DEBUG HELP: Intermittent HTML Email (some blank, some complete)

[ericonline]

Hello,

I need some more eyes on this issue. I can't find what is wrong.

Scenario: 

• The app I'm working on sends an HTML email to the User, the User's manager, and a single person when a form is submitted.
• Submitted forms are written to a Sharepoint List.
• From there, a Flow kicks off that converts the Sharepoint record to a PDF. 
• BOTH the Sharepoint record AND the PDF are created, but the HTML IS NOT BEING GENERATED  in some cases only.

Code:

• OnStart of first screen, create a variable for the User's Manager's email.

/*============================================================
Set variables for users manager.
============================================================*/
Set(varUserManager, Office365Users.Manager(User().Email).Mail)

• "Submit" button OnSelect, create a Collection of all completed form fields, then submit form. 
  • NOTE: Below is redacted. 3/4 of the fields are dropdown.Update and text.Update.
  • I have no idea why and they cannot be changed to .Selected.Value nor .Text. Only .Update is accepted.

/*=====================================================
Create a collection of all the completed form fields. 
=====================================================*/

ClearCollect(colEntireForm,
    {
        this: textbox1.Selected,
        that: textbox2.Selected.Value
    }
);
/*=====================================================
Submit the completed form
=====================================================*/
SubmitForm(form_TIEvalResults)

• OnSuccess of the Form, send an HTML of results to User, Users Manager, and a single individual

/*==============================================================
Email the user and the users manager a completed form in HTML format using the htmlResults template.
*/==============================================================

'Outlook.com'.SendEmail(
    Office365Users.MyProfile().Mail & ";" & 
    varUserManager & ";" & 
    "Some.One@MyCompany.com",
    "Completed Form",
    email_htmlResults.HtmlText,
    {IsHtml: true}
);

/*==============================================================
Take user to Success screen.
*/==============================================================
Navigate(
    screen_success,
    ScreenTransition.None
)

• HTMLText of email

"<h3>Form Results</h3>" &

"<b>Results:</b>" &

"<a href='" & evalPDFLink_input.Text & "'>Link to PDF Version</a>" &

"<br> <br>" &

"<table width='100%' border='1' cellpadding='5' style='border:1px solid black; border-collapse:collapse; text-align:left'>" &
    "<col width='400'>" &
    "<tr style='background-color:#efefef'>
        <th>Step</th> <th>Answer</th> 
    </tr> 
    <tr>" &
        Concat(colEntireForm,
            "<td>" & "Date: " & " </td>
             <td>" & Text(evaluationDate_datePicker.SelectedDate,"[$-en-US]mm/dd/yyyy") & " </td>
    <tr>" &
            "<td>" & "this" & " </td>
             <td>" & textBox1.Text & " </td>
    <tr>" &
            "<td>" & "that" & " </td>
             <td>" & textBox2.Selected.Value & " </td> 
    "</tr>
    <tr>") &
"</Table>"

Additional observations: 

• I had a similar issue with this app a long time ago that went "unsolved mystery".
• The code comment just above SubmitForm(), WAS the old school format ("Take user to success screen";). I've updated to my preferred comment block (shown above).

Any ideas on how I can debug this?

Thank you!

TAGGING HELP 🙂 : @KickingApps, @timl, @wyotim, @v-monli-msft

[timl]

Hi @ericonline

Unfortunately, I can't really see why the HTML isn't being generated, especially as it's happening intermittently. I suspect the problem might be data related, given the intermittent nature.
Is it possible for you to change where you send the email? Since you're using Flow already, could you attach the email logic to the Flow that carries out the PDF conversion? That way, if the Flow fails to generate the HTML, you can review the Flow history and see the exact data values that caused the HTML generation to fail.

Good luck!

[ericonline]

Thats a good idea @timl. Maybe I just pull the HTML email out of PowerApps all together and just send the PDF as an attachment to an email from Flow.

This will take some significant effort on my part to figure out all the error handling and conditions in Flow (not my strong point at the moment). Sure would have been nice to just add another email address to the code I already built! Maybe I'll try using Office365SendMail instead of Outlook. Hm... 

Whatever I find, I'll report back. 

Thanks!

[wyotim]

Hey @ericonline, just wanted to drop a quick note to say that I haven't had a chance to dig into this too deep just yet but I will as soon as I get a moment to do so.

