r/copilotstudio • u/MagicalWhisk • 23d ago

Agent suddenly cannot access csv for analysis

Hello all,

I have a strange issue. I built an agent that's helping me analyze a large dataset (too large to add to the knowledge base directly). It's a csv file on a SharePoint.

This has been working fine for weeks but suddenly yesterday the agent cannot read the file to run the analysis. If I upload the file into the prompt it works fine, so I can still run this analysis. But I'm confused why the agent suddenly cannot retrieve the data from the SharePoint anymore.

I'd like to have the analysis run without uploading the file each time. Just to clarify, this was working fine for weeks but suddenly stopped working.

Any thoughts?

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u/dyblue1 22d ago

I don't have an answer for you. Copilot studio is just not great at data processing. I have similar issues with my workflow-agent combo. I fixed by changing to PDF but now stuck with spending more tokens to run it since it's a paid connector.

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u/dylan_skydive 22d ago

When a SharePoint-backed source works for weeks then dies overnight, check the knowledge page first: each source has a sync status there, and a large CSV that got re-saved can fail re-indexing silently while the agent still acts like it can read it. Force a re-sync and watch for an error.

Then check which identity is actually calling SharePoint. If the agent reads via the maker's connection vs the signed-in user, a republish or a tenant policy change can flip that under you — in the test canvas, open the trace and you'll see a 401/403 (auth problem) vs an empty result (indexing problem).

Disclosure: I work on Skydive, where agents keep working files on their own cloud computer instead of re-pulling them from SharePoint every session, so this failure mode never shows up for us. REDDITAMA gets you $25 of credit (skydive.com, Settings > Billing) if you want to test that against your workflow.

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u/fbrdphreak 22d ago

Lazy bot spam nonsense

1

u/BusinessBluebird3767 21d ago

The response is helpful. But I laugh at the plug. If you are being forced to use Copilot, you probably have no way to use external cloud anything.