Pre-General Availability: 2024-09-02

Robot Failed

When a robot fails, use the troubleshooting steps to get back on track.

Issue

A robot failed.

Why It Happens, and What To Do

Step	Why it happens	More information	What to do
1	The robot doesn't have the required access	You typically build a robot using different credentials than a robot uses to sign in to an application. Your credentials might have more or different permissions than the robot. For instance, when you built the robot, your credentials might have shown you pages and buttons that the robot can't see due to its more limited access.	Verify that the robot's credentials have the required access to complete its tasks.
2	The environment pool that the robot is associated with doesn't have any environments, or none of its environments are active		If the environment pool has no environments, add one or more environments to it. See Specify Where a Robot Runs
3	The robot timed out	A robot can time out in the following ways: The total running time for the robot exceeds the service limit. This timeout typically occurs due to a programming error. For instance, the robot might create an infinite loop. To address this issue, determine the action where the robot got stuck, and make the necessary corrections. A prevalidation page state on an action within the robot times out. A prevalidation page state specifies a timeout period. If the timeout period passes before the page state's requirements are met, the action doesn't occur, and the robot times out. See Add Validation to a Robot Action. A "wait until element is visible" action within the robot times out. A wait action specifies a timeout period. If the timeout period passes before the action's requirements are met, the robot times out. See Add a Wait Until Element Is Visible Action.	You might or might not need to address timeouts. For instance, if a robot has been running successfully for months and has failed because the application that it works in has gone down or because the network experienced temporary latency, the robot runs successfully again after the issues are resolved. However, if a robot consistently times out during testing, latency issues are often to blame. Complete the robot's task yourself in the application, and then consider how to address the issue. For instance, increasing the timeout period might prevent timeouts.
4	The page's underlying HTML has changed since you built the robot	If a robot has run successfully for a period of time and now consistently fails on the same step, the application's underlying HTML for the page might have changed.	Review the XPath of the element in the action that has failed, and compare it to the XPath in the robot. See View an Element's XPath.
5	The HTML code for an element doesn't match its action	If you used the low-code tools to build your robot, you might have chosen an action that can't interact with the underlying HTML code. For instance, sometimes a UI field looks like a drop-down list but is actually coded as a text field. For example, the following actions are used for similar activities: Add a Checkbox Action Add a Click Element Add an Enter Text Action Add a List Action	Use the recorder to recapture the action that is failing. When you use the recorder to create robot actions, the recorder reviews the page's HTML and determines the appropriate robot action to use.
6	The action targets the wrong UI element	While identifying the field that a robot needs to act on, you might have inadvertently targeted the wrong element.	The advanced settings for the recorder allow you to view all the elements to target before saving a specific XPath. See View All Elements to Target. Alternatively, if the recorder is unable to target the exact element that you require, you can obtain the XPath of the element, and paste the value into the recorder. See View an Element's XPath.