Why did my sync fail?
When something goes wrong, Crowflow shows a clear message in your dashboard and sends one email per platform per day so you're not buried in noise. Here's what each common error means.
Where to check
Two places to look when a sync fails:
- Your dashboard at crowflow.io/app — the connection card for the affected platform shows the most recent error.
- Your inbox — we send one notification email the first time a connection breaks, then suppress further emails for that platform until you fix it. So you won’t get spammed if the same error repeats day after day.
Reconnect needed
Symptom: connection card shows Reconnect needed; sync error is something like refresh_token_expired or invalid_grant.
Cause: your OAuth refresh token is no longer valid. This happens when:
- You revoked Crowflow’s access from your platform’s account settings.
- You reset your platform password and the platform invalidated all tokens.
- Google rotates refresh tokens after long idle periods (rare).
- For Meta: the long-lived token reached its 60-day expiry without being refreshed.
Fix: click Reconnecton the connection card. You’ll go through the OAuth flow again and Crowflow stores a fresh token. Your account selections and existing data are preserved.
No accounts selected
Symptom: sync error says no ad accounts selected.
Cause:you connected the platform but haven’t toggled any account on for syncing.
Fix:open the platform’s connection page (e.g. /app/connections/google-ads), click Load accessible accounts, and toggle the accounts you want synced. The next sync will succeed.
Platform quota or rate limit
Symptom:sync error mentions HTTP 429, “quota exceeded,” or “too many requests.”
Cause: the ad platform briefly throttled the request. Google Ads enforces 15,000 operations/day per developer token; Microsoft and Meta have their own rolling limits.
Fix:Crowflow automatically retries with exponential backoff for transient failures, so most quota errors resolve on their own. If they don’t, the daily cron will retry tomorrow. For a sustained quota issue, email us — we can request a higher quota from the platform.
Missing scope
Symptom: error mentions insufficient permissions or names a missing scope.
Cause: you connected before Crowflow added a new scope, or you partially declined the consent screen.
Fix: click Reconnect and accept the full permissions prompt this time.
Destination failed
A destination push can fail even when the upstream sync succeeds — typically because the destination Sheet was deleted, renamed, or shared in a way that removed Crowflow’s access.
Fix: open the destination card, click Edit, and either re-pick the Sheet with the Google Picker or create a new one. Existing data in the original Sheet is unaffected.
Does Crowflow retry?
Yes — automatically. Every sync call uses exponential backoff with jitter for transient errors (429, 5xx, network blips). A single sync attempt typically makes 2 or 3 internal retries before being marked failed.
If a sync still fails after retries, the daily cron picks it up again the next morning. There’s no manual queue you need to clear — failures self-heal as long as the root cause is fixed.
Still stuck?
Email hello@crowflow.io with:
- Which platform is affected.
- The error message your dashboard shows.
- Roughly when it started failing.
We can look at the relevant Sentry traces and reply with an actual fix, usually within a business day on Starter and within 24 hours on Pro.