Flawled Google Sheet integration

[Trying2MakeAPbetter]

Hey there!

I’m a new but highly engaged user of Active Pieces, with extensive experience in automation tools like Zapier, Pabbly, RPA Tools and so on.

I consider Google Sheets a cornerstone of most automations, as it can serve as a buffer for variables or a simple database. However, I’ve encountered a significant issue with the Google Sheets integration in Active Pieces. Let me explain.

I used the “get next rows” action to retrieve data from a single column (A1 to A60) into my workflow. Initially, it worked correctly, gathering the content as an array.

When I ran the automation, I received an error stating “Missing data” and showing an empty array. I rechecked and tested it again, and it seemed to work.

To troubleshoot, I reduced the array size for testing purposes (from 60 to 15 values). When tested, it returned zero results—empty. The authorization, sheet, etc., remained the same; only the range changed from 60 to 15.

I even created a new sheet to get the 15-value array from there, but it didn’t work.

After multiple attempts, I gave up.

Does anyone have any idea what might be happening? Losing Google Sheets functionality is a significant drawback for me, especially since the actions available for it in Active Pieces are already quite limited.

Thanks in advance.

[Digitalfastmind]

That’s super important, hope it gets the right attention and hopefully a solution.

[Trying2MakeAPbetter]

Nobody? I can’t believe that I’m the only one missing GSheets stability and improvement…

[manan]

i’d recommend switching to something else. google sheets has been super unreliable since last few weeks (no idea if it’s google or activepieces).

u can use airtable or grist

[abuaboud]

Hi @manan

What recent issues did you face in Google sheets?

@Digitalfastmind Do you have video or something that we can use to debug? We feel something is off but we can’t reproduce the issue, I tried to run my google sheets for couple of days It worked, but I feel there is something off going on.

[Digitalfastmind]

check main post from @Trying2MakeAPbetter Trying2MakeAPbetter

[manan]

hi @abuaboud

i posted it ~10 days ago. new row trigger wasnt working for me

and even when u marked the bug as resolved, they were still not triggering.

[Trying2MakeAPbetter]

Hey there! I was the one with the problem.

Unfortunatelly I didn’t recorded it but still, it doesn’t look like a plain GSheets update issue. I described the problem in the original post.

What happened was: while building the flow, the test to gather multiple cells values from a GSheet worked at first and then not when the flow was triggered. For testing purposes I reduced the number of cells (rows in this case) and then nothing worked (nor while testing nor in production).

I’ll probably try it again and if its still broken I’ll record and share here.

Thanks for the message.

[kishanprmr]

Hi @Trying2MakeAPbetter , Could you please share the flow template? It would be helpful for reproducing and troubleshooting the issue.

[Trying2MakeAPbetter]

I believe I understand the situation, and it’s quite frustrating.

Let me explain.

I have an automation that retrieves rows from a Google Sheet (GET NEXT ROWS) and then processes those values in a loop (LOOP ON ITEMS).

During testing, the function successfully captures all the rows from the Google Sheet initially. However, once I run the automation and it processes the loop, it seems to “flag” those rows as “used” or “not to be considered.” Consequently, if I attempt to run the same automation again, it fails due to an EMPTY ARRAY from GET NEXT ROWS, which causes the loop to fail.

After running the automation and looping through rows 2 to 11, I now have to disregard those lines and copy my content into rows 12 to 21. When I run it again, I will then need to ignore rows 2 to 21, and this process continues, which is quite impractical.

To make it clear:

Initially, only the red lines were present. After the automation or flow executes, they are disregarded in subsequent runs. To rerun the process, simply copy the content to the next block, which is the yellow one in this case. If you proceed with a third run, remember to ignore lines 2-19.

Can you fix it @kishanprmr?

Thanks

[Trying2MakeAPbetter]

No one?! This is not a minor thing. It compromises the whole experience with Active Pieces… now it’s not recovering anything… 6h or so building a flow, testing etc and now it’s just useless…

@ abuaboud

[abuaboud]

Hi @manan

I couldn’t reproduce the issue on the cloud, I think it’s different from this post issue.

Are you self hosting? Did you setup the AP_FRONTEND_URL?

[abuaboud]

Hi @Trying2MakeAPbetter

I think I understand your question now and that’s good point, I assume you made an automation and you publish it fails.

You have fixed it and republish It and you expect to start it from 2 instead of 11 because It’s after re-publishing the flow.

The memory key persist actually across the different version, try to change memory key in “Get Next Row(s)” and republish again.

We are going to add markdown with this information.

Does this make sense?

Thank you,
Mo.

[abuaboud]

Hi @Trying2MakeAPbetter

This note has been added in the action

I hope things make things clear

[Trying2MakeAPbetter]

Thanks. I’ll try it and get back to you.