How to troubleshoot Workflow publishing errors?

When attempting to save a workflow I am receiving the message that the workflow was not saved because of "Illegal characters in path." The workflow runs fine without errors locally and I have been able to publish it until I made some additions. Obviously I can debug by reverting to my previous version and adding 1 change at a time then trying to publish, but it seems that Alteryx should be able to provide a hint at where this exception is happening. Any suggestions?

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Accepted answers

fmvizcaino

Hi JamesTye,

One thing that I have checked and it is generating the same problem you are getting is the number of | (pipe) between the file name and sheet name in an excel output. It should be 3 pipes.

Best,

Fernando V.

All comments

fmvizcaino

Hi JamesTye,

Were you able to save the workflow locally? Would you be able to share it?

Fernando V.

fmvizcaino

Hi JamesTye,

One thing that I have checked and it is generating the same problem you are getting is the number of | (pipe) between the file name and sheet name in an excel output. It should be 3 pipes.

Best,

Fernando V.

shawnbearsphelan

I am getting the same error, but I checked my ouput file and I have three ||| pipes. Is there anything else that could cause this error? It is an analytic app that works fine on my desktop computer.

jacob_kahn

This was the perfect solution. Thank you

Happy Holidays,

Jacob

ScottG

I have noticed that in version 2020.1, running a workflow in Alteryx Designer will compensate/correct if the workflow has Output Data Tools that uses 4 pipe characters in an Excel path. In other words, Designer is tolerant of that kind of mistyping. However, publishing to Server will flag this as an error "Illegal characters in path".

So if you see this error, make sure all your paths have 3 pipe characters.

mdegiule

I am still getting the error "Illegal characters in path." I only have 3 pipes. Saves fine locally, I get the error when saving to the Gallery.

PeteLacz

How do I find these illegal characters in a large workflow. I can't check everything.

fluteman

Not sure this is solved. My Workflow has the same error. Agree with other posts Alteryx should be able to run a debugger to locate the illegal characters.

I'm going to have to use windows scheduler. :-(

IbnFazl

Anyone able to assist..i am having a similar issue when trying to save a large workflow to the gallery ....difficult to pinpoint what the issue is but getting the message 'illegal characters in path'...is there a quick way to identify what the underlying defect is in the workflow?

JeremyRiley

Besides the incorrect pipe count on a file path for Excel, I found another instance that will trigger this. If you are using any Blob Input or Blob Outputs, double check the paths. An typo in these (mostly an incorrect number of '\') will produced the same error message when trying to upload to Gallery.

danilang

Necro-posting here, but new info

I had the same problem in a very simple workflow. The issue was that an output path had a line feed character in it. This only showed up when I looked at the workflow in xml view and saw the wrapped path. In the config of the Output Data tool, the line feed was invisible.

Dan

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