MM-dd-yyyy')

What timezone are you in?

This is my preference to reduce errors, but you should remove all of the special characters from the action titles. Like don't include the '=' or any '(' open or ')' closed parenthesis.

Just call it "Foreach Row - For Each Week" 

or

"If utcNow is equal to InitialEmail Date"

The classic designer didn't allow special characters in the action title. I would still follow that rule just to make things easier to view. 

[wskinnermctc]

Lowkey - I would create a brand new flow using the Classic Designer and not use the new Co-Pilot Designer View at all.

There have been a lot of issues that are unclear with the New Designer, so I try to keep using the Classic Designer to maintain fidelity.

Plenty of times with these questions where there is a subtle problem, I can't tell if it is a flow/user issue or a New Designer bug.

Also, I hate Foreach, if you use Classic Designer it will use Apply to Each.

[TylerBen]

Hey ! Apologies for the delay, I had a  couple days of success so had to wait for it to fail. 

I actually just found out I could see a better description of the error by clicking into the failed attempt - previously i would just discover issues during 'test' and the description would always be 'precedent actions failed' and I had zero knowledge to look at the code format and identify where/why/what action failed. 

Current my error is:

Which is odd because this system using initial email was a copypaste of my main email function which has worked this week. 

However, I do have the settings as:

so im not sure where the error is coming from as I thought I had them set as ISO 8601

I will certainly look at using the classic designer. 

[TylerBen]

if regard to your other questions, I have: 

Under the code view: 

And im EST 

[wskinnermctc]

So the issue is the date is being read as 45306 which is Serial.

If you have any blank rows in your dates, it can change ISO 8601 back to Serial.

You can see my post here about Excel First Row Blank that shows the issue.

Basically, if you will ever have any blanks in the dates column, you will need to keep the Serial format and use an expression like below. 

if(empty(item()?['Birth Date']),null,addSeconds('1899-12-30',int(formatNumber(mul(float(item()?['Birth Date']),86400),'0'))))

[TylerBen]

Dam you're good nice function! I dont and have never had empty dates though,  I have had a couple strings of success now though... I just confirmed both date columns were the same format (they were), and I reestablished the connection in power automate, so we'll see. If I accept your solution can I come back and add a comment if the issue pops up again?