Understanding Automation Anywhere's Architecture
Bot Runner, Bot Creator, and Control Room
In AA, bots are developed using Bot Creator and deployed through Control Room to Bot Runners. Failures can stem from misconfigured environments, incorrect permission scopes, or resource contention on runner machines.
Credential Vault and Locker Access
Credential Vault stores sensitive data accessed by bots. If vault credentials expire or locker mappings are broken, bots may silently fail when accessing systems like SAP, Outlook, or databases.
Common Root Causes of Bot Failures
1. Orphaned Sessions or Timeout Disconnects
Unattended bots rely on scheduled Windows sessions. If user sessions are terminated by group policies or VM scaling, bots fail with generic Task could not be started errors.
2. Locker or Credential Expiry
Expired or deleted credential vault entries trigger failure in credential retrieval actions. Unfortunately, these often don't produce descriptive error messages unless error handling is explicitly built.
3. Network Latency or Service Timeouts
Cloud-native bots or bots calling APIs may face service degradation or latency spikes. Without proper retry logic, REST or SOAP calls can lead to inconsistent data pulls or write-backs.
4. Control Room Job Queue Contention
In high-throughput environments, overlapping job queues or non-deterministic bot selection policies can cause bots to run on misconfigured runners or with stale environmental variables.
Diagnostics and Debugging Techniques
Enable Detailed Bot Logs
Use the Log to File action at key logic points. Avoid relying solely on Control Room logs, which may omit in-bot context.
LogMessage: "Step 4 - Attempting login with vault credential X"
Review Control Room Job and Audit Logs
Go to Control Room → Activity → Audit Logs to inspect recent job execution failures. Look for indicators like Credential Not Found, Session Timeout, or Access Denied.
Check Locker and Credential Vault Health
- Navigate to Admin → Credential Vault → Lockers
- Verify that referenced credentials exist and have valid usernames/passwords
- Ensure the correct roles have access to the locker
Use Bot Insight for Runtime Analytics
If Bot Insight is enabled, use custom dashboards to track failure patterns, latency, and field-level failures from task history over time.
Remediation and Fix Strategy
- Validate credential availability in Credential Vault and ensure locker access is granted to bot runner roles.
- Wrap external calls (API, DB) with retry loops and fallback conditions.
- Harden bot logic using Try-Catch blocks with alerts and error codes.
- Use scheduled job retry with escalation in Control Room for non-deterministic failures.
- Audit group policies or VM lifecycle scripts that may disrupt unattended sessions.
Architectural Best Practices
- Implement health checks at the start of every bot—verify network access, app readiness, and credential status.
- Centralize credential refresh logic to avoid per-bot dependency on vault entries.
- Separate production, UAT, and dev lockers to minimize configuration drift.
- Build wrapper bots to monitor and restart failed bots via Control Room API.
- Leverage environment variables and config tables to reduce hardcoded logic.
Conclusion
Automation Anywhere failures in production often hide beneath abstract error messages or masked session issues. By combining detailed logging, credential vault hygiene, and proactive architecture, teams can reduce bot flakiness and ensure SLA reliability. Senior automation professionals should establish diagnostics as part of the development lifecycle and invest in observability across bot ecosystems to guarantee resilient automation operations.
FAQs
1. Why do unattended bots fail without clear error logs?
These bots often fail due to session or credential issues that aren't explicitly logged unless custom logging is implemented within the bot logic.
2. How can I ensure vault credentials don't expire unexpectedly?
Use credential rotation alerts and audit locker access regularly. Also, avoid hard dependencies on one-off credentials in production workflows.
3. What's the impact of job queue overlap in Control Room?
It can lead to race conditions where bots execute on runners lacking environmental prerequisites, causing failures in file access or app state.
4. Can Bot Insight help with failure tracing?
Yes, with proper instrumentation, Bot Insight can visualize execution trends, task durations, and specific error-prone logic paths.
5. How do I handle transient API failures in AA bots?
Implement retries with delay and error branching using Try-Catch. Always log request/response data for post-mortem analysis.