Workflow Errors - but completes

  • 10 December 2015
  • 9 replies
  • 154 views

Badge +1

Hi - Not sure where to start with this one.   Our environment is SP 2010 with NW 2010.   As of last month, a growing number of site and list item workflows have been generating the following error :  An error has occurred in <name of wf> Work Flow.  That is all the detail shown.

 

Observations:

  1. This began suddenly last month to workflows that have been running without issue for months (and some for years).
  2. This does not occur on every workflow and seems to happen randomly -- the same workflow can fail twice, complete twice, then fail twice again.
  3. These workflows DO complete. Each action block in the graphical history view is green through to the end and we can confirm that each action has been accomplished.  But the workflows will generate a failure of "error occurred".
  4. There are no corresponding errors in the SharePoint log during these failures.

 

What we've done:

  1. Verified with a SQL dba that the NW database and logs are adequately sized and performance (sql/OS) is acceptable.
  2. Increased the batchsize, throttle, and timeout values
  3. Rebooted environment several times.

 

Any suggestions would be appreciated, as the failures are starting to outpace the successes.

Thanks!


9 replies

Badge +17

Phil,

This is erroneous behavior indeed.  Have you checked to ensure that no accounts potential have changed on the servers?  Odd that everything is still working also and yet you get the errors.  You mentioned SharePoint errors, but have you looked at the ULS logs to see if anything is showing there? 

What version of Nintex are you on? 

Badge +9

Any chance you are getting this error after a Pause action? It was the case in my situation and I fixed it by disabling Workflow Timer Service on my APP server where Web App Service was also disabled. Both should be enabled on WFE servers.

Badge +1

Hi, thanks for the response.    Our installed
version is 2010,  (2.0.0.6)   with an enterprise license.

Regarding the ULS  logs- I am not finding anything of
substance at or around the times of the workflow failures.   I’ll try
to look at a larger sample for more clues.  

Badge +1

Hmm thanks for the suggestion.  Both services are running
on the app and on the web server.  I can try disabling them on the app
server as you have suggested.   There are several workflows that have
pauses and wait for update steps that are failing (but succeeding).  But
it is strange this service configuration has been working up until this point.

Thank you

Badge +9

Just to make sure we are on the same page. You only need to disable the Workflow Timer Service if the Web App Service is already

disabled. Here are the details and some other options for you:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2674684

Badge +1

Hi

Were you able to find the resolution to your problem? We are experiencing similar issues with workflows randomly erroring out. They seem to work sometimes and other times we get these errors without any modifications to the workflow or list. 

Thanks, 

Ivan

Badge +8

We have the same issue here.  Some workflows randomly show the "An error has occurred" message.  The workflow completes all steps.  There are no relevant error messages in ULS.  The actual cause of the error seems to be that it reaches an idle timeout.  We tried adding Pause to the start and end of the workflow but it does not work.  More of a nuisance than a real problem.

Badge +7

Having the same issue with SP2013 on a new workflow. Occasionally, and seemingly at random, I find items with the status "Failed on Start" and "Failed on Start (retrying)". History log entries, along with analysis of the results indicate that the workflows have run; however, because they are in error, new instances of the workflow can't be started until the error clears.

This is the same list where I'm having another issue Intermittent Errors Updating List Item and Setting Permissions and this workflow was created in an attempt to resolve the issues experienced with that workflow. So maybe it's the list? This is a very large list (approaching 10K items) that sees a great deal of activity, has multiple content types, a lot of fields including several calculated fields.

Badge +7

So rediscovered this post while two years later troubleshooting the same problem. Workflow instances randomly run to completion but show "incomplete" and eventually just throw an error. 

I think putting an "End Workflow" action here has reduced the frequency of the problem. Will try. 

 

 

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