Archive: Nintex for Office 365 Knowledge Articles

IssueWorkflow gets stuck when trying to create documents using custom templates with Create List Item Or Document Set Action. ResolutionSave and close the template document if it has been opened from the SharePoint library. Otherwise this will cause the workflow to become stuck and not progress as the template file is still open by a user. 

ISSUEWhen attempting to publish an Office 365 Nintex workflow, the following error might occur:  Error publishing workflow. Column ' ' does not exist. It may have been deleted by another user.ERROR CODEError publishing workflow. Column ' ' does not exist. It may have been deleted by another user.RESOLUTIONExport the workflow file, and then re-import and publish the workflow to recreate the missing columns.ADDITIONAL INFORMATIONThis is caused by a conflict between an open InfoPath Form, and Nintex workflow designer.  If there is a published InfoPath form, and the InfoPath designer is not closed while workflows are published and run; InfoPath cannot reconcile the list columns held in memory, and the list columns created through the new workflow, and as such removes the list columns from the SharePoint list. The deletion of the columns results in the workflow no longer being able to publish, throwing the error above. To avoid this, please make sure that InfoPath is closed when publishing

IssueWhen using a workflow that inserts data into a SharePoint List, the resulting data might contain an unexpected numeric value of 403. ResolutionUse {Current Item:Encoded Absolute URL} and update the user name and password with a Global account that has the correct permissions.  Additional InformationWithin the Web request the fir field URL {Current Item: URL} was being used. This was receiving a 403 forbidden error. 

IssueWhen try to save or publish the workflow, this error might occurs:ButtonPanel - handleXamlBuildError : SyntaxError: Invalid characterAn error occurred that could be due to size of the workflow. Try reducing the size of your workflow. For example, reduce the size of task forms or split up the workflow. ResolutionSplit the single workflow into multiple workflows.  Additional InformationWhile there can be many causes for these errors, one of them can be when you have too many tasks in parallel in a single workflow. A large workflow has more tasks and more updates in the single workflow, so more chance of causing a lock. Also if a lock does occur, a larger workflow can make it difficult to determine the point at which the lock happened while a smaller workflow will always be easier to diagnose. Related LinksSplitting large or complex workflowsExample: Splitting up a large workflowWorkflow sizing guidelinesDetermine the size of a workflow 

ISSUEWorkflows are failing when attempting to run Office 365 Upload File Action. The workflow history shows the error: "An exception occurred while processing parameter [InputFileToUpload]."ERROR CODEAn exception occurred while processing parameter [InputFileToUpload]RESOLUTIONAdd one minute Pause action prior to the Office 365 Upload Document action.ADDITIONAL INFORMATIONThe pause action ensures that the workflow will not encounter a conflict when trying to interact with the document file within SharePoint Online.RELATED LINKS

ISSUEWhen attempting to run a workflow that was imported from another list, the workflow suspends part way through and the following error occurs:Details: An unhandled exception occurred during the execution of the workflow instance. Exception details: System.ArgumentNullException: Value cannot be null.ERROR CODERESOLUTIONWithin the actions inside of the workflow designer verify that all required fields still contain data. If any required fields are empty, re-enter the appropriate value into the field.  The action with the field in question can often be determined by specifics at the end of the the error message returned from Workflow Manager.ADDITIONAL INFORMATIONThis error can also present as "An unhandled exception occurred during the execution of the workflow instance" with no null value error.  In this case check the stack trace in the internal status to verify which action type is causing the error and verify that the references for those actions are not returning null values.REL

ISSUEWhen creating a new workflow in Nintex Workflow for Office 365, a "For development use only" message appears in the background.ERROR CODERESOLUTIONThis is by design. Workflows will be marked as 'For development use only' until the workflow has been assigned to production on publishing. For more information, see How to Designate a Production or Development Workflow in O365.ADDITIONAL INFORMATIONRELATED LINKS

IssueAn Office 365 workflow becomes suspended and the only error message in the workflow history is 'Forbidden.'  ResolutionGrant access to write to the Workflow History list for the SharePoint site to the user account running the workflow. This will allow the workflow to display the true error which can then be used to resolve the underlying issue. Additional InformationWhen an O365 subscription has less than 30 days to the end of the subscription a message is written to the Workflow History list advising of this.This message is written using the permissions of the workflow Initiator.  If the workflow has an action set as the first action configured to run with elevated permissions the message will still be written with the Initiators account.  If the Initiator does not have access to the Workflow History list in this scenario the workflow will suspend with an access error.

