This post was originally published here
Today while trying to deploy an existing Logic App Consumption thru Visual Studio 2019 in our development environment, I got the following error message:
"error": {
"code": "InvalidTemplate",
"message": "The template validation failed: 'The inputs of template action 'name_of_the_action_with_error' at line '1 and column '5938' cannot reference action 'name_of_the_action_that_is_being_referenced'. Action 'name_of_the_action_that_is_being_referenced' must either be in 'runAfter' path or within a scope action on the 'runAfter' path of action 'name_of_the_action_with_error', or be a Trigger.'."
}
The template validation failed: ‘The inputs of template action ‘name_of_the_action_with_error’ at line ‘1 and column ‘5938’ cannot reference action ‘name_of_the_action_that_is_being_referenced’. Action ‘name_of_the_action_that_is_being_referenced’ must either be in ‘runAfter’ path or within a scope action on the ‘runAfter’ path of action ‘name_of_the_action_with_error’, or be a Trigger.
Cause
The cause of the problem is quite simple, once you check the underline code in your Logic App workflow. In my case, because I copied and pasted the properties from another action below into this one, I unintentionally was referring inside the add expression, an action that at that point didn’t exist in that workflow step – the action was only created four steps below as you see in the picture:
And indeed, the error message is correct. You can only reference actions that exist before the current action – within a scope action on the ‘runAfter’ path – or from the trigger.
Solution
Fixing this issue is simple. In my case, this Parse JSON – Message Properties action is trying to parse the existing Properties of the trigger – so I had two options:
- Move the Parse JSON – Message Properties action just below the trigger or above the Send Message action.
- Or modify the add expression to not reference the Parse JSON – Message Properties action.
