Error "Error publishing workflow. Column ' ' does not exist" Publishing Office 365 Workflow

ISSUE

When attempting to publish an Office 365 Nintex workflow, the following error might occur:  

ERROR CODE

Error publishing workflow. Column ' ' does not exist. It may have been deleted by another user.

RESOLUTION

Export the workflow file, and then re-import and publish the workflow to recreate the missing columns.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

This 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 associated workflows.