This workflow references macros errors

[Marco87]

Yesterday I worked on a flow and it was all good.

Today I opened it again to work on it, and I got this error. Somehow it stages the macros in a temporary location of some sort, instead of using the macro from the actual location. Also the path of native macro's are being changed to temporary location.

When it occurs is unpredictable, but it is very annoying since everytime you open a flow, it's kinda shaky if it will produce this error or not. What could be causing this and how can we prevent this?

[randreag]

Hi @Marco87 

Any chance you download this workflow from the gallery?

[rodalferreira]

Hey @Marco87 

I had this issue in the past. Is your D:\ a mapped network drive? If yes, ensure the network drive is connected before open your workflow.

Cheers,

Rodrigo

[Marco87]

No, the flow was stored and opened locally

[Marco87 · Accepted solution]

I found the reason: when publishing to the gallery and packaging all the workflow assets, Alteryx places everything to a folder called externals. (seems to be a temp folder) this changes all the relations from macro's from relative to the externals folder. If you then save the flow locally, after saving it in the gallery, then you save a version locally with relations to the externals folder. Once the temp folder is deleted, the flow cannot find the macro's anymore. 

To me this happens when I change a flow, store it in the gallery for scheduling purposes, then find that I need to make changes, because of unexpected behavior in the scheduler.

The solution is to:

- always store the flow locally, before saving in the gallery (not the other way around!)

- Close the flow after storing in the gallery

- open the flow from the local folder again

- make the changes, store locally, save in gallery, retest in the scheduler. 

Hopefully this helps others that are facing the same issues.

[daniellefzimmerman]

thank you for saving me hours of aggravation.