IssueWhen opening a Nintex Workflow for Office 365, a dialog box with the below error ,messages appears:Oops! Something went wrongAfter closing the dialog box, the user will able to open Nintex Workflow designer without any issue. ResolutionClose the error dialog box. Open Nintex Workflow designer.  Save and Publish workflow.  Additional InformationThe error only happened for a new tenancy. This error will disappear after at least 1 workflow is published.  If this error appears on a page and not a dialog box open SharePoint Online Management Shell, connect to your tenant and run the command:Set-SPOTenant -DisableCustomAppAuthentication $false To install the SharePoint Online Management Shell you can start by downloading and running the SharePoint Online Management Shell or installing the module from the PowerShell Gallery. Once installed, the module is available for use, and you do not need to install it again until you need features introduced in a later version. Thereafter run the cm

ISSUEWhen running a workflow with a Send an Email action, the workflow might fail with the following error: An unhandled exception occurred during the execution of the workflow instance. Exception details: System.ApplicationException: HTTP 400ERROR CODERESOLUTIONDelete the current Send an Email action from the workflow and create a new one. Open action to configure it. Select the 'External Recipients' check box. Input desired email addresses. Save workflow and publish.ADDITIONAL INFORMATIONThis error occurs when the Send an Email action is configured incorrectly. This error will appear if the recipient emails in the 'To' field is populated before selecting the 'External Recipient' check box first.RELATED LINKS

IssueWhen one of the branches in the "State Machine" action does not have a "Set Next State" action, the workflow will keep looping in the particular branch. This might lead to another error depending on the action configured under the branch.   ResolutionAdd the "Set Next State" action in the end of each branch of the "State Machine" action. Related LinksBest practice: State machine workflowsSet Next StateState Machine 

IssueWhen using the action 'Set Field in Current Item' or 'Update List Item' in Nintex Workflow for Office 365, it automatically sets the list column that has the data type Multiple line text to blank, even though this column is not part of the field that is being updated, in the action configuration.  ResolutionThe root cause of this issue is because the Multiple lines of text column has a field 'Append Changes to Existing Text' that has been set into 'Yes'.If this is not the business requirement, then set the 'Append Changes to Existing Text' into No. If this is the business requirement, then make sure that the action to update list item is configured to set the value of the Multiple lines of text column to avoid overriding into blank value.' 

ISSUE When attempting to publish a workflow within the Nintex Workflow for Office 365 designer, the workflow fails to publish and the following error occurs in the designer: Error publishing workflow. Object reference not set to an instance of an object. ERROR CODE RESOLUTION From the ribbon within the workflow designer, open the Variables menu. Identify the variables with Initiation set to Yes that are of Integer type. If any of the identified variables are not currently in use, delete and re-create them.  Note: If this was all of the identified variables, you should now be able to publish successfully. If any of the identified variables are currently in use they will have to be manually updated within the workflow definition by Nintex Support. Export the workflow file and send it to support@nintex.com with the identified variables ADDITIONAL INFORMATION RELATED LINKS

IssueWhen running Nintex Workflow for Office 365, the following message appears in the Workflow status history page:The list '{Workflow Context:List Name}' does not exist in the web site ResolutionThe error is shown when the 'List name' field has either been entered in manually or copied and pasted from a similar account. To resolve the issue, you will need to do the following:1. Open the Workflow Designer2. Open the Office 365 Live action3. Clear the existing field for 'List name'4. Place cursor in the 'List name' field5. Expand 'Workflow Context' section on the right6. Click on 'List Name' to add this information to the 'List name' field 

ISSUEWhen publishing a workflow, the following error might occur:Error publishing workflow. Workflow XAML failed validation due to the following errors: The private implementation of activity '1: DynamicActivity' has the following validation error: Value for a required activity argument 'TargetListId' was not supplied. HTTP headers received from the serverERROR CODEError publishing workflow. Workflow XAML failed validation due to the following errors: The private implementation of activity '1: DynamicActivity' has the following validation error: Value for a required activity argument 'TargetListId' was not supplied. HTTP headers received from the serverRESOLUTIONRecreate the Query List actions in the workflow. Republish workflow.ADDITIONAL INFORMATIONRELATED LINKS

IssueWhen attempting to access the Nintex Forms for Office 365 app, the app errors with the message: "User access token redemption failed for site https://SiteURL/ using app with host name formso365.nintex.com 400 (BadRequest) response received from OAuth endpoint." Error CodeUser access token redemption failed for site https://SiteURL/ using app with host name formso365.nintex.com 400 (BadRequest) response received from OAuth endpoint. ResolutionWhite-list *.nintex.com within the firewall that does 'Man in the Middle' encryption/decryption for the corporate network. Additional InformationThis can also result in the Nintex Workflow for Office 365 app hanging on "Connecting to Site." 

