When an automation is set up to move a record to a new status, it will not fire when there is a missing required field for that new status. A message shows indicating this in the automation logs, but there is no indication of this to the user.
Users may not realize that a required field is missing, or that the record has not been moved to the next status because of this.
Show a message in the UI when the automation fails to trigger because of a required field. There is a similar error that pops up when moving a record with this condition via the workflow board that could be an option.