Troubleshooting

Learn the steps to patch up your workflow when it needs a quick fix! 🛠️

When your workflow isn't running as intended, you have the ability to troubleshoot and get things back on track.

Where to Start

The first step to understanding what's gone wrong is to check out the Activity tab within your workflow.

Using the Status filtering in the right-hand sidebar, filter by "Error."

Once you can see the activity runs with errors, click one to expand the details of how the automation ran for each step. When you locate the step with the error, the next goal is to understand the error.

Below are some important things to consider when viewing the error message associated with your run.

Did the error come from a connected app or MESA?

• Connected apps often have their own error messaging related to API requirements associated with the service. If you have a knowledge of APIs, you can often refer to API documentation for the specific app, if it's publicly accessible, to help break down the error message.
• Errors related to MESA built-in tools are specific to MESA requirements.

Common types of error messages

• Access denied

  • Credential issues often provide this message, meaning you may need to check, update, or re-add your credential to the step.
• Not found (404 error)

  • This typically occurs when a step requires an ID (e.g., Product ID, Order ID, Customer ID, etc.), but the value passed for the required ID field is invalid.

    • To troubleshoot, look at the data sent via the requested details or variables available.
• Bad request

  • This message can mean that the data being used was not accepted by the service you're using.

    • To troubleshoot, look at the data that was sent and double-check your credential setup.
• Timeout

  • An error message that mentions "timeout" typically means the service you're using has received too many requests within a short period of time or simply didn't process the request properly.

    • To troubleshoot these errors, you have a few recommended options:

      • Replay the activity run (and set up automatic replay for error handling)
      • Contact support

      • Upgrade your plan
• 503 and 502 errors

  • These errors are likely related to a temporary disruption with the service you're trying to connect to.

    • To troubleshoot, replay the activity run (and setup automatic replay for error handling)

Look at app documentation for integration-specific errors

• Shopify technical error codes and explanations

Inspecting Tasks

Inspecting a task allows you to dive into further technical details about the step and how it ran. With this additional insight, you can help make connections to what the error message is referring to regarding your errored run.

One way to inspect a task is to view the Request details. To do this, click on the three vertical dots icon on the right-hand side of the step in the Activity to reveal the Task Options.

With the request details open, you can identify what the step attempted to send (labeled Sent Body on the left) and what was returned (labeled Returned Body on the right).

The Returned Body message contains information that acknowledges the problem that created the error. Confirm whether or not this messaging makes sense compared to the information available in the Sent Body details.

Another way to breakdown activity data and determine what went wrong is to check the Variables available from steps in the workflow prior to the step that errored. This is especially helpful if you know the error is related to a variable that didn't pass its value properly (e.g. an Order ID or Product ID variable).

To check the variables available view, click on the three vertical dots icon featured on the right-hand side of a step in the Activity to reveal the Task Options.

With the variables available view open, click open each step's key to reveal the variables associated with each step. From here, you can confirm whether or not all of the variables you used in your workflow setup passed the values you were expecting.

Turn on Debug Logs for Additional Visibility

If you cannot resolve the error, you can perform additional troubleshooting by turning on Logging debug mode in the workflow's Activity tab.

1. In the Activity tab, turn on Debug logs while troubleshooting errors. Once you are done troubleshooting, you can turn off Debug logs mode.

2. Scroll or search within the Activity tab and locate the failed task with an Error status on the right-hand side.

3. Click on the ˇ icon to the left of the date. Every task in the workflow will then display.

4. Locate the error which displays with a red background color.

5. Replay the tasks starting from the Trigger while Logging debug mode is turned on. You can click on the three vertical dots icon on the first task. Click Replay to replay the task.

6. MESA provides a more detailed layout under the Logs page. Logs enable you to search for past tasks or to view an entire chain of actions and its information for a specific task. You click on the three-dotted button on the first task and click on Logs.

Since Logging and Logging debug mode are turned on, you will see more information related to the failed task appear.

The messages with the red Error tag will be the most important to review.

7. Once you have made adjustments to your workflow to fix the error, you can replay the failed task.

Debug logging details will show for any new activity runs that occur after enabling debug logging, so replaying a task or running a test allows you to recover these additional details from a previous run.

You can also see your outputs by using an Activity Log step in your workflow for testing purposes.

Best Practices

• Enable failure notifications for your workflows.
• Set up automatic replay for errored task runs.