Every action has an If this step fails setting. By default a failure stops the run, so nothing happens on the back of a step that did not work. For a step that fails now and then — a busy service, a rate limit — you can have it try again, or carry on and let later steps decide.

Who can do this

Workspace Admins and Editors.

Steps

  1. Select the step and stay on Settings.
  2. At the bottom, under If this step fails, choose one:
    • Stop the run — Nothing after this step happens. The run shows as failed. This is the default.
    • Try again up to 3 times, 30 s apart — Then stop, unless it works.
    • Carry on and pass the error along — Later steps get the error in their input and can decide.
  3. If you chose to try again, set Times (2 to 5) and Wait (5, 10, 15, 30, 45 or 60 seconds). The choice's wording changes to match.

It saves straight away.

What happens next

  • Stop the run: the run fails at this step. For a live run, the workspace's Admins and Editors get a notification — … failed, with View run. Test runs notify nobody.
  • Try again: between tries the step shows as retrying — on the canvas Retry 2 of 3 · in 20 s, and in the run Attempt 1 of 3 failed: … Trying again in 30 s. If the last try fails too, the run stops.
  • Carry on: each item goes on to the next step with an error field added — {{ $json.error.message }} and {{ $json.error.step }} — so an IF can branch on it or a message can say what broke. The step still shows as failed in the run, with … Carried on, as this step is set to.

Good to know

  • Retrying only helps with what fails for a moment. The panel says so: Only worth it for things that fail for a moment — a service that is briefly down, a rate limit. A wrong field will fail 3 times just as fast.
  • Retries repeat this step only. Earlier steps are never run again.
  • Triggers have no such setting. IF and Switch have it, though they rarely fail.
  • Retry waits count towards the run's time. The retries happen inside the run, which has 15 minutes between Waits, so keep waits short.

If something goes wrong

What you see Why What to do
The run failed although the step is set to try again Every try failed. Read the last attempt's error in the run and fix its cause.
Later steps ran with missing values The step failed and was set to carry on. Add an IF after it checking {{ $json.error.message }} is empty.