Zaps are not triggering with Google sheets

Article: https://zapier.com/help/doc/common-problems-google-sheets-zapier#the-updated-spreadsheet-row-trigger-stopped-triggering

The Updated Spreadsheet Row trigger stopped triggering!

If you're watching for changes to a column, we only see new values in that column.
If you update the column of an existing row to a value that Zapier previously saw in that column in that row, we won't see the new value.
You will need to either choose a column that will only have unique values, or make a new one which will.

For example, if you had X in the Trigger column, then changed it to Y, the Zap would trigger.
If you then changed it back to X it would not trigger again, because we've already seen X in that column.

The Google Sheets trigger is marked "instant" but it still takes a few minutes to trigger.

The new and updated spreadsheet row triggers for Google Sheets are unique in that when there is a trigger event in the spreadsheet, Zapier gets a notification webhook from the Google about this following that notification, Zapier sends Google Sheet a request asking for new data.
After this, the trigger works using the normal polling mechanism and these new or updated rows returned will trigger the Zap.
This process takes about 3 minutes overall so although the Google Sheets trigger is marked "instant" it really is a hybrid of both webhook and polling techniques.
While being slower than any other "instant" trigger, it's still faster than all polling triggers which would take 5 or 15 minutes.

Hi @KCEO,

Can you talk more about the column values that should be triggering? “trigger when a specific column of the spreadsheet has been edited.” Is it just that the Zap is no longer triggering?

It might help to explain how that specific trigger works with Zapier and maybe that will describe your issue. Spreadsheet triggers work by polling the sheet for changes and assigning unique id’s to pass Zapier’s deduplication filter. Every time Zapier checks the sheet, it will check the id’s it’s created against it’s deduplifier and trigger if their is a new id. 

Zapier creates Id’s for each row on your spreadsheet, depending on the trigger the id can be slightly different.. In your case, the id for Zapier would be the row# hashed with the column you are watching for changes on. Let’s say the column I am triggering on has the values “Blank, A, B, C”. If I create row 1 in my sheet and the trigger column is blank then when Zapier checks my sheet for data it will see a new row and assign it a unique id something like “1-blank”. If I change that cell/column in row 1 to the value of A then when Zapier checks my sheet it will see that the Row cell has changed and assign an id of “1-A”. Since 1-A didn’t exist before (just 1-blank) it will trigger. If I then change that cell value to B when Zapier checks my sheet for new/changed data it will see that the value is B and assign the id “1-B”. Since “1-B” is not “1-A” or “1-blank” this new Id will pass the dedupe filter and trigger again. If I change the cell value back to “A” then when Zapier checks for data it will see the id “1-A” so when it compares it to the previous id’s it will see that “1-A” exists and therefore not trigger. 

Essentially, Zapier triggers on changes to UNIQUE values. So if your spreadsheet values are changing and then changing back it may not trigger. I am not sure how long an id would stay in their deduplication filter. 

Let me know if the above doesn’t describe your issue and I would be happy to learn more about what might be going on.

@GetUWired 

Good Afternoon, You are correct and the example you provided is SUPPOSED to be happening which I copy and pasted here:

Zapier creates Id’s for each row on your spreadsheet, depending on the trigger the id can be slightly different.. In your case, the id for Zapier would be the row# hashed with the column you are watching for changes on. Let’s say the column I am triggering on has the values “Blank, A, B, C”. If I create row 1 in my sheet and the trigger column is blank then when Zapier checks my sheet for data it will see a new row and assign it a unique id something like “1-blank”. If I change that cell/column in row 1 to the value of A then when Zapier checks my sheet it will see that the Row cell has changed and assign an id of “1-A”. Since 1-A didn’t exist before (just 1-blank) it will trigger. If I then change that cell value to B when Zapier checks my sheet for new/changed data it will see that the value is B and assign the id “1-B”. Since “1-B” is not “1-A” or “1-blank” this new Id will pass the dedupe filter and trigger again. If I change the cell value back to “A” then when Zapier checks for data it will see the id “1-A” so when it compares it to the previous id’s it will see that “1-A” exists and therefore not trigger. 

The problem is that since yesterday. I was testing it and changing an existing row to blank and then back to A (for example) waiting for some time for it to register both changes. But the trigger is A. And after being changed to blank or B,C, and D, then back to A. ensure each time only A would trigger the rest of the ZAP. Also that each time it is changed back to A from another value, it would trigger. It did not trigger again since yesterday afternoon. 

It is almost as if the zap was stuck on A being in the column no matter what I changed it too. This is happening for 4 zaps. It still will only trigger if a new row is added. Which is not the way the filter is set to run. 

Finally, as I stated, this all worked fine up until yesterday afternoon, which leads me to suspect a bug has happened and paused my ZAP. Could be high traffic, whatever. But I need them to start working again. 

I hope this response helps you to understand the dilemma here.  

@Troy Tessalone 

Thank you for this information but if you see my response to @GetUWired you would see that the way it should function as described in the articles, is not indeed doing that process. Again. it was working exactly as described and suddenly stopped and has remained this way since yesterday. It is only triggering on new rows, and not the edited row-column as it was designed to do. 

Thank you for your feedback. It further proves my point. 

@KCEO Glad to hear you got it resolved!

How did you solve this? I have exactly the same problem. Everything worked perfectly and it stops by itself. After everything has stopped, I can hardly get it to work anymore.

I asked support and was told this is a known bug now, but I’m getting a delay between when new Google Sheets rows are added and when the Zap triggers. It seems to be a couple hours, and then all the Zaps trigger at once. Frustrating when it was working very real-time just last week.

Thank you for your reaction. Good to know. Due to the delay of a few hours I thought my setup didn't work. Now that I'm waiting it just works. Only it takes a long time indeed. Thanks again!

I am experiencing the same issue. The first couple of zaps seem to work fine and then yesterday I had a customer fill out a Google web form which then goes to a Google sheets which then zaps over to my CRM. Her information never came to my CRM. I have the $20 per month subscription plan so it should only take 15 minutes right? Into the Google sheets and filled out a test customer information and it finally showed up this morning but it took a long time. I cannot rely on only some customer information coming through and some not. How do I fix this?Very frustrated with this and trying to figure out a solution but I don’t see any articles that are helping and it doesn’t seem like Zapier has a customer support line

As far as I know there is nothing to do about it yet, we are working with it now, knowing that a zap may have some delay. Despite sometimes taking a bit long, it does work every time so far. It was only very annoying with tests, because then the result is not immediately visible.

Is there another work around two maybe a different form provider other than Google forms or using Google sheets that will be more reliable?

I tried onedrive, but the result was very bad. The connection disconnects all the time. For us google drive is the best option.

what about using a different “paid” form software that can integrate directly with my crm and not have to go through google sheets?  Has anyone found this to be more reliable??