Issue When using Office 365 update Item Permission action, it give an output of the List item URL that can not be use afterward. The URL format return by the List item URL as below: ["https://site_url/Lists/list_name/DispForm.aspx?id=2"]    Resolution Convert the List item URL that has a Collection data type into single text by utilize action "Get Item From Collection".    Additional Information The details of "Get Item From Collection" can be found here.   Related Links Help file "Get Item From Collection"  

IssueA Scheduled Workflow with a "Query list" action will not start when the the Due Date is equal to "today". The workflow errors with: "The string was not recognized as a valid DateTime. There is an unknown word starting at index 0"  Error Code"The string was not recognized as a valid DateTime. There is an unknown word starting at index 0" ResolutionCreate a variable for "Today's" date and set the Due date equal to the newly created variable:Today

IssueWhen connecting to Nintex Mobile with an Office 365 account, user authentication fails with the error: "Access Denied. You do not have permission to perform this action or access this resource" ResolutionVerify that the site being connected to has the Nintex Forms for Office 365 app installed.  Error CodeAccess Denied. You do not have permission to perform this action or access this resource 

ISSUEWhen browsing to Nintex Forms using Safari on Mac, the following prompt appears:Please enable cookies for your browser to use the FormERROR CODE‘Please enable cookies for your browser to use the Form’RESOLUTIONNavigate to Safari > Preferences. Click Privacy. Select "Allow from websites I visit" or "Always allow".ADDITIONAL INFORMATIONForms is using cookies for user authentication, this is part of the product and cannot be changed. The reason Safari (default behaviour on OS X and iOS) behaves differently than Chrome is because Safari defaulted to not accept all cookies, while Chrome does. As such this would be considered expected behavior. RELATED LINKSSafari 8 (Yosemite): Manage cookies and website data

IssueWhen a document is uploaded in a document library with Nintex forms, the browse button is missing from the managed metadata field.  ResolutionThe Manage Metadata control does not support browsing MMD terms when the item is opened in the pop up dialog mode. Workaround On document upload in a document library that has Nintex form published pop up dialog for new form is missing the browse feature for MMD control as it is not supported. Instead use the free text search functionality by typing the required term in the MMD field. Alternatively use the "Modern SharePoint UI" as "Modern SharePoint UI" does not open the new form in a dialog.  

IssueWhen connecting to a database or running an Execute SQL action, the following error occurs:HTTP InternalServerError to https://<domain>.sharepoint.com/<GUIDs>Correlation Id: <GUID>Instance Id: <GUID>Invalid text value.A text field contains invalid data. Please check the value and try again. ResolutionEnsure the Connection String is properly formatted, contains no typographical errors, and is not pointing to a server with a private IP address. Error CodeHTTP InternalServerError to https://YOURDOMAIN.sharepoint.com/ Correlation Id: Instance Id: Invalid text value. A text field contains invalid data. Please check the value and try again. Related LinksConnection String TesterPrivate IPv4 address spaces Wikipedia article 

IssueWhen responding to a Task in Nintex Workflow for Office 365, the following error may occur: Invalid text value. A text field contains invalid data ResolutionVerify that the approver comment contains less than 256 characters.  Add validation to Nintex Task Form to set the maximum character up to 255.  

IssueWhen opening a Nintex Form in Office 365 on iOS devices, a published Nintex Form fails to load. ResolutionOn your iOS device, navigate to Settings > Safari > Privacy & Security Disable 'Block All Cookies' Disable 'Prevent Cross-Site Tracking'Note: The navigation steps above for iOS 13.x. These steps may vary between different versions of iOS. Error CodeYou may see various messages, such as: "Safari cannot open the page because the server cannot be found." "Please enable cookies for your browser to use the Form" Additional InformationCookies created by Nintex Forms for Office 365 are considered Third-Party Cookies. Enabling 'Prevent Cross-Site Tracking' prevents a device from opening a Nintex Form in SharePoint Online by blocking Third-Party Cookies. Enabling 'Block All Cookies' prevents a device from authenticating into SharePoint Online. As of Safari 13.1, 'Prevent Cross-Site Tracking' has been enabled by default. If this feature was disabled previously, it may be neces

IssueWhen using a Send an Email actions in Nintex Workflow for Office 365 and configured formatting (font, size, etc) at the email's body with insert references values, the insert references values will not have the the expected format as configured.  ResolutionIn a new Send an Email action. Enter the email body with only text including the text that will be replaced with insert reference in step 4. At this stage DO NOT insert any reference (item properties, workflow context or workflow variable). For example if the requirement is to have the Created By value from the current item, instead of insert the reference as explained here, just write down as normal text Created By.  Highlight all the email body that has been written in step 2 and change the text format (font, size, etc) as desired.  Replaced the normal text Created By on step 2 with the actual insert reference from the current item. Now it looks like {CurrentItem:CreatedBy}. Publish the workflow Related LinksInsert Reference P