Question
Answer
Timer job perform infrastructure tasks for the timer service, such as clearing the timer job history and recycling the timer service; and tasks for Wep Applications, such as sending e-mail alerts. A timer job contains a definition of the service to run and specifies how frequently the service is started. The SharePoint 2010 Timer service (SPTimerv4) runs timer jobs. Many features in SharePoint Server rely on timer jobs to run services according to a schedule.
All delay actions utilize the SharePoint timer service. If there is a greater issue with this service it can affect any action that utilizes delays. The effect on these actions might be they do not continue at the expected time, or they never continue.
The following actions may be affected:
- Pause For
- Pause until
- Task reminder
- Complete Workflow task
- Delegate workflow task
- Wait for item update
- Loop (when Safe Looping is enabled)
- State Machine (when Safe Looping is enabled)
- Start workflow (when using the option "Wait for the workflow to complete before continuing")
Issues and Troubleshooting
Issue 1 - The "Pause for" action never continues
Please follow these steps if you experience issue 1.
1) Restart the SharePoint timer service.
2) Download the Microsoft SharePoint 2010 October 2011 CU.
Please note: If you are still facing issues after downloading the October CU, it may not be a timer service issue but a Microsoft SharePoint workflow engine bug. For more information about this bug, please see SharePoint Workflow Engine bug. This known bug can affect some Nintex Workflow and cause them to freeze under certain conditions.
3) Contact Microsoft Support.
If neither step one or two resolve your issue, please test a basic SharePoint designer workflow with a delay. If your issue is also occurring in the SharePoint designer workflow, this suggests there is a greater issue with this service and you will need to contact Microsoft Support. Once the issue has been resolved this issue should no longer be present in Nintex workflows.
Please note: Keep in mind that Nintex Workflow uses the SharePoint Workflow engine. If these issues are occurring in Nintex Workflows, they will also occur in SharePoint Designer workflow. Normally, a simple SharePoint Designer workflow with a Delay or Pause activity will result in the same behavior and this test can be used to demonstrate the problem is Microsoft Support is required.
Issue 2 - The "Pause for" action takes longer than ~ 10 minutes more than the configured pause to continue OR
Issue 3 - The Pause for action takes about 5 - 10 minutes longer than configured
1) Restart the SharePoint timer service.
2) Download the Microsoft SharePoint 2010 October 2011 CU.
Please note: If you are still facing issues after downloading the October CU, it may not be a timer service issue but a Microsoft SharePoint workflow engine bug. For more information about this bug, please see SharePoint Workflow Engine Bug. This known bug can affect some Nintex Workflow and cause them to freeze under certain conditions.
3) Contact Microsoft Support.
If none of the above steps resolve your issue, please test a basic SharePoint designer workflow with a delay. If your issue is also occurring in the SharePoint designer workflow, this suggests there is a greater issue with this service and you will need to contact Microsoft Support. Once the issue has been resolved this issue should no longer be present in Nintex workflows.
Please note: Keep in mind that Nintex Workflow uses the SharePoint Workflow engine. If these issues are occurring in Nintex Workflows, they will also occur in SharePoint Designer workflow. Normally, a simple SharePoint Designer workflow with a Delay or Pause activity will result in the same behavior and this test can be used to demonstrate the problem is Microsoft Support is required.
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