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Question

Updating Google Calendar Invites as Part of a Conditional Automation

  • July 29, 2025
  • 4 replies
  • 63 views
J
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I’m having an issue with an automation getting stuck when trying to update a Google Calendar invite, but only in a conditional set of automations. When I test it with the exact same instructions without the other actions it works fine, so I know that the configuration is good. 

  • The automation is triggered when 3 fields match conditions.
  • The conditional actions are based on 2 different fields with the first two actions having one of the fields the same (status), and the other field being empty or not.
  • These first 2 sets of actions work just fine with no issues.

 

  • The second set of actions is a different status, and whether the other field is empty or not.
  • The emails go out fine, so I know it’s getting to the correct conditional actions
  • Then it gets stuck on the first calendar update

Here is what I see in the history. I have no idea what the error message ERR_UNESCAPED_CHARACTERS means. As stated, this exact same configuration works just fine on it’s own. 

 

4 replies

ScottWorld
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  • ScottWorld
  • Genius
  • 9808 replies
  • July 30, 2025

There isn’t a problem with your automation. There is a problem with the data that you’re trying to send to Google Calendar.

It seems like you are either using an invalid calendar event ID, or you are sending invalid characters to Google Calendar’s API that need to be encoded before you send them to Google.

You can encode a field by creating a formula field to encode the field that you trying to send, and then use the formula field in your automation.

Your formula would be structured like this:
ENCODE_URL_COMPONENT({Your Field Name Here})

Hope this helps!

If you have a budget and you’d like to hire the best Airtable consultant to help you with anything that is Airtable-related, please feel free to contact me through my website: Airtable consultant — ScottWorld

TheTimeSavingCo
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Interesting!  Any chance you could provide an example of the data you’re trying to update the calendar event with?  I think Airtable handles the escapes for us and I’ve done new lines, commas, quotes etc before and they all went through fine so this is a weird one

I take it you’ve attempted to delete the one that’s erroring out and replacing it with a duplicated copy of the working one and that still didn’t work?

 

Adam, Airtable Consultant - thetimesaving.company
J
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  • JZ-Mousketeer
  • Author
  • New Participant
  • 3 replies
  • July 30, 2025

Interesting!  Any chance you could provide an example of the data you’re trying to update the calendar event with?  I think Airtable handles the escapes for us and I’ve done new lines, commas, quotes etc before and they all went through fine so this is a weird one

I take it you’ve attempted to delete the one that’s erroring out and replacing it with a duplicated copy of the working one and that still didn’t work?

 

I’m just trying to update the date & time.

 

Yes, I’ve attempted to delete and rebuild, duplicate, you name it. It seems that anytime the Update Calendar action is in a conditional action group is when it has problems. I wonder if it’s not looking at the correct field. The correct ID field is selected, I’ve checked and reset that several times and even triple checked that the ID aligned with Google Calendar, so could a backend coding error have it looking at the wrong field? I’m going to submit this to Airtable as well and see if it could be some bug I stumbled upon with this setup.

 

Scott - To your suggestion, I tried that just to be sure and it came up with different error messages. Given that it’s just a random string of letters and numbers and not a URL, I don’t think that’s the issue here. 

TheTimeSavingCo
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Ahh ok!  I totally understand that you’ve already opened a ticket for this, but I’m kind of curious what data shows up when you expand the section below?  Totally get it if you’re busy though!

 

Adam, Airtable Consultant - thetimesaving.company


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