Cannot launch the UI Flow recorder

[tiklu80]

Hi All,

        I am having a problem starting the UI flow recorder. I have verified the steps given in the following URL 

https://support.microsoft.com/en-in/help/4555735/ui-flows-cannot-launch-recorder

and everything seems to be in order. I can see my data gateway online from my PowerApps portal. And I have also created a UI flow connection there. At present my laptop is connected directly to the internet and not behind any corporate firewall. I have also checked the process described here.

https://powerusers.microsoft.com/t5/General-Power-Automate/UI-Flow-recorder-not-launching/m-p/500356...

Finally, I spun a new VM (windows server 2016) in Azure and have used a new demo PowerApps environment. I am still facing the same issue. Can you please help. 

Here are some info about my environment. 

I am using the latest version of the data gateway and Power automate UI flow recorder.  I have installed the latest version of the UI Flow browser plugin in my edge browser (I have also installed the latest version of the same plugin in chrome and tested). 

in my laptop, I am running windows 10 professional and in Azure, I am running windows server 2016 data center.  

Please help.

Thanks

Tiklu

[danielbazetto]

Hi @tiklu80 , 

Are you facing the issue using both options(Desktop app and Web app)?  Did you reach this part and the error comes up here?

If yes, what happens when you click on Lunch Recorder?

[tiklu80]

Hi @danielbazetto,

            I am stuck at the screen shown below. As you can see I have the browser plugin enabled and I also have the desktop app running. If I am trying to do a screen recording for desktop I am getting the following screen. 

now If I try to open it for web recording, I am getting the following error

My Browser extension version is 2.1.1

and my UI flow version is as shown in the screenshot below

I am not behind a corporate firewall. I am connecting to the internet directly via a fiber-optic internet connection. Please do let me know in case you need any more info. 

Thanks

Tiklu

[danielbazetto]

Hello @tiklu80 ,

Did you manage to open the recorder on the desktop? By your screenshot I am still not sure if you do have issues only with the web or the desktop as well.

For the web I have checked on my own tenant, and noticed that I had these 2 extensions for chrome.

[tiklu80]

Hi @danielbazetto ,

                 I have both the plugins both in chrome and in edge browser. Also while trying to record for either desktop or for browser, the recorder is not opening. 

Thanks

Tiklu

[tiklu80 · Accepted solution]

Looks like the issue is specific to my computer. Though I could not identify the root cause of it. I have switched to another machine and the recorder is working just fine

[schphi]

Hi,

I'm having the same problems as described above. I installed the UI Flows Plugin (and Selenium Extension to be on the safe side) and activated it in Chrome (I also tried everything here in Edge with same results). 

But I still am stuck at the screen that wants me to install the extensions:

When I download and install the package again and activate the extension again it just waits forever for the extension to be recognized.

When I tried the same steps up until there on my home computer everything works fine but not on my work pc (and also not my colleages pc) so the way I do it should work.

I already had all possible ports opened by IT and even dropped the firewall completely so that is not the problem either. We also deactivated the Antivirus Software and used a new Chrome/Edge Profile with cleared cache. (And we turned the computer off and on, too.)

When I switch to developer mode in either Chrome or Edge I also get Errors from the extension.

According to the debugger there is something wrong with the background.html where some runtime errors happens again and again.

I suspect that this has something to do with the Selenium Extension because (although I think documentation states, that you don't need Selenium IDE to record Desktop UI Flows [and I didn't need it installed when everything worked on my home PC]) the background html seems to load Selenium and seems to break at checking for it in  the background.js

_generated_background_page.html

<!DOCTYPE html>
<body>
<script src="SeleniumIDE/seleniumIdeClient.js"></script>
<script src="recordingStatus.js"></script>
<script src="background.js"></script>

background.js

// ----------------------------------------------------------
// Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation.  All rights reserved.
// ----------------------------------------------------------

let hostName = "com.microsoft.flownativehost";

var seleniumIdeClient = new SeleniumIDEClient();

// Sends a message to the native host based on the hostname.
chrome.runtime.onMessageExternal.addListener(
  function(request, sender, sendResponse) {
    if(sender && sender.id && sender.id === chromeIdeExtensionId)
    {
      sendResponse(seleniumIdeClient.handleSeleniumCallback(request));
    }
    else if(!!request.actionType)
    {
      if(request.actionType === 'CreateSeleniumRecording')
      {
        seleniumIdeClient
          .createSeleniumRecording(request.payload)
          .then(resp => sendResponse(resp))
          .catch(errorResp => sendResponse(errorResp));
      }
      else if (request.actionType === 'GetSeleniumRecordingStatus')
      {
        seleniumIdeClient
          .getSeleniumRecordingStatus(request.parameters && request.parameters.recordingId)
          .then(resp => sendResponse(resp))
          .catch(errorResp => sendResponse(errorResp));
      }
      else if (request.actionType === 'GetSeleniumHealthStatus')
      {
        seleniumIdeClient
          .checkHealth()
          .then(resp => {
            sendResponse(resp === undefined || resp === null ? { error: 'UnreachableSeleniumExtension' } : resp)
          })
          .catch(errorResp => sendResponse(errorResp));
      }
      else
      {
        chrome.runtime.sendNativeMessage(hostName, request, function(response) {
          sendResponse(response);
        })
      }
    }

    return true;
  }
)

When I run the debugger with some breakpoints I see that there is no id in sender so the first if evaluates to false. The request.actionType is "GetInstallationStatus" so none of the following ifs are triggered and the else with the error follows. So far so good. The problem seems to be the missing ID in sender.

(Doesn't it? I have absolutely no² experience with java script and web development.)

Any help is very much appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Philipp

[schphi · Accepted solution]

Hi again,

I finally got it to work. It wasn't so much of a problem of PowerPlatform or the UI-Flow-Extension but rather a missing environment variable of my system.

I found this: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/33441434/chrome-extension-failed-to-start-native-messaging-host

which led me to this: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/42552699/failed-to-start-native-messaging-host-on-windows-comspe...

And without knowing what I was doing I just created an environment variable named "ComSpec" with value "C:\WINDOWS\system32\cmd.exe".

This apparently did the trick and everything is peachy now!!! 😁

Bye bye

[Anonymous]

hello did any one find an answer/ solution for this ? please share!