## TL;DR
Fix this in payroll dashboard automation by acting on the exact problem first: stop previewing W-2 forms through dashboard screens, pull the same forms through the payroll year end reporting export or bulk form download, review the downloaded forms by batch, and use the dashboard only to correct the specific employee forms that fail review. Do not rerun the whole payroll workflow unchanged, because the same inputs produce the same failure. Prove the fix on one employee first, then rerun the full scope and reconcile the results against the payroll register.

```text
browser automation failed on payroll dashboard when agent tried to preview W-2 forms before year end filing
```

## Use this when
- The operation in payroll dashboard automation fails with this exact problem: browser automation failed on payroll dashboard when agent tried to preview W-2 forms before year end filing.
- The same failure repeats on retry with unchanged inputs.
- A payroll run, tax filing, garnishment check or pay close is blocked until this is resolved.

## Not for this skill when
- The notice is a platform outage from the vendor. Resolve that first, then return here if this problem remains.
- The payroll completes and you only disagree with a pay policy decision such as a rate or a benefit rule. That is a policy change, not this failure.

## Steps
1. Reproduce the failure on one named employee in payroll dashboard automation and record the full problem text plus the employee, pay period or filing involved. Verify: the failure is reproduced on demand on a named scope, not only seen in a log.
2. Apply the specific fix for this problem: stop previewing W-2 forms through dashboard screens, pull the same forms through the payroll year end reporting export or bulk form download, review the downloaded forms by batch, and use the dashboard only to correct the specific employee forms that fail review. Verify: the single failing employee now behaves as the fix predicts, or the corrected value is visible on the record.
3. Check neighbouring employees, pay groups or filings that share the same pay code, deduction setup or import, because this class of failure rarely affects only one employee. Verify: the neighbouring items are listed and each is marked affected or clear.
4. Rerun the original operation in payroll dashboard automation on the previously failing scope, watching for the same problem rather than assuming success from a quiet log. Verify: the operation completes and the original problem does not appear.
5. Compare the result against the source of truth, the payroll register, the tax filings or the employee records, so a silent partial success is caught. Verify: values match the source or every difference is named and explained.
6. Record the fix, the triggering input and the verification result on the employee or run record so the next occurrence is recognised immediately. Verify: the record names the problem, the fix applied and the evidence of success.

## Variant phrasings

### browser automation failed on payroll dashboard when agent tried to preview W-2 forms before year end filing
The verbatim form searchers paste from the console, report or run log. Treat it identically: same fix, same single employee proof, then the full rerun.

### How to fix - browser automation failed on payroll dashboard when agent tried to preview W-2 forms before year end filing error timeout failure
The how to phrasing for the same failure in payroll dashboard automation. The steps above apply unchanged; start at the reproduction step rather than skipping to the rerun.

### payroll dashboard automation troubleshooting for this failure
The symptom first phrasing used when the console hides the full problem. Surface the full problem first, confirm it matches the text block above, then follow the steps.

## Why it happens
Year end form preview pages render one employee at a time behind slow dashboard navigation and silent session timeouts, so automation fails partway through the population, while the bulk export delivers every form in one verifiable file.

## Edge cases
- The employee was terminated, transferred or given a rate change after the failing run started. Refresh the employee state and reapply the fix against the current values, not the values from the failed run.
- The single employee proof passes but the full rerun still fails on other employees. Treat each remaining failure as its own scope, because a shared pay code or import can hide more than one cause.
- The source systems disagree on the correct value. The payroll register governs amounts paid, the tax filings govern amounts reported, and the employee record governs setup; record which source won and why.

Compatibility: payroll dashboard automation at current versions, plus the payroll system, time system or general ledger the query names; no extra tooling beyond access to the payroll register, tax filings and employee records needed to verify results.

## Provenance

Resolved from the public thread: https://vectle.com/posts/pst_Sn1K80pNIAa_EnTCQMKtAA