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Common errors creating and assigning flow approvals

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This article introduces the common Power Automate approval errors and potential resolutions. For more information about the approvals capability in Power Automate, see Get started with approvals and the Approvals connector in Power Platform.

Applies to:   Power Automate
Original KB number:   4513675

Assigned To and Requestor

InvalidApprovalCreateRequestAssignedToNoValidUsers

Required field 'assignedTo' contained no valid users in the organization

This error occurs if the input value(s) to the Assigned To field of the approval action isn't a well-formatted email address, UPN, or Microsoft Entra object ID. Or, it's well-formatted but doesn't match any users in Microsoft Graph. If multiple users are specified (semi-colon delimited), this means that all entries can't be found in Graph.

InvalidApprovalCreateRequestAssignedToMissing

Required field 'assignedTo' is missing or empty.

This error occurs if the Assigned To field of the approval action doesn't contain any values. The flow designer prevents any flows from being saved without any value for this field. So, this issue typically occurs if the Assigned To field is populated from the output of some other steps and for this flow run, there's no value for the expression or output field.

InvalidApprovalRequestor

The approval requestor must be a single, valid user account within your organization

This error occurs if the input value(s) to the Assigned To field of the approval action isn't a well-formatted email address, UPN, or Microsoft Entra object ID. Or, it's well-formatted but doesn't match any users in Microsoft Graph. You also receive this error if multiple users are specified for the Requestor field.

InvalidXrmRecordId

The provided record id '...' is null or invalid

The record identifier passed to "Wait for an approval" is null, empty, or not a guid (in the xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx format). This value should be populated with the approval ID from Create an Approval.

GraphUserDetailByEmailMultipleFound

Found multiple matching users ('<ID>, <ID>') for 'someUserName@contoso.com'.

This error occurs if two users in Microsoft Graph are found for the same Assigned To or Requestor input (email address or UPN). Rather than potentially assigning the approval to the wrong user account, the flow will fail to run. The unique Microsoft Entra object IDs for the two or more matching records are returned in the error message so that users can investigate further with an administrator user in their tenants. The user accounts can be viewed on graph.microsoft.com.

Attachments

AttachmentContentNotValidBase64String

The content for attachment '''...' is not a valid base64 encoded string.

The attachment content must be specified in base64 format. Most connectors that return file data already do this. For custom data passed into the attachment content, use the base64 expression.

AttachmentEmptyContentNotSupported

The content for attachment '...' is empty. Attachments with empty content are not supported.

Empty attachments (0 bytes) aren't supported.

CdsApiAttachmentSizeLimitExceeded

Attachment file size limit exceeded. Please contact your admin to make sure the limit is properly configured (The default is 5MB).

The attachment is too large for your Dataverse instance. The default limit is 5 MB per file, but database administrators can configure this limit.

To increase the limit, an administrator can perform these steps:

  1. Sign in to the Power Platform admin center.

  2. Select Environments, and then select the environment you want to manage.

  3. Select Settings from the command bar.

    Screenshot that shows the Settings button on the command bar.

  4. Select Email > Email settings.

  5. In the Attachments section, update the maximum file size for attachments in kilobytes.

For more information about the Dataverse setting that controls this, see File size limits.

CdsApiAttachmentBlockedFileExtension

Attachment file extension is blocked. Please contact your admin if changes need to be made to the block list.

An administrator in your organization has blocked attachments of the specified type.

For security and privacy reasons, Dataverse restricts the creation of certain file types through extensions. An administrator can customize this by performing these steps:

  1. Sign in to the Power Platform admin center.
  2. Select Environments, and then select the environment you want to manage.
  3. Select Settings from the command bar.
  4. Select Product > Privacy + Security.
  5. Under Blocked Attachments, add or remove file extensions from the semicolon-delimited list.

For more information, see Manage privacy and security settings.

CombinedAttachmentSizeLimitExceeded

The combined attachment size of 68.9MB exceeds the limit of 50MB.

The combined size of all attachments on this approval is too large. Only 50 MB of attachments are supported.

InvalidAttachmentName

The attachment name '...' is invalid.

The specified attachment name is invalid because it contains (but isn't limited to) characters such as ,, /, \, |, ?, *, >, <, and ".

