Butler due date automation is intermittent

[Sheik Hassan]

Hi, I am seeing a weird intermittent behavior with butler due date automation.

I set up an automation as follows:  Do a 'get url' on the specified URL when due date on a card is triggered.

The URL points to a php file that just prints a log - nothing else, so I know the URL is good. I also tested the URL in a chrome browser as well as postman - and in both cases the URL works as expected (returns 200 OK)

However, with Trello, when the butler automation fires (upon the due date), it sometimes works! Most times it does not. I see the following error in the Automation logs when it fails.

Successful case :

Sunday, May 5, 2024 12:31 PM

Running automation on board 1-Leads .

Response from URL <my url>

Test

The automation finished running.

Total operations: 1

Failed case (no changes made - just rerun the test):

Sunday, May 5, 2024 12:36 PM

Running automation on board 1-Leads.

There was an error requesting the URL  < my url >

Socket is closed

The automation finished running.

Total operations: 1

[Antonio Panea Pastor]

Hi @Sheik Hassan ,

This is Toni from Crmble. Thank you for sharing this with the community!

I've experienced this randomly as well, so my suggestion would be to consider implementing a retry mechanism within your Butler automation. Sometimes, network issues or temporary server glitches can cause intermittent failures. A retry mechanism can help mitigate these issues by attempting the request multiple times before deeming it a failure.

Hope it helps!

Cheers

Toni

[Sheik Hassan]

Hi @Antonio Panea Pastor thanks for posting. 

A good idea for the interim but I don't see this a s a long term fix. This must be something on Trello's side as there are multiple consistent failures in a succession. 

Hopefully someone takes a look. Thanks again.