Troubleshooting Airtable automations

1. Open your Airtable homepage.

2. Open the base with the failed automation.

3. Click Automations.

4. Select the failed automation from the “Automations list” section.

5. Click Automation history.

6. Locate the failed run and click the ˃ icon to open the settings.

7. Click the  ˃ icon to expand error message.

8. Review the error message and take any applicable action.

   1. If you’re still unable to resolve the issue, reach out to Airtable Support.

1. Open your Airtable homepage.

2. Open the base with the automation trigger you want to retest.

3. Click Automations.

4. Select the automation you want to troubleshoot from the “Automations list” section.

5. Click the trigger’s name to open its configuration.

6. Click Test trigger.

1. Open your Airtable homepage.

2. Open the base with the automation action(s) you want to retest.

3. Click Automations.

4. Select the automation you want to troubleshoot from the “Automations list” section.

5. Click the actions’ name to open its configuration.

6. Click Test action.

Note

For our system to find a test record for you to choose, at least 1 record—in the corresponding table—must match all of your automation’s parameters.

1. Open your Airtable homepage.

2. Open the base with the automation test record you want to confirm.

3. Click Automations.

4. Select the automation you want to troubleshoot from the “Automations list” section.

5. Click Use suggested record or Choose record.

   1. The “Use suggest record” option is automatically selected by Airtable where the “Choose record” option allows you to select your own test record.

Note

• Unintended disabled automations  typically occur when attempting to turn “On” a Google Drive automation, and the file you're trying to access via the automation is stored in a shared or team drive.  

  • Files located in third-party shared drives cannot be accessed via Airtable Automations

Automations can sometimes independently toggle "Off" after being toggled "On" due to an authentication issue, like a password update in an automation connected to third-party software, such as Google Workspace, Jira, Microsoft Teams, etc.

To reconnect the third-party account:

1. Open your Airtable homepage.

2. Open the base with the trigger you want to retest.

3. Click Automations.

4. Select the automation you want to troubleshoot from the “Automations list” section.

5. Click Send an email.

6. Click Manage connected accounts.

   1. Check out Managing external accounts article for more information.

Automations may not turn on when a trigger or an action step has not been fully set up.

• • To remedy this, review your automation and confirm that all steps have been tested and that any fields that should contain information have been configured.

Additionally, try the following:

• Retest the automation, starting from the trigger and moving through the action steps individually.

• Try recreating a new version of automation from scratch and then turning it "On" to confirm whether the error is resolved or persists.

Looping automations can happen when:

• The action step of your automation is retriggering the trigger step of your automation.

  • For example, when you use the "When a record enters a view" trigger alongside the "Create a new record" action—Iif the conditions in the automation cause the newly created record to enter the view from the trigger step, once turned on, this automation will loop endlessly until you've exhausted your workspace plan limits.

• Two or more automations within the same base are conflicting in a way that causes one automation to trigger another.

  • To remedy this, toggle your automations "Off," then review your automations and check for any potential overlapping triggers and actions. Finally, turn on each automation one by one.

Trigger step errors are frequently caused when:

• No records meet the conditions added to the automation you're building.

• Your trigger links to a third-party service that is currently disconnected from your Airtable account.

For example, to properly test the new row trigger for Google Sheets, at least one row must live in the Google Sheet you're attempting to connect to Airtable.

To troubleshoot this error:

1. Add a new test record—or matching external condition—to the table and/or view that the automation is watching.

   1. This new record must contain information matching the conditions set by the trigger step

Action step errors are frequently caused when:

• A record that triggered the automation is missing a required value for the action step to run.

• The error "Could not parse number" appears, likely because you're attempting to set a field's value using a mathematical operation, which is unsupported.

• Your workspace plan is over its included record limits, impacting your automation's ability to create new records until your monthly limit resets.

For example, the Send an email action requires a valid email address.

To troubleshoot this error:

1. Review the run history for information detailing which failed runs are associated with records missing an email address.

2. Add the required email address to that record's field so that future automation runs will run properly.

Insufficient permissions errors are frequently caused when:

• The automation is trying to update a field or a table with editing permissions enabled.

• Restrictions on the linked table prevent the automation from creating a new record. This error can be caused by enabled table-level permissions or the table being a synced table, and it can't create new records.

• An automation is attempting to insert a value into a computed field.

• An automation is attempting to add a value to the primary field of a linked record, and that value doesn't match the primary field of an existing record on the linked table.

Attachment URL is disallowed errors are frequently caused when:

• The automation may be firing before the attachment is fully imported into Airtable.

  • While a file is uploading, its URL will often contain the string "airtable-attachment-uploads-production.s3.amazonaws.com."

TTo troubleshoot this error:

• Check out our Delay automations run article to learn how to delay automations.

• Add a formula field to your table that outputs your attachment field, where the formula is the name of your attachment field, such as "Attachment Field Name."

• Add conditions to your automation, for example, using the When a record matches conditions trigger or the When a record enters view trigger containing filters.

Cannot modify a computed field errors are frequently caused when:

• An automation is attempting to create a record that contains linked record fields, where the table you're trying to link to has a formula field as its primary field.

  • When linking to a record with a computed field, the linked record value has to match the computed value. Otherwise, the link fails because Airtable tries to create a new record in the formula field to match the new value.

• Update the primary field in the secondary table to a single-line text field instead of a formula field. If needed, the Airtable will create new records in the secondary table via the linked record field.

• Add all required values to the secondary table before running the automation.

