Pause for 5 minutes is paused for 3 days now and counting..


Badge +9

Hi folks,

SP2013 on prem.

I have a workflow that has few pauses along  the way. it has been working fine, but today I'm noticing that the at one specif pause action which is supposed to be pausing for 5 minutes, it has been staying there for 3 days and still cannot resume.

The workflow didn't error or give the infamous "failed to run" or anything like that. The logs says it is just simply pausing. The internal status seem fine too. 

we don't have access to run powershell commands or do any fancy things on the server. 

My workflow is a state machine and has a switch start at the beginning. If I start the workflow again, it will start from where it is hanging now. 

My questions:

1. What would be the reason that a 5 minute pause be sitting there for days? 

2. I didn't terminate the old old workflow that is hanging in there and was able to start a new one, the reason is I don't want to loose my previous tasks on the previous states. Is there a possibility that the old one will resume and assign tasks again? so the same workflow might come to a point to be running twice?!! 

3. Is there a better way to give that pause a kick to resume rather than restarting the workflow?


5 replies

Userlevel 4
Badge +11

Hi, could you check if workflow timer job is running fine? Sometimes I've seen something similar when that timer job get stucked..

Giacomo

Badge +9

Thanks. I'll have someone check that for me as we don't have access to the server, why would then some workflows work fine while others get stalled in that Pause action. I'm assuming if the workflow timer service job had stopped running then it will affect all workflows not just some of them!!

Userlevel 4
Badge +11

If other workflows don't use pauses or action with "hidden" pauses inside them, they won't be affected by that timer job, that's could be an explaination..

Badge +9

Oh, actually I meant workflow instances. So it is the same workflow but some instances run fine while others are problematic.

Badge +9

Vadim Tabakman‌, Dan Stoll‌, Chad Austin‌. Anyone knows how can I give a workflow that is sitting in a pause action for several days a kick? Any triggers I can apply? Given that we don't have access to the sharepoint server that is encountering this issue. Or recommend someone I can talk to? 

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