Automating Annoying Tasks in Zapier When Nothing Actually Broke
1. Matching new CRM records with existing Airtable entries
One of the first automations I messed with was trying to link new HubSpot contacts to existing Airtable rows based on email. Simple idea: if the contact already exists in Airtable, update the row. If not, create a new one. Everyone says “search Airtable, then create” — and yeah, that’s easy to set up in the editor.
Until it isn’t. Zapier will happily let you run a search step in Airtable using email, get a result, and still create a duplicate because Airtable silently returns an array with zero results. Not null. Not failed. Just a blank array, and Zapier treats that like “well I don’t know, better keep going.” I only noticed this after filling Airtable with dozens of duplicate rows for my own test email address. Bummer.
Actual fix: use a filter step immediately after the search. Check that record ID exists. Airtable might return a search result, but the returned values are sometimes not structured consistently if no record is found. Specifically, look for fields like id inside the path. If they’re missing, filter the Zap to stop right there.
Also worth noting: in one client’s org, the same Zap skipped existing records hundreds of times — while in mine, it added duplicates — until I realized their Airtable had a shared view with filters affecting the records exposed to the API. That detail wasn’t visible unless you opened sharing settings from the table.
2. Dealing with Zapier filters that say true but act false
Filters in Zapier might be the most confidence-breaking part of the whole platform. I had one automation checking if a form field contained a specific keyword before continuing. Looked fine. Filter said it would pass. Test result said TRUE.
Then nothing downstream ever ran.
Here’s what actually happened: the field came from a Typeform webhook, and in the test data the field was hardcoded to a lowercase version of the trigger value. Live data was coming in with extra whitespace and sometimes uppercase — and the filter was case and space sensitive. Zapier’s interface doesn’t show you what it’s comparing against unless you test every version manually, so it read “TRUE” when tested but failed silently when real submissions came in.
To catch this, I now aggressively log every step into a separate Airtable “log” base. Pulled out a regex match and started transforming all form values to lowercase in-line with a Formatter step. Not elegant, but it beats squinting at Zap logs trying to convince myself it definitely ran.
Test value looked like this:
{"job_type":"Newsletter "}Live value looked like:
{"job_type":" NEWSLETTER"}
The whitespace wouldn’t show up unless you raw-view the payload.
3. Sending Slack messages from Zaps at inconsistent times
Turns out Slack messages sent by Zapier can come through anywhere from 2 seconds to 2 minutes after every other Zap step finishes, depending on what kind of channel you’re hitting and whether the user who authorized Slack has DND turned on. There isn’t a reliable pattern.
I tested this while building a lead notification bot that pings sales reps. The Slack messages were set to say “New lead assigned” — but reps were seeing integrations update records before Slack sent anything. That led to questions like: “Why are leads appearing without notifications?”
One workaround is inserting a Delay step before the Slack action with a static time (10 seconds was enough). Doesn’t make Slack faster. But it slows down everything else just enough that the Slack message usually comes first. This is messy, but it makes the order more human-readable on their end.
Also make sure you’re using Slack’s “Send Channel Message” or “Send DM” with the right user IDs, not @mentions by handle — because names change, but Slack user IDs don’t. I once used @john_d, who moved from marketing to sales. New John inherited his email… and all the messages. He didn’t reply because he thought it was a test bot.
4. Using Looping by Zapier when the values just vanish
If you’ve tried to loop through an array — like multiple line items in a Stripe checkout or several file URLs from a webhook — there’s a big gotcha nobody seems to emphasize: Zapier flattens some arrays unless each value truly exists at runtime.
In a Zap looping through Google Form attachment URLs, the Zap ran fine during setup. But when one submission skipped a file (they didn’t upload anything), the loop failed silently. As in: the looping step said it completed, but the inside steps just never ran. No error. No logs.
The visual editor won’t alert you that a null item in your array turns into “[]” downstream. If there’s one empty string in the array, the loop becomes unpredictable. I found this by logging {{zap_loop_value}} to Slack for every iteration — and some iterations were just blank. Not null. Just blank text. That killed the inside logic that expected a URL.
Temporary fix:
- Pre-validate the array in a Code step. Filter out empty strings.
- If array might be blank, add branch logic before loop to skip the loop step entirely.
- Always test with a dirty data set, not just good ones.
This one Zap took me four hours to debug because looping said “completed” but logged zero child actions. Worse, the client thought it was user error.
