Troubleshooting an Iterative Macro: 'Field 1' is not contained in the record.

[ddiesel]

Good morning!

I have an iterative macro that cleans up a yucky file format. I got it working smoothly but now I get an error when I insert the macro into my workflow:

"Iteration #1: Tool #18: 'Field 1' is not contained in the record.

I tested every file in the directory and it seems to work perfectly. Not sure if this is pertinent but the files themselves are a tab delimited files that our system automatically saves with a ".xls" extension. Excel opens these files and converts them but Alteryx has trouble reading in this file type. The only way I can properly read them is to bring them into Alteryx a CSV with \0 no delimiters and then parse out the data I need.

What are my troubleshooting steps?

[patrick_digan]

@ddiesel I would highly recommend the X-Ray Browse Macro: https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Engine-Works-Blog/The-X-Ray-Browse-Macro-Debugging-Made-Easier/ba-p.... You can add it to any point in your iterative macro, and it will post the data to your workflow's messages. It also allows you to save out temp files.

Since your error is pointing to tool 18, you can connect the X-ray browse to the same tool that connects to 18. You may have to configure it a little. Then save your macro, and re-run your process. You should now see some messages coming from your X-ray browse tool.

[ddiesel]

Wow, neat tool! Love the icon, too!

Unfortunately, I don't see anything that would cause an error in the X-Ray Browse tool.

Any other suggestions?

[patrick_digan]

@ddiesel bummer! Can you post any sort of sample workflow or files so that I can recreate the error on my side? If not, perhaps a screenshot of the macro?

[gnans19]

@ddiesel

Also you might want to check if you have same number of fields in all iterations. If not make sure this option is enabled(view->interface designer->properties)

[ddiesel]

Thank you.

I changed the output mode but am still receiving the same error.

[KaneG · Accepted solution]

As @patrick_digan alluded to, the issue exists on the tool before Tool #18 in the iterative Macro.

Thinking about it more though, I'm not sure whether the iterative macro will ever stop naturally, as there is only one output... so it is the iterative output and the data output?

I'm going to take a stab in the not-quite-so-dark here and guess that there is a dynamic input feeding in to a text-to-columns and it may be that T2C tool that is Tool 18. The first thing to check is that on the Dynamic Input template, you have ticked 'First Row contains Data' so that the field coming out will always be the same name. If it was configured that Tool #18 is waiting on Field_1, and the data sometimes comes in with a header, then that will cause this issue.

Kane