Has anyone else run into this?
I recently split some automations into a second connected base because I was running out of automation space/organisation in the original base.
The setup now looks roughly like:
- Base A = operational/source base
- Base B = synced/helper automation base
- Slack notifications now trigger from Base B
Ever since doing this, Slack notifications have become inconsistent or delayed.
What’s weird is:
the automations often seem to trigger only after I manually open Base B again.
The difficult part is that sometimes it works completely fine for hours/days, and then other times we start getting internal reports that Slack notifications aren’t triggering at all.
So operationally it’s become hard to trust because the behaviour feels inconsistent rather than fully broken.
It feels like:
- synced tables aren’t refreshing consistently
- or automations in inactive bases aren’t evaluating continuously
- or “record enters view” style triggers are unreliable across synced bases
I’ve also noticed:
- formula/view-based triggers seem especially flaky
- synced records don’t appear immediately
- opening the base almost “wakes up” the automation queue
I’m trying to work out whether this is:
- expected behaviour with synced bases
- a plan limitation/performance issue
- or just Airtable sync latency being weird
For people running larger Airtable setups:
- do you avoid cross-base automations entirely?
- keep Slack notifications in the source base only?
- or move orchestration to Make/Zapier/n8n?
Would love to know if others have seen the same thing because right now it’s making notifications pretty unreliable.
