Flow Lifetime validation failed

[AllanMartins]

Hi all, we have designed a flow, tested and it worked like a charm!

Basically, it works as an approval process, that forwards to the next agent upon approval, and so on. It does have from 3-5 approvals (depending of the case).

However, we are encountering some problems, some of the runs are reporting problems when the approver actually perform an action on it (when he hit either the Approve or Reject button at the message), it returns:

ActionFailed. An action failed. No dependent actions succeeded.

And just this week, when we had this new update on the Flow layout (where it shows a left-side menu with the error details), I was able to see the following:

{"Message":"Error from ASE:Bad key authorization token: Failed to validate token: IDX10223: Lifetime validation failed. The token is expired.\nValidTo: '05/30/2017 21:29:09'\nCurrent time: '05/30/2017 23:40:29'."}

So, when a token is generated (Response Approval Email, from Office 365 service) and one of the approvers takes a long time, does that token expire? Can we set a period for this token? Is there any workaround for this case?

thank you,

Allan

[TravisB · Accepted solution]

Hi @AllanMartins,

We are aware of this issue and are looking into a fix.

This happens on manually triggered flows. For security reasons we limit the period that the access token is live, and that's currently set to 1 hour. This period has been generally fine for most use cases until now, but new scenarios around approvals are broken by this.

In the next month or so, the limit is going to be raised to 7 days. This should help out the majority of cases trying to trigger approvals with manual triggers.

Thanks,

Travis

[AllanMartins]

Hi @TravisB

Thanks for the reply on this. Looking forward to see this period extended. Will there be any announcement, or should I check in the next weeks?

We have a really good use for the Flow (in combination with others services) and this feature would be crucial to get it

to work.

Thanks!

[AllanMartins]

Just marked your reply as the accepted solution! thanks

[TravisB]

I can go ahead and bump this thread when the change is deployed.

This is a security change though and needs thorough vetting before release, so a fix is going to be several weeks out.

Thanks for reporting this issue!

Best,

Travis

[TravisB]

I can go ahead and bump this thread when the change is deployed.

This is a security change though and needs thorough vetting before release, so a fix is going to be several weeks out.

Thanks for reporting this issue!

Best,
Travis

[sergeluca]

TravisB,

just to make sure I understand he issue; yesterday afternoon, I've created a button flow assigning an approval to a user.

This afternoon (so after 22 hours), the user approved the task; no lifetime validation error; does that mean the fix has been deployed ? 

[AllanMartins]

Hi @sergeluca, quick question...

Have you done it using the Approvals service, or a O365-Approval Message?

I noticed that Approvals can manage it without major problems, but I see some cons with this service, in comparison with the O365 one:

- no support for Rich Text/HTML on the Body

- force the approval to be a "two-step" process (Approval respond on the message, then opens a page - where he is prompted to add a note - and then he submit his respond)

- cannot delegate an Approval

Approvals service is nice, but those 3 items is a problem for our use, so we decided to move with the O365 one for now.

regards, and thank you for adding a comment on this subject.

Allan

[merwan]

Hi Allan,

Thanks for the feedback. We are adding the ability to delegate approvals within the next month and adding support for rich-text/HTML is on our backlog also, slated for a little later in the year. Could you please elaborate on why the "two-step" process is problematic? We designed a two-step process so that approvers had an opportunity to make a comment on why they either approved or rejected a particular request. 

Thanks,

Merwan

[TravisB]

Hi @sergeluca,

That is a good point!

It's complicated from the implementation side, but the long-short of it is that the approvals themselves will work, but after an hour attempting to call into any other connections will start to fail.

Also just got word on the fix - looks like one's ready and should be out globally by the end of next week.

Thanks,

Travis

[AllanMartins]

Hey, just realized that I didnt phrase it properly... The two-step approvals has some benefits too!

But as more we go with it, there is always more need to make it more flexible, e.g: In our scenario, we would like to have the ability to "just" Approve (click once, and it's done - no need to "click again"), and to "Reject With comments" (so an approver would reject and write the reason why he is rejecting.

I think that a way to let the user/dev set this up for matching different scenarios, it would add (even more) value to the tool. Overall, the service is great!! It works fine, looking forward to see the new feats coming out. We are making a massive use of the Flow/PowerApps/Sharepoint combination and we have a great experience, other than the "token timeout" (which is forcing me to manually retrigger flows with expired tokens) I see endless ways to use it - and I can see way more to go with 🙂 .

[Anonymous]

Hi all,

Wondering if there's any official word of a fix being rolled out for this issue?

As of this afternoon we're still getting the same issue. A lot of people are starting to lose faith in Flow when they are forced re submit forms if their manager hasn't responded to it after an hour.

Cheers

[TravisB]

Hi @Anonymous,

The fix should be available globally now.

Can you see if you're still seeing the issue? If so, we'll need to investigate.

Thanks,

Travis

[AllanMartins]

Hi @TravisB

I just triggered some flow now, will wait few hours to check if the token for the response are now updated. I keep you posted.

I assume that we dont need to redesign the flow, or whatsover, correct?

thanks,

[AllanMartins]

So, here is the result... it didnt work (at least for an existing Flow)...

Flow triggered at 19:54 UTC (or 16:54, GMT -3, which is my local time)

Do I have to redesign the flow?

[TravisB]

Hi @AllanMartins,

No, I don't think recreating your flow will help. We are seeing the same thing on our side with old flows, at least.

I'm working with the folks who made the fix to see what's going on here. I'll update this thread with any news.

Thank you for letting us know about this!

Thanks,

Travis

[Anonymous]

Have just tested and the same issue seems to be persistent here. Error message same as @AllanMartins above.

Let me test if a new flow is affected the same way...

Edit:

Looks like new flows are being affected in the same manner. I created a new one this afternoon and waited 2 hours to respond to an approval prompt and received the same authentication error.

{"Message":"Error from ASE:Bad key authorization token: Failed to validate token: IDX10223: Lifetime validation failed. The token is expired.\nValidTo: '06/20/2017 03:03:12'\nCurrent time: '06/20/2017 04:18:54'."}

[tofsweden]

I also have big issues with this! Glad that it's currently being looked up asap.

EDIT; It failed sometime between 1 hr to 2 hr, clearly the update that prolongs the flow lifetime isn't working.

One of n numbers of objects; Fault msg

[quote]{"Message":"Error from ASE:Bad key authorization token: Failed to validate token: IDX10223: Lifetime validation failed. The token is expired.\nValidTo: '06/20/2017 07:57:52'\nCurrent time: '06/20/2017 08:02:52'."}[/quote]

[tofsweden]

I thought I would add more information about my case;

Flow;

SQL Server -> Common Data Service

2413 objects

1 hours nets me around 1200 - 1500 objects. So I need the flow going on between 2-3 hours to complete the flow.

[TravisB]

There was a miscommunication - sorry for getting everyone's hopes up :x

The change to extend the lifetime of these tokens is actually rolling out with the current deployment and should be available globally by mid-next week.

We appreciate everyone's patience as the change rolls out in cadence with our safe-deployment standards

Thanks,

Travis