Provisioning errors

For more information about provisioning errors, see Power Automate Approval Dataverse provisioning errors and recommendations.

CdsInstanceDisabled

The Common Data Service database for this environment is disabled

The Microsoft Dataverse (previously known as Common Data Service) instance has been disabled in this environment. This isn't expected and might be related to the expiration of all flow and Dataverse plans within your Microsoft Entra tenant. To ensure the database can be enabled, provide at least one user that has active plans.

CdsInstanceNotReady

The Common Data Service database for this environment is not yet ready.

The database for this instance is still being provisioned, or has failed provisioning. Rerunning a flow that uses approvals will attempt to re-provision the instance.

CdsUserDoesNotHavePermissionsToCreateDatabase

The current user does not have permissions to create a Common Data Service database for this environment. Please ask an environment administrator to create the database.

For non-default flow and Power Apps environments, only environment administrators can directly (through the Flow Admin portal) or indirectly (through Flow Approvals) create a Dataverse database. An administrator must:

  • Create the environment manually from the Flow Admin portal.
  • Create and run an Approvals flow.
  • Grant environment administrator permission to the current user.

CdsInstanceProvisioningIncomplete

A Common Data Service database for this environment has not completed provisioning or does not support the requested approvals functionality. A database administrator must save a Flow using approvals in order to complete provisioning.

Microsoft Flow hasn't yet been able to set up the Approvals solution within the database for this instance.

XrmProvisionInstanceFailed

Failed to create the Common Data Service database in this environment with status code 'ViralServicePlanRequired'.

ResourceDisabledInTenant

Resource https://publishers.crm.dynamics.com has been disabled by your tenant administrator. Contact your tenant administrator and request that they enable https://publishers.crm.dynamics.com in the Azure Portal.

ApplicationDisabledInTenant

'The Flow Enterprise Application has been disabled by your tenant administrator. Contact your tenant administrator and request that they enable Microsoft Flow applications 'Microsoft Flow Service' (AppID: '...') and 'Microsoft Flow CDS Integration Service' (AppID: '...') in the Azure Portal.'.

One or more necessary Microsoft Entra applications for Approvals to work have been disabled by your tenant administrator(s). An administrator will need to re-enable the application(s) in the Azure portal.

Miscellaneous

ApprovalConnectionOwnerNotEnabledInGraph

The Approvals connection owner was found in Graph, but the account is not enabled. Object Id: '...'

The user that originally created the Approvals connection used by the flow is no longer found in Graph, likely because the user account has been removed. An owner of the flow should replace the connection with one belonging to a user in the organization.

ApprovalConnectionOwnerNotFoundInGraph

The Approvals connection owner was not found in Graph. Object Id: '...'

The user that originally created the Approvals connection used by the flow is no longer found in Graph, likely because the user account has been removed. An owner of the flow should replace the connection with one belonging to a user in the organization.

ApprovalSubscriptionNotAllowed

Cannot wait on this approval in its current state.

By the time the "Wait for an approval" action executed, the approval had already been completed. Only active approvals can be waited upon by this action.

InvalidApprovalCustomOptions

The response options provided for this approval are invalid. Options must be less than 100 characters and cannot be blank.

This error occurs if the inputs to the Custom Response options for an approval are invalid and need to be fixed in the flow designer. The constraints are specified in the error message.

InvalidApprovalCreateRequestTitleMissing

Required field 'title' is missing or empty

The approval title is null or empty, which isn't supported.

XrmApplyUserNotMemberOfSecurityGroup

Could not create a CDS system record representing user '<User ID>'. Please ask a database administrator to add the user to the authorized security group.

The Dataverse database for this environment is protected by a security group. An owner of the security group will need to add all approval creators, requestors, and recipients to the security group. The security group can be configured from the Power Platform admin center.

XrmApprovalsGeneralPermissionsError

Encountered a general permissions error trying to access the Dataverse database. This could be caused by modification of the approvals administrator or user roles, or by an incompatible plugin.

Ensure no custom plugins restrict access to the approvals data entities for either organization users for the Power Automate service principal used to provision records (flowdev@microsoft.com).

HTTP 412 Code: 0x80040237 InnerError

A record with matching key values already exists

This transient error occurs when you try to create or update an approval. This error occurs due to a race condition that's triggered when creating the approval. Retry the action to solve this issue.