Tasks Being Held, what does that mean?

Hi @melinadouglas 

Help link about Zap Run statuses:

https://help.zapier.com/hc/en-us/articles/20505304170637-Review-Zap-run-statuses#h_01HD20969HEJSYV1VSZHSFB6D4

Held

A held status indicates that the Zap run is being held for one of a few reasons. Held statuses can be caused by:

• Too much data: too many steps (100+) would have been triggered when Zapier checked for new data. This "flood protection" prevents you from accidentally using a large number of tasks. 
• Disconnected app: one of the app accounts used in the Zap is disconnected. Reconnect the app account, then replay the held Zap run.
• Task limit reached: the account reached the task limit for its plan or uses a premium app that is not supported by the plan. To replay the held Zap run, upgrade your Zapier plan.
• Payment issue: the payment information on the account has expired. To replay the held Zap run, update your payment method.
• Restricted app: in Team or Company accounts, your Zapier account owner or admin has limited the use of the app and you do not have permission to use it. 

That’s interesting.  I’m only having Zapier send me a slack when someone adds or edits a google calendar entry.  There’s nothing fancy, nor is there a lot of data involved.  I get the zaps just fine.  There are no errors and I don’t need them “held” or “reran”

It sounds like I just need to accept that every month I need to go delete “725 held runs” every month.  Even though I get less than 100 zaps every month.

Thanks anyway.

Hi @melinadouglas,

We suggest you to consider on upgrading your plan to accommodate the data that are coming in within your Zap. 

I don’t understand how a very simple zap causes so much data to come up.  And if you had an affordable price, I would gladly update.  $19/year I can see.  $19/month is ridiculous.

Hi @melinadouglas,

I’m jumping in to see if I can help!

This issue might be how your Zap has been setup. 

Before we dig deeper into this, would you mind sharing a detailed screenshot of how your Zap is configured? Also, please share a screenshot of the “Action” section of the action step that shows all of its fields. Like so:

(view larger)

Please don't include personal information in the screenshot, or be sure blur out any personal information.

Thanks!

I’m not sure if this is the right screen but these are the steps set up.  I don’t know where to find “Actions”.

@melinadouglas 

Zap Trigger: GCal - New or Updated Event

Description: Triggers when an event is created or updated (except when it's cancelled).

I know what the zap does.  I use it and I’m the one that set it up. 

What I don’t know is why I keep getting this same email every few weeks. I don’t often reach the 100 minimum for a full month, let alone have this many tasks that I need to clear every few weeks.

@melinadouglas 

We would need to see screenshots from your Zap Runs history and Task Usage to have more context.

• https://zapier.com/app/history/usage
• https://zapier.com/app/history/

Here is the history.  

@melinadouglas 

Can you show screenshots from the Task Usage tab?

Here’s a screenshot of a “successful” zap Data In

And screenshots of Data Out

@melinadouglas 

From the screenshot of the Zap RUns, you can see there are a bunch of Zap Runs being triggered at the same time. (check the timestamp)

That may be due to recurring GCal Events or

GCal Zap help links: https://zapier.com/apps/google-calendar/help

"Event Updated" is triggering multiple times on the same event

If you have a repeated event and you update the series, the Zap will trigger once per event. So if the event repeats 10 times, it will trigger 10 times. There isn't a way around this, as each individual calendar entry in a series is considered its own event.

• The Event Updated trigger will fire for calendar events autogenerated by Google, such as: birthday calendars, imported .ics files, imported .csv files.
• The Event Updated trigger will also fire whenever you update a recurring event and choose to update multiple events in the series.

The "New Event Matching Search" trigger is firing too often or on old events

If older events in Google Calendar are updated, this can cause the Zap to trigger on them. When checking for events on Google Calendar, Zapier looks at the last updated date and gets any events updated in the last three days, regardless of when they were created.

To avoid this, you can add a Filter step, to check if the Created at date is after a certain date, such as the Zap's creation date, and avoid old events triggering the Zap.

Here are screenshots of a “Held” Zap.  This first one has all the Data In.

This is all the Data Out

Here is the Task Usage screenshot

Okay.  That makes sense.  I appreciate the insight!