ADF Custom Activity for Batch accounts intermittently throws error 'XML nodes is not in the correct format'

Question

ADF Custom Activity for Batch accounts intermittently throws error 'XML nodes is not in the correct format'

Sonika Sharma 40 Microsoft Employee

I have multiple pipelines that use ADF Custom Activity to Batch Account. They normally run successfully. However they were failing consistently for 18 hours yesterday with the following error " The value for one of the XML nodes is not in the correct format."

We did not change/deploy any new code.

The issue resolved itself after a few hours of consistent failures.

Detail description here:

The pipeline used to function normally up until today.

Initially we were getting intermittent errors, but now the errors are pretty consistent(error details below). We have not changed anything on our side wrt. the pipeline, batch account or the underlying storage account .

Error:

The value for one of the XML nodes is not in the correct format.RequestId:Status: 400 (The value for one of the XML nodes is not in the correct format.)ErrorCode: InvalidXmlNodeValueAdditional Information:XmlNodeName: 2026-03-23T06:25:56ZXmlNodeValue: 2026-03-23T06:25:56Z

Manoj Kumar Boyini 10,340 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-03-16T16:47:02.0433333+00:00

Hi Sonika Sharma,

I kindly request you to please share the details requested in the private message for further investigation.
Manoj Kumar Boyini 10,340 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-03-17T14:34:15.73+00:00

Hi Sonika Sharma,

We haven’t received a response. I have reached out to you could you please check and confirm.

1 answer

Your answer

Manoj Kumar Boyini 10,340 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-03-16T16:47:02.0433333+00:00

Hi Sonika Sharma,

I kindly request you to please share the details requested in the private message for further investigation.
Manoj Kumar Boyini 10,340 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-03-17T14:34:15.73+00:00

Hi Sonika Sharma,

We haven’t received a response. I have reached out to you could you please check and confirm.

Answer 1

Manoj Kumar Boyini 10,340 Microsoft External Staff Moderator

Hi Sonika Sharma,

The issue was caused by an incorrectly structured XML payload in the Custom Activity request. The XML did not follow the expected schema, which resulted in the InvalidXmlNodeValue error from the Azure Batch service. Please correct the XML formatting so that values are passed in the proper structure expected by the service. After fixing the XML structure, the pipeline should execute successfully without further errors.

Hope this helps, Please let us know if you have any questions and concerns.

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ADF Custom Activity for Batch accounts intermittently throws error 'XML nodes is not in the correct format'

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