One thing on the dropdown.Update/text.Update, isn't that due to it being in a form? If memory serves I think that is denoting the value that the form uses to push data to the source when executing a SubmitForm command.

Also, could you make a temporary area where you could view the HTML before writing/sending the email to see if that gives any clues? In an app with a similar situation, I made a button that only appears for me that shows/hides the html so I can check for any issues. I also put in a button in that area that can send me a test email of the html. It has been pretty helpful.

I will look into this more as I get some time. Hope you get it worked out soon!

[ericonline]

All good bud. 

RE: .Update: 

• Its weird, there are other Data Cards in the same ClearCollect() statement that use "Dropdown.Selected.Value". I'm not sure why these others use .Update and DO NOT have .Selected.Value as an option. Weird!

RE: Temp area to view HTML email:

• I'd love to do that. Unfortunately this app is suffering from the "can't select items from combobox in IDE preview" issue. This is preventing me from completing the form while in edit mode. 
• Because I don't have a trial version of this app, its all Prod debugging (yuk!)
  • Make a change
  • Publish
  • Try in prod
  • Revert/add change
  • Publish
  • Tryin in prod

Nothing is working so far. I've tried:

• Bisecting the Submit button OnSelect, ClearCollect() function to see if those ".Update" 's were the culprit
  • Result: HTML email still blank, Sharepoint List AND PDF generated
• Inserting a 5 second timer after the ClearCollect() function to see if the app just needed more time to grab all 50 of the form field values.
  • Result: Same as above
• Changing from 'Outlook.com'.SendEmail to Office365.SendMail connector
  • Result: Same as above
• Change all email addresses to variables OnStart of the app instead of a combination of variable, Office365User.MyProfile().Mail and "bob@mycompany.com" in the sendmail string.
  • Result: Same as above.
• Reverted the app to the state BEFORE I added additional emails
  • Result: Same as above!!

UGH!

[ericonline]

Ok. This is borked. 

I just reverted to a KNOWN GOOD version 2 months old and still get blank HTML Emails! This coupled with the debugging I performed above is leading me to believe there is an issue on the PowerApps side. 

@powerapps Team, please advise!

Session ID: Session ID: 64fe5ba8-370b-4085-9076-ab9a91ef8d14
PowerApps 3.18105.16

Browser: ALL

Please see write up above and debugging done to date. This is a prod app with 30-40 daily submissions.

Thank you

[ericonline · Accepted solution]

Hi @timl. As usual, great advice, thank you! Removing the HTML email from the PowerApp and adding the logic to the Flow was the fastest way to get this app back on track. 

I ended up adding an Office365ManagerV2 and Outlook365 step to the Flow to accomplish this. It just grabs the PDF URL at this time so the quality of the email went down (from nicely formatted HTML to a URL), but not a biggie. I would like to know why my HTML email stopped generating. Quite enigmatic!

Take care!

[timl]

Hey @ericonline

Thanks for the update! I'm glad you got your app back on track in a relatively simple way. But you're right, it would be useful to know the cause of the intermittent failure.

Take care too!

[Anonymous]

Hi @timl, @ericonline and @wyotim - thanks for your continuous positive contributions to the general discussion forum! I'm going to mark this post as a solution for now and will send it the Product Team to research why the issue happened. 

@Anonymous

[wyotim]

@Anonymous @ericonline Just to add a bit to this, I have a non-production app that I have been experimenting with some things, one of them being that l am using HTML text boxes for gallery labels to make use of some text formatting abilities. 

With improved app rendering off, these labels are disappearing when I navigate away from the screen they are in and occasionally when I don't. Sometimes it is the entire list, sometimes it is just the on-screen labels (ones below show up when scrolling down), and one time it was all but the very last label. 

My app is using a stacked set of galleries on one screen (I was/am playing around with static navigation elements on a screen and animating menus/sub-menus), so there is a bit going on but I figured that since it had to do with HTML it could be relevant.

I happened upon a way to make them appear but I am a little confused as to why it works. This app has the ability for users to select color themes which come from a SQL table stored on-device (SaveData/LoadData). When items disappear, if I simply change the theme everything appears again...until the next time it disappears. And when I say disappear, it does seem that the text is completely gone. I am using a fixed height on some elements and auto-height on others. The auto-height elements collapse totally as if nothing is in them (as opposed to if the text was transparent or the same color as the background). 

The other solution was to turn on improved app rendering, which I had off due to the auto-height issues and some other odd graphical issues when the app starts.