Workflow Says \Starting\" and Never Starts"

What is the workflow doing?  Can you post a screen shot of the workflow?

Hi Andrea Pasutti‌

   Check whether you are using any "pause until" or " pause for "  WF actions .. This will stall your WF instance. Also check for any conditional start options. Your scenario seems strange, as ‌ , please post screen shots so as to have deep dive.,

Thanks 

Bashya Rajan A

‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

Thanks 

Bashya Rajan A

Hi Andrea,

are you on O365 or on-premises?

If on-premises, could you check if Workflow timer job is stuck? Could you restart timer service? If it gets hung, it could be a reason of a non starting workflow (automatic start is based on event handler and timer job I think..)

Giacomo

 Hi Andrea,

I also regularly get this.  I also have not yet pin pointed the cause of this to an exact cause.  I have noticed though that this happens often on a new site where the Nintex Workflow features have just been activated and all I do to fix this is to terminate the first workflow that goes into "starting" mode and then manually start the workflow on that item again.  This resolves it for me (Sharepoint 2010). 

Interesting. This is a new site, but canceling and restarting the workflow didn't help the situation. It still does it. I will keep an eye on it.

On prem. I will check with our admins, but other workflows in our test site are working fine.

I do have a pause action at the top of my workflow, but the workflow technically doesn't start, so I'm not sure what use the pause is doing in this scenario.

Screenshots coming up.

I added a document, no conditional start settings, this is the workflow history:

And when I click "Workflows" on the ribbon:

And when I click "Starting" in the screenshot above:

Let me clarify, when I manually start the workflow on an item, the workflow runs. When I go to upload another item, it stalls and says "Starting".

Timer service is working fine.

Screenshots posted.

Where?  I see your screen shots of the history page, but not the workflow itself.  I'm asking for a screen shot of the workflow itself.  It could be something in your workflow causing the issue.

Is the document you uploaded still open or checked out when the workflow starts?  Is your workflow attempting to update something related to that document?

I did click "Check In", but maybe the workflow is trying to start before SharePoint can get the document checked in. How interesting. How do I get around that? Like I said, I have a pause built in at the top of my workflow, but the workflow actually has to start before it gets to that pause.

Workflow Start Settings (more to come):

Workflow Structure. Again, the workflow doesn't start, so I'm not sure what value the pause is adding in this particular scenario. I know it's a best practice, so I'm going to leave it in, I just don't think it's helpful here.

Being checked out shouldn't be a problem.  You may need to investigate the ULS logs to determine what is going on.  https://community.nintex.com/community/support/blog/2014/10/13/troubleshooting-uls-logs

One other thought.  Create a single step workflow that starts your main workflow.  Make that the workflow that get's triggered to start when a new item is uploaded.  See if that will start, and then kickoff the other workflow.

That didn't work because that workflow fails to start.

Also, deleting and reimporting the workflow did not work.

In that case I'd recommend looking at the ULS logs to see if that might give you some more clues as to what is going on.  You could also open a ticket with support and see if they may be able to assist.

GOT IT!!

https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/chaun/2013/05/16/if-your-sp2010-workflows-are-stuck-in-the-starting-state/

It's a SharePoint issue, not a Nintex issue.

The article mentions a couple potential issues.  Which one was it in your scenario?

I had required columns in my library. I set each column to "Optional" and applied validation rules in my Nintex form and it worked.

Hello friend thankyou so much