Error Handling in Make.com Scenarios

When you build complex automations in make.com, proper error handling is essential to keep your scenarios stable, predictable, and easy to maintain. This guide explains how errors work, which tools are available to manage them, and how to design robust workflows that continue running even when something goes wrong.

This how-to is based on the official documentation and walks you through key concepts, including error types, handlers, and settings, so you can confidently manage exceptions in your automations.

Understanding Errors in Make.com

Before configuring any advanced behavior, it is important to understand how make.com treats errors at the module and scenario level.

What is an Error in Make.com?

An error occurs when a module in a scenario cannot complete its operation as expected. Typical reasons include:

• Invalid or missing input data
• HTTP or API request failures
• Timeouts while waiting for a service response
• Authentication or authorization issues
• Rate limits or quota restrictions

When an error happens, the affected operation is marked as failed and, by default, the scenario run may stop or be limited depending on how you configure its behavior.

Standard Error Behavior in Make.com

In a standard configuration, make.com stops processing a given execution of a route when a critical error occurs, and it may mark the entire run as failed. However, you can adjust this behavior using dedicated error handling features, so that the rest of your workflow can continue with alternate actions or controlled retries.

Core Error Handling Features in Make.com

Make.com provides several mechanisms to control what happens after an error. These tools can be used independently or combined for more advanced workflows.

Error Handlers on Routes

Error handlers are special routes that define what the scenario should do when a particular module fails. They can be attached to specific modules and configured with conditional logic.

Typical actions inside an error handler route include:

• Sending a notification (email, chat message, or log)
• Writing error details to a storage module or database
• Creating a ticket in a support system
• Retrying an operation with different parameters
• Gracefully skipping problematic records while continuing with others

By placing dedicated modules within an error handler route, you ensure that errors are handled consistently across your scenario.

Choosing the Right Error Handling Strategy

In many make.com scenarios, you will decide between these common strategies:

• Fail-fast: Stop the scenario when any critical module encounters an error to avoid inconsistent data.
• Skip and continue: Log the error and move on to the next item in the batch or the next route.
• Fallback processing: Switch to an alternate route or resource when the main one fails.
• Retry with limits: Try the same operation again a limited number of times before giving up.

The method you choose depends on how sensitive your automation is and how costly it is to repeat or skip operations.

How to Add an Error Handler in Make.com

The process of creating an error handler in make.com follows a few clear steps.

Step 1: Identify the Critical Module

First, identify which module is most likely to produce errors or where an error would have the greatest impact on your workflow. These are common candidates:

• Modules that call external APIs
• Modules handling payments or financial data
• Modules that update key records in your CRM or database

Step 2: Create an Error Handler Route

Once you know where you need protection, add an error handler route:

1. Select the module you want to protect.
2. Open its error handling settings in the scenario editor.
3. Create a new error handler route branching from that module.
4. Place modules on the error handler route to define what should happen when the main module fails.

Inside this branch, you can add logging, notifications, or any corrective logic that makes sense for your process.

Step 3: Configure the Handler Behavior

Each error handler in make.com can be configured to define how the rest of the scenario continues. Common options include:

• Ignore error and continue: The run continues as if the module had succeeded, while the handler logs details.
• Stop route: The current route stops for that item, but other parallel routes can keep running.
• Stop scenario: The entire run is stopped once the error occurs.

Choose the option that best reflects your tolerance for failure in that particular part of the scenario.

Using Advanced Error Handling Tools in Make.com

Beyond simple handlers, make.com offers additional mechanisms that allow more granular control over error behavior.

Automatic Retries and Limitations

Some modules and connectors support automatic retries. You can configure the number of attempts, delay between tries, and conditions that determine when a retry is used instead of immediately failing.

Use retries when you expect temporary issues, such as rate limits, brief outages, or latency spikes. Avoid infinite retries, and always define reasonable maximum attempts to prevent loops that consume resources without resolving the problem.

Timeouts and Scenario Settings

Each scenario in make.com can be configured with timeouts and run limits. These settings help you:

• Make sure long-running tasks do not block other scheduled runs
• Prevent scenarios from processing more operations than intended
• Control how often the scenario attempts to process batches of data

Combine scenario-level settings with module-level error handlers for a balanced and safe configuration.

Parallel Routes and Error Isolation

When your make.com scenario has multiple routes running in parallel, errors on one route can be isolated from others. By using dedicated error handlers per route, you can let non-critical branches fail quietly while keeping critical processes intact.

This approach is especially useful in scenarios that both process data and send notifications. For example, if a notification route fails, your main data update route can still run successfully.

Best Practices for Error Handling in Make.com

To build reliable automations, follow these recommended practices when working with error handling tools in make.com.

Log and Document All Critical Errors

Ensure that every critical failure is logged somewhere you can review later. You might:

• Write error messages and input data to a database or spreadsheet
• Send summaries to a monitoring channel
• Tag errors with scenario names and timestamps for easier filtering

Comprehensive logging makes troubleshooting faster and helps you improve scenario design over time.

Separate Business Logic from Error Logic

Keep your main operational route focused on the desired business process, and move error-related activities into handler routes. This separation makes your make.com scenarios easier to read, maintain, and extend.

Test with Realistic Failure Cases

Before going live, simulate common error situations:

• Use invalid credentials to trigger authentication failures
• Send malformed input to modules that validate data
• Temporarily disable external services you call

Observe how your error handlers behave, confirm logs and notifications are created, and verify that the scenario continues or stops exactly as designed.

Learning More About Make.com Error Features

For deeper technical reference, consult the official guide on how to handle errors in the platform. The documentation provides screenshots, setting descriptions, and specific module notes: How to handle errors in make.com.

If you need strategic help designing large, resilient integration architectures around make.com, you can also work with specialized consultants. For example, Consultevo offers implementation and optimization services that can help you refine your automation and error handling strategies.

Conclusion: Building Robust Scenarios in Make.com

Effective error handling in make.com is not just about preventing failures; it is about controlling how your automations respond when problems inevitably occur. By combining error handler routes, retries, scenario limits, and thoughtful logging, you can build workflows that are resilient, transparent, and easy to maintain over time.

Use the techniques outlined here as a starting point, then refine your configuration based on real-world behavior and monitoring data from your scenarios.

Need Help With Make.com?

If you want expert help building, automating, or scaling your Make scenarios, work with ConsultEvo — certified workflow and automation specialists.

Get Help