Activity Timeout Not Working

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1

We’ve encountered an issue where the bot gets stuck and runs indefinitely when certain popups appear (Microsoft Excel or Outlook warnings). An activity timeout has been set at Invoke ProcessTransaction, but it doesn’t seem to affect how long the queue item will run if this popup appears. It does not throw any kind of exception.

I don’t want a workaround for the popups, I’m wondering if there is a way to get the bot to throw the “Activity Timeout has been reached” application exception when the bot reaches the timeout we’ve set. Is this the way UiPath is intended to behave? Ignoring the Timeout setting seems like a bug to me.

2

Hi, please tell us the version of UiPath you are using and a simple sequence so we can try to recreate this issue.

3

Just in case, make sure your Excel and Mail activities are up-to-date. Popups shouldn’t appear when using the UiPath activities for each.

4

@bcorrea we’re using UiPath 19.4.4. The simplest example of a sequence we have where we’ve encountered this problem is: Invoke ProcessTransaction (timeout set to 20 minutes) → Start Process activity to open Outlook → Get Outlook Mail Messages activity.

At this point if a popup appears, the bot will sit indefinitely on the popup window, not throwing an exception of any kind.

@Anthony_Humphries Our Excel and Mail activities are up to date. The popups don’t appear consistently, thankfully

5

What is that part? Some sequence developed by you?

6

It is the ProcessTransaction workflow that is created by the REF. It invokes the sequences that contains the Start Process and Get Outlook Mail Messages activities

7

Oh, its important to tell us that too, isnt the workflow going to the Error part and to Init again?

8

My mistake. From what we’ve seen, it doesn’t appear to be moving past the Get Outlook Mail Messages activity when it encounters this popup. I don’t believe it’s moving through the Error portion of the workflow or hitting the Init part of the REF again

9

The default behavior of setting the timeout in invoke workflow would be that, but to be honest, i would set that timeout in the activity itself and not in the invoke.

10

I will try that. Do you have any other thoughts on why the invoke might not be timing out? It still seems like a bug to me

11

There are too many variables involved that i can be certain if this is a bug or not, so it is worth the try there…

12

Hello @CDrakeMSTS,

This happens when ever a Windows Security Pop Up appears on the screen. The robot gets stuck for ever. As you rightly mentioned when a Get Outlook Mail Messages, my best guess is the pop up you see is a windows security pop asking for username and password.

Regards,
Nithin

13

Thanks, Nithin. You are correct, that was one of the popups we had an issue with. Do you know if this is the intended behavior of the robot when it encounters these popups?

14

The robot just gets stuck at that point in time. The fix is ensuring that the pop up doesn’t appear anymore. For this you can go to Windows credential manager & clear the generic credentials set created by Outlook. Then open outlook , enter the credentials & ensure remember credentials is checked. This usually fixes the issue.

Regards,
Nithin

15

In support of CDrakeMSTS, UiPath has documented this situation itself.

SAP activity timeouts will not always work, so put your SAP activity in a parallel with some sort of watcher that will timeout and raise an exception.

I am currently building some Custom Activities to do just this and found this thread interesting.

16

Do you have any solution for SAP freeze issue?