OpenRPA waits indefinitely when OTP is not returned from Node-RED (Workflow In/Out via Invoke OpenFlow)

OpenRPA
1

Hi Allan, please advise here

I am using OpenRPA → Invoke OpenFlow → Node-RED (Workflow In / Workflow Out) to fetch an OTP from email.

Flow:

  1. OpenRPA gets username and password.

  2. OpenRPA calls a Node-RED flow using Invoke OpenFlow.

  3. Node-RED reads email, extracts OTP, and returns it via Workflow Out.

  4. OpenRPA continues processing.

Issue:
otp is fetched succesfully but at times it’s not sent to openRPA though I can see it in noedred through the debug and so OpenRPA waits indefinitely

2

Sorry for the late reply.
That is correct, OpenRPA will wait for a response, so if Node-RED crashes, or there is an error, and no error node to catch the error and send a reply back, OpenRPA will hang forever.

We never got around to adding a timeout for OpenFlow commands to handle those situations, since using work item queues is normally the RIGHT answer to issues with this. But in this specific case, where OpenRPA is calling Node-RED as part of a workflow, work item queues will not help.

A workaround could be to expose a REST endpoint (using the HTTP nodes) and let OpenRPA call that using the Invoke-RestMethod PowerShell command inside invoke code.

3

Thank you Allan, I did that and it is working.

4

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