Workflow path stopped working when going through an Arg and Vars step

[Shahar Kedar]

Hi,

 

I had a working workflow (a quite complicated one) that just stopped working after I upgraded my MacOS to 14.1.1 (from 14.1.0). After debugging the workflow I was able to identify the source of the problem in the Arg and Vars step that was between a Keyword Input step and a List Filter step. The symptom is that once I move from the input step to the list, the Alfred bar just closes. When I remove the Arg and Vars step from the workflow, I can see the list as expected. I've attached a very simple workflow that replicates the issue. On my mac, when I use the "mygood" keyword I see the list, but when using the "mybad" keyword - the list is not presented.

Alfred version: 4.8 [1312]

MacOS version: 14.1.1

 

Thanks,

Shahar 



 

[Andrew]

@Shahar Kedar double click on the connection circle before the Arg & Vars, and set the option to "Don't close the Alfred window on actioning result".

 

Alfred can infer this behaviour for the "mygood" keyword as it's connected directly into an input, but it's good practice to set the same option for this connection too.

[Shahar Kedar]

Thanks. That worked. Why did this change after the upgrade?

[Andrew]

@Shahar Kedar Nothing has changed between upgrades, and when wanting to keep the Alfred window open, you should have always used this feature.

 

When a window stays open without this feature enabled, it's just incidental (luck)... in the case of seeing the circle on the connection, Alfred will be requesting macOS to hide Alfred after actioning your keyword "mybad", then asking to re-show for the list filter. Depending on timing, and system load, and OS version, the direction of the wind, whether you had a coffee that morning, you may be lucky and macOS re-shows the List filter instead of prioritising the request to close the window.

 

By selecting this option to not hide the Alfred window, things will always work as requested / intended.

 

Cheers,

Andrew

[Shahar Kedar]

Understood. Thanks for the elaborate and clear answer.

[Andrew]

It's worth adding that Alfred will automatically infer keeping the window open if you have an input directly followed by another input (i.e. Keyword > List Filter), which is why you don't see the behaviour with the "mygood" keyword.

 

Cheers, Andrew

 

moving to workflow help, as this may help other people too