5. Webhook Zaps firing multiple times without changing trigger data
This one nearly ended me. I had a Webhook Catch Hook Zap pointed at a Bubble.io app that sent data after a form submission. No authentication — just a basic POST with payload.
Everything worked in staging. In production, every submission triggered the Zap 3–6 times. Identical payloads. No visible difference in Bubble logs. Contacted support. Zapier said “not our fault.” Bubble said “not us either.”
I finally saw it while inspecting request IDs in the raw Zap History logs. They were identical, but timestamps were staggered slightly — a sign Bubble retried the webhook. Turns out: Bubble thought the connection failed, because Zapier’s acknowledgment didn’t arrive fast enough. I saw this same issue with other platforms where Zapier steps inside the same automation made their own external calls before returning 200 OK to the webhook sender. That delay causes retries.
Actual workaround: in Bubble (or whatever app sends the webhook), tweak the submission workflow to wait for a manual success message — or send all requests to a webhook redirector first. Alternately, in Zapier, acknowledge with an immediate 200 OK by using Webhooks-by-Zapier to manually respond early in the Zap itself.
The hidden cost there is you can’t rely on only Zapier logs to detect duplicates. Now I log the submission UUID from the original app and compare it in Airtable before processing further. Not fun, but safer than guessing.
6. Formatter step transforming blank values into string literal blank
Wondered why the email signature looked like “– ” for weeks until I realized Zapier’s Formatter changed empty fields into strings that literally returned a space. Not null. Not undefined. Just: ” ”
Specifically, I had a Formatter – Text – Remove HTML tags step that received a field with no content. Instead of leaving it blank, it stripped… nothing, and returned a literal space. The downstream email formatter then inserted that space as “content” in a multiline email signature block. The result looked fine on mobile at a glance. But in threads, it added weird indents that made it obvious someone broke something somewhere.
This goes deeper: if you use Zapier’s {{Field}} syntax without trimming whitespace, some email clients (especially Outlook) render artifacts instead of collapsing lines. Saw it happen live on a sales lead call. The rep shared screen. We all saw “–” followed by a phantom gap.
Now I sanitize everything myself. If field is blank, skip formatter. Or do a =LEN(TRIM(Field)) step inside Google Sheets ahead of time and check that. It adds work, but avoids embarrassing whitespace-based bugs.
7. Updating Notion pages with dynamic content that overwrites unrelated blocks
Set up a workflow to update client notes in Notion based on scheduling changes in Google Calendar. The Zap added events to a Notion page with: title, date, contact link.
Worked great in limited tests. Then one day, I overwrote a page title that had a bunch of internal notes from another teammate. Turns out the “Update Database Item” action in the Notion Zap doesn’t keep unchanged fields intact. If the field is misconfigured or data is null, Zapier passes an empty value, and Notion replaces existing content with it.
There’s no warning on this behavior. I assumed updating only the date field would leave other properties alone. Not true — Zapier resets any field you touch, even when that value is empty or malformed.
Aha moment: For any Notion field you don’t want to overwrite, make sure it’s either excluded entirely or duplicated into the Zap via a Find step. I ended up pulling the current values with “Find Database Item” first, storing all fields in private variables, then only modifying targeted ones, and passing the whole merged object back.
I’ve seen other automators hit this too — especially around select or multi-select fields. If the value you send doesn’t exactly match available options, Notion doesn’t throw an error. It just clears them.
8. Too many Zaps toggling on-off for the same Slack alert
I once had four versions of the same Slack alert for low-inventory notifications across different clients. Simple Zap: check spreadsheet row, compare qty, send Slack if below threshold.
The problem came when I updated one and forgot to update the others. Slack messages doubled up, or went silent. Zapier doesn’t warn you when multiple Zaps have overlapping triggers on identical spreadsheets. And because you can test each Zap independently in the editor, it all looks fine — until clients start seeing things like “Inventory low: 3” posted 3 times in 5 seconds.
Now I use a master spreadsheet labeled “Zap Active” to toggle on-off alert logic inside the Zaps themselves. Instead of turning Zaps on and off via the dashboard, I check cell A1 of a control sheet. If it says FALSE, the Zap skips the Slack step. This workaround saves me from accidentally triggering double alerts in multi-client inventories.
Also learned: move the Slack alert to its own dedicated Zap, triggered by a webhook, and call that webhook from your core Zaps. That makes alert logic reusable and centralized. Keeping your Slack step inside every Zap just creates chaos over time.