The expected group of conditional actions was not selected after evaluating the conditions errors are frequently caused when:

• A record used in the test of the trigger step did not meet the conditions of your conditional action.

To troubleshoot this error:

1. Retest the automation using the "Choose record" option to test a record that satisfies the conditions in the failed action step.

2. Retest the conditional action to see if that removes the error message.

   1. Contact Airtable Support if the error persists.

Note

The "Update record" action can only update 1 record per run.

Received invalid inputs errors are frequently caused when:

• Your "Update record" action does not have the required record ID.

• The automation is attempting to update too many records simultaneously.

• Add the required record ID to your "Update record" action.

• Adjust the "Find record" conditions to narrow the results to a single record, or use “Repeating automation” actions to help update multiple records simultaneously.

• Retest the trigger to get an up-to-date version of the test record.

Failed to construct field values errors are frequently caused when:

• Missing information in a field that the automation needs for testing.

• Review the test record and confirm that all fields in the action steps include the required information (not blank/empty).

30 seconds network timeout errors are frequently caused when:

• When the script contains a call to selectRecordsAsync on a large table.

• Limit the field values returned to speed up this call because all field values are returned by default. You can specify the fields that you need, like shown in the example below:

  • let query = await table.selectRecordsAsync({fields:["Name", "Date", "Status"]});

• Loops (For/While) - Loops that iterate through a large amount of data, like a record query with .selectRecordsAsync() or a response from an external API call, can lead to timeouts. Consider utilizing a repeating group of a scripting action to function as the iterative logic instead of completing the full loop within a single script.

• Calls to external APIs using fetch() - If your script makes an external API call with fetch(), and the external service takes 30 seconds or longer to respond, it may timeout. If you use fetch() calls within your script, review the external API(s) to see how long it takes to respond

Invalid filter errors are frequently caused when:

• When an automation filtering condition—often a “Find records” action step—tries to compare string values from one field to array values in another.

• Use a formula field to ensure the backend data types match; both fields’ values must be arrays, or both fields must be strings.

No. When two automations are triggered simultaneously, there's no guarantee they occur in the order they were triggered. They may run simultaneously or out of order, leading to race conditions when outcomes are sensitive to timing or the sequence of automation runs.

If the order of operations is essential, we recommend combining these tasks into a single automation or delaying the action that touches the automation trigger to ensure they execute in the expected sequence

Note

Automation run limits reset on the first of each month.  

To confirm how many automation runs available or used:

1. Open your Airtable account overview.

2. Select the workspace with the automations run history you want to review.  

3. Review your automations run history under the “Usage” section.

When an automation is turned on, it will trigger once its trigger conditions are met. Any records that previously met their trigger conditions when the automation was turned on will not trigger the automation, unless they satisfy the trigger conditions again.

To ensure that an automation triggers existing records:

1. Edit the record(s) or the automation so that they no longer meet the trigger conditions, and update them to meet the trigger conditions again.

Note

Specifying an individual email for automation run failure notifications is not a supported feature.

When an automation fails to run, the person who turned it "On" receives an email with the subject "Something went wrong with an automation." To fix the issue:

1. Click View failure.  

2. Review your automation’s run history.

If the last collaborator who enabled the automation leaves the workspace, notifications are sent to all workspace collaborators with owner permissions.

Note

If you use the "Actual run time" token in an automation, you should confirm whether its timezone setting is incorrect.

The date and created time fields default to GMT/UTC in automations, independent of how the display is formatted in the field settings. To display the date/time in your desired timezone in your automation, you need to create a formula field to set the timezone and preferred format, and use that field in your automation instead.

Note

• Airtable intentionally excludes parsing from the timezone formula by forcing a data field into the text string. The Timezones and locales article provides more in-depth directions and context.  

• When the DATETIME_PARSE function is included in your set timezone formula, Airtable translates it back into a date, and then the formula field converts to GMT like a regular date field.

Your formula—which needs to be added to your base—needs to look similar to the one below:

(DATETIME_FORMAT(SET_TIMEZONE({Date visited}, 'America/New_York'), 'LLLL'))

To update the above formula to output your preferred timezone:

1. Review the Supported SET_TIMEZONE timezones article for supported timezones

2. Review the Supported DATETIME_FORMAT format specifiers article for supported format specifiers.

3. Replace 'America/New_York' with your preferred timezone.

Your automation may unexpectedly run when a:

• Deleted record is restored - A deleted record that is restored from the base's trash may cause additional automation runs if the restored record matches any of the trigger conditions set in the automations currently enabled in that base.

• Record re-enters a view - Records can enter and exit a view multiple times depending upon the filters configured for that particular view, meaning that a slight alteration might cause them to do so.

  • The automation re-runs because the "When record enters a view" trigger is triggered each time a record enters a view.

The expression builder is designed to block adding data that does not match the expected data shape of your current input field. For example, it may prevent inserting an array or object-like item into an input that expects a string or number

The "To input is empty" error is triggered when the test record's email field is blank and needs updating.

The "await" keyword can ensure that subsequent lines of code in a script "wait" for code to execute before proceeding. However, the script execution will need all lines of code to run before finishing, regardless of whether "await" is included in the script.

For example, a script with the following code:
let response = await fetch('https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/posts'); takes the same time to run as a script with the following code:let response = fetch('https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/posts');

If multiple automations are toggled "On", review those automations and consider their potential implications elsewhere in your base.

For example, an automation set to update another record may meet the conditions set in another automation, resulting in further changes to that record and/or making it appear that the first automation has not run.