Automation failing when sending email with attachment

[Erin_Alter]

we have several automations that involved sending an email with an attachment. they worked as designed on 11/30/22. However today, 12/2/22, they fail to send. i've attached a screenshot with the error. The error says "Microsoft reported an error while processing this action: Failed to fetch an attachment".

The automation is designed so that first the person record is selected. Then an update is performed that links the record to a record in another table that holds the file to be attached. The Attached file is included as a lookup field in the person record. This portion of the automation all works. It fails in the next step, when the email is supposed to be sent.

Normally, this all happens within seconds.

any ideas on how to fix this?

[TheTimeSavingCo · Accepted solution]

Hi Erin, there was a change to how attachment fields worked recently so I'm wondering if you may be being affected by that

Here's a link to a base where I was able to do a workflow similar to yours, perhaps you could do a comparison to see what you might need to change in your base

Base flow:
When a new record is created in the `People` table, that record is linked to a record in the `Table with attachments` table
There is a lookup field in the `People` table that displays the requisite attachment, and the automation then sends an Outlook email with that attachment

A weird thing was I had to split it into two automations: one to link the records and one to send it. When I tried to do it in a single automation the lookup field didn't populate fast enough and the email ended up being sent without an attachment

If I were you I think I would attempt re-setting up the bits of the automation that have to deal with the attachment fields and see if that helped? You could also open a support ticket to see whether they could help you out maybe?

[Erin_Alter]

Sorry for the duplicate acceptances as solution.

this seems to have worked. i think there must have been another glitch, because a different automation that involved emailing with an attachment also consistently failed last week, and this week it is working again.

however, for the automation that i described in my OP, the suggestion to break it into two automations seems to have resolved the issue.

thanks for the help!