Tech Support: Workflow’s Invalid Data Error

November 5, 2020 01:57 PM

Good news: the invalid data error is easy to solve. You may come across this error when you log to history list in a workflow. We came across it when logging the dictionary variable value returned from a HTTP Web Service. The typical error message is: “A text field contains invalid data. Please check the value and try again.”

Details:
A text field may contain invalid data that comes while working with visual studio workflow in SharePoint Online. A “HttpSend” workflow action is used to call the rest API. By using Get Dynamic Value Properties, you can retrieve the values and assign them to different variables, as seen below:

The issue usually occurs when working on data with more than 255 characters. If the data is less than 255 characters, the error usually does not appear.

When developing SharePoint solution, you may have experienced this common issue while inserting or updating items in SharePoint lists programmatically.

This exception occurs when trying to insert text to a column “Description” in the “History List” which is a “single line of text” type with a value that contains more than 255 characters.

Solution:
To solve this issue simply either reduce the size of the log text to below 255 characters or change the attribute of the “Description” column to “Multi line of text”.