Alteryx Gallery (Unable to create backup)

Question

Hello Everyone!

Did anyone know how can I solve the issue on Alteryx Gallery (the server) where I have this error "Unable to create backup of D: \ProgramData\Alteryx\Service\Staging\.......:Access id denied. (5)". It happens to me frequently when I run the workflow in Alteryx Gallery, where the excel output itself have multiple sheets.

Temporary solution I have is to minimized the number of output in Alteryx Designer.

I have tried to put the "Block until done" function in Alteryx Designer, and it can run perfectly in Alteryx Designer. But when I publish the workflow and run it in Alteryx Gallery, this errors happen.

Any idea to solve this issue is much appreciated!

Thank you!

Gaurav_Dhama_ · Answer

I have faced this error generally when Alteryx starts writing to the excel before a .bak file could be made writable.

Few checks worth checking:

1. Are you writing the outputs to a location where it gets backed up like by One drive? This causes error sometimes as, as soon as the file is created it starts getting backed up making it in accessible.

2. Is your Alteryx workflow writing in sequence? If two outputs to same file are created at the same time then also you can observe this error. If two different flows are writing to the file where you cannot use Block until done, try using the append tool to sequence them together.

3. You can make a macro for the sequencing that writes the file and creates a dummy output for the same macro to be used in sequence. You can also try deleting these .bak files using the run command inside the macro, this will make sure that every time your excel is created, its .bak file is deleted before second subsequent macro starts writing to the same file.

SPetrie · Answer

Looks like a folder permission issue.

You may want to talk to your gallery admin to see if that folder location on the server allows write access for the account you are using.

When alteryx creates multiple sheets or does multiple edits to a single file, it creates a .bak version of the file in order to do it.

If your user account doesnt have permission to save to that folder on the server when it is trying to make a .bak, that could cause this.

If you are running the flow as yourself, its your account that needs to be allowed permission. If your flows are using the local user account on the gallery server to run the flow, that would be the account that needs access.