How to restart UI flows to recover from a bad state

  • Article

Important

This article covers topics related to legacy systems. Migrate your flows created with these solutions to Power Automate for desktop or delete them.

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This article provides a solution to an issue where you're consistently experiencing an error when doing a UI flow run, recording, or test.

Applies to:   Power Automate
Original KB number:   4555618

Symptoms

If you're in a state where you're consistently experiencing an error when doing a UI flow run, recording or test, but nothing is actionable, it may help to restart UI flows by restarting the service.

You must be an admin on the machine to restart the service.

Resolution

Before restarting the UI flow service, verify in the task manager that the UI flows agent (Microsoft.Flow.Rpa.Agent) isn't running. If it's running, select End task.

Screenshot to select the End task option when the U I flows agent is running.

Use the following methods to restart the UI flow service in the following order.

Note

You must be an admin to restart the service.

  • Method 1: Restart UIFlowService

    • Open the task manager and go to the services tab, then look for UIFlowService, right-click on it, and select Restart.

    Screenshot to restart the U I flow service in task manager.

  • Method 2: If method 1 returns an error, you can try to restart the service manually as follows:

    1. Kill (end task) the UI flow service process (parent of the service) in the process tab of the task manager.

      Screenshot to end the U I flow service process under the Process tab of task manager.

    2. Then delete session.json located in

      • C:\Windows\ServiceProfiles\UIFlowService for Windows 10
      • C:\Users\UIFlowService for Windows Server 2016 and Windows Server 2019

    Note

    The service should automatically restart after the task had ended.