Troubleshoot UI flow Playback - Unable To Launch Application

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Important

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

  • Selenium IDE is deprecated and will no longer work after February 28th, 2023.
  • Windows recorder (V1) is deprecated and no longer works.

This article provides steps to solve the issue that you receive the UnableToLaunchApplication error when trying to run a UI flow during Test run or Flow run.

Applies to:   Power Automate
Original KB number:   4555721

Symptoms

When trying to run a UI flow during Test run or Flow run, the user gets the error:

UnableToLaunchApplication.

Screenshot of the error message when trying to run a UI flow during the Test run or Flow run.

The error is visible in the UI flow Test Page or See detail page of the UI flow run instance.

Verifying issue

  • Open the UI flow in Edit mode and select the Application Card.

    Screenshot to open the U I flow in Edit mode and select the Application Card.

  • Check the Application path on the machine where UI flow is run to make sure application exe exists.

    Screenshot to check the Application path on the machine.

  • Some applications can take a long time to launch.

Solving steps

  • If the Application path is incorrect, update to the correct path.

    Screenshot of updating to the correct path in the U I flow.

  • In case Application launches and fails with above error UnableToLaunchApplication follow the steps below.

This issue sometime occurs for Power BI:

  • Start Recording - Record single Action on Power BI and select the Done button on recorder. In the UI flow designer you will see 2 actions/steps:

    • Launch Application.

    • Select Action - Delete this action.

      Screenshot shows the steps after the Application launches and fails.

  • Start new Recording by selecting.

    Screenshot to select the Add an action option to start the new recording.

  • Start recording Power BI Desktop application again and record couple of actions (Click or Keyboard).

    1. Open the Launch Application action.

    2. Update the Launch Application property to No.

      Screenshot to update the Launch Application property to No.

The above two-step process can solve issue for some applications.

  • In case application takes long time to launch:

    • Check the launch step in your script (In the example below, select the Launch Excel step):
    • Select Show advanced options and Update the Wait after action value. In Example PT15S means UI flow playback will wait for 15 secs to launch application.

Screenshot to update the Wait after action value in the Launch Excel window.