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Diagnose script interactions

  • November 12, 2020
  • 30 replies
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30 replies

M
  • Martin_Kranz
  • Inspiring
  • December 18, 2020

Hi @Bill.French

I think they need to appoint a special counsel on this one - someone who really owns the issue.

I responded to Airtable support about how their suggested fix to remove &export=download from the URL does not work for me, and how this issue needs more serious attention, and got this rather encouraging reply:

Peter here, thanks so much for following back up about this. We have a few engineers on our team who are actually actively looking into this very issue, and I’d be happy to keep you updated about how their efforts progress. Hoping we can have this sorted out soon.

Let’s hope we see a fix sooner than later.


I have received the same message from the same Peter this week, also shared a example base with them so they could see it fail in real life. let’s hope they do something with it!

R
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  • Richard_Foxwort
  • Author
  • Known Participant
  • December 21, 2020

I have received the same message from the same Peter this week, also shared a example base with them so they could see it fail in real life. let’s hope they do something with it!


@Bill.French @Martin_Kranz here’s a little bit more from Airtable support:

Our engineering team has been taking a look into this issue, and are trying to get to the root of why these attachment uploads are failing (while it looks like the attachments are uploading and then getting deleted, the underlying behavior is just that the attachments are failing to upload. i.e. what you’re seeing is what normally happens when an attachment fails to upload).

Just to keep you on the same page – Airtable uses the service Filestack in processing attachments, and our working hypothesis is that Google Drive limits downloads from Filestack, which causes transient failures like those observed here.

The (relatively) good news is that when these files fail to upload, you should be able to simply retry uploading them at a later date. That said, we do not have very good signaling for attachment failures; the attachment value is just removed from the cell.

Also, to be up front, while our team is taking a look into this issue to fully understand it, it isn’t at this point clear when we might be able to have a full fix in place.

I’m not sure if they are suggesting there is a specific issue between Gdrive and Filestack - in which case swapping out Gdrive and replacing with Dropbox etc might help? And also, given that Airtable’s file upload is via Filestack, I guess this could mean that the problem is actually with Filestack rather than with Airtable per se?

B
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  • Bill_French
  • Inspiring
  • December 21, 2020

@Bill.French @Martin_Kranz here’s a little bit more from Airtable support:

Our engineering team has been taking a look into this issue, and are trying to get to the root of why these attachment uploads are failing (while it looks like the attachments are uploading and then getting deleted, the underlying behavior is just that the attachments are failing to upload. i.e. what you’re seeing is what normally happens when an attachment fails to upload).

Just to keep you on the same page – Airtable uses the service Filestack in processing attachments, and our working hypothesis is that Google Drive limits downloads from Filestack, which causes transient failures like those observed here.

The (relatively) good news is that when these files fail to upload, you should be able to simply retry uploading them at a later date. That said, we do not have very good signaling for attachment failures; the attachment value is just removed from the cell.

Also, to be up front, while our team is taking a look into this issue to fully understand it, it isn’t at this point clear when we might be able to have a full fix in place.

I’m not sure if they are suggesting there is a specific issue between Gdrive and Filestack - in which case swapping out Gdrive and replacing with Dropbox etc might help? And also, given that Airtable’s file upload is via Filestack, I guess this could mean that the problem is actually with Filestack rather than with Airtable per se?


Well, of course they do. All services have limits and likely watched very closely by Google. In fact, they probably have some quotas that are triggering when the Filestack system looks aggressive.

There have been tests that show this issue occurs with other services as well, but they may be blocking Filestack too. Besides, ruling out Google Drive is not an option; there are 100 million businesses using it.

There is some validity to this idea, however, immediate retries almost always fail; I’ve tested up to ten retries without success. And to be clear - AIRTABLE should implement this at the service instead of asking thousands of users to create a patchwork of crap to overcome this issue. We didnd’t pick Filestack, after all, eh?

Perhaps, but ultimately, the issue is with Airtable because we have no standing with Filestack.

    R
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    • Richard_Foxwort
    • Author
    • Known Participant
    • December 21, 2020

    Well, of course they do. All services have limits and likely watched very closely by Google. In fact, they probably have some quotas that are triggering when the Filestack system looks aggressive.

    There have been tests that show this issue occurs with other services as well, but they may be blocking Filestack too. Besides, ruling out Google Drive is not an option; there are 100 million businesses using it.

    There is some validity to this idea, however, immediate retries almost always fail; I’ve tested up to ten retries without success. And to be clear - AIRTABLE should implement this at the service instead of asking thousands of users to create a patchwork of crap to overcome this issue. We didnd’t pick Filestack, after all, eh?

    Perhaps, but ultimately, the issue is with Airtable because we have no standing with Filestack.


    And here is another bit of info from Airtable support responding to a question if this issue is GDrive specific:

    That’s correct – our understanding is that this issue is GDrive specific, so we wouldn’t necessarily expect this issue to occur in Dropbox (or another similar service). Please do let us know whether you have success with a different service (and sorry for not having thought to propose that kind of solution sooner).

    Completely agree with you @Bill.French that buck must stop with Airtable, even if it’s specifically a Filestack <–> GDrive issue, but I intend try using a different cloud file system for now, and see it it alleviates the issue for me.

    C
    • caffeinatedwes
    • Participating Frequently
    • April 6, 2021

    I thought I was crazy until I discovered this thread. Has anyone heard any update from Airtable?

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