Urgent: “Else” transition automatically added to Extract Variable nodes causing failures across 15+ agents

Support Help
1

Hi Retell Support Team,

Video showing the failure

I’m currently experiencing a critical issue affecting 15+ production agents across multiple clients.

It appears that Retell has automatically added an “else” transition condition to every single Extract Variable node. The problem is:

• The new “else” transitions were added without any changes on my end.

• The system is not allowing me to connect those new transitions to anything (as shown in the attached video).

• Because of this, all variable extractions are now failing.

• The Extract Variable nodes are no longer respecting the original “else” conditions I had previously configured.

These agents all use the same shared components, so this issue is now impacting 15+ client deployments simultaneously.

Impact

  • Production agents are breaking for multiple live clients.

  • I cannot remove or reconfigure the automatically added “else” transitions.

  • Can I trust Else conditions on the replacement nodes I make??

  • Video showing the failure

2

I don’t have information about automatic “else” transitions being added to Extract Variable nodes or system-wide changes affecting multiple production agents based on the available sources.

However, the sources do document several related issues with Extract Variable nodes:

Known Extract Variable Node Issues:

Users have reported that Extract Variable nodes can fail to transition properly when transition conditions are added(1)(2). Specifically:

  • Adding any transition inside an Extract Variable node can trigger “Failed to get LLM response” or “Error in LLM call” errors(2)
  • The node may transition before actually extracting the variable(1)
  • Removing transitions allows extraction to work but halts the flow(2)

Recommended Troubleshooting Steps:

Based on documented solutions for Extract Variable node transition issues:

  • Review transition conditions to ensure they precisely match intended triggers(3)
  • Add transition finetune examples to help the model understand expectations(3)
  • Make transition conditions more flexible and general(3)
  • Try using equation-based transitions (e.g., “1=1”) instead of prompt-based ones(1)

For Your Specific Situation:

Since you’re experiencing issues across 15+ production agents with automatically added “else” transitions that cannot be connected, this appears to be a platform-level issue not documented in the available sources.

I recommend immediate escalation:

Would you like a general answer based on my knowledge about Extract Variable node behavior?

3

lol no this is not what’s happening