topic Exception when deleting a process with long running task in Alfresco Archive

Exception when deleting a process with long running task

awelsh — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 15:47:11 GMT

I am doing some tests to understand the behaviour of RuntimeService.deleteProcessInstance.I create a process with a task which loops a set number of times logging messages to the console then sleeping for 1 second.In my test method, I call RuntimeService.startProcessInstanceByKey(), sleep for a few

Re: Exception when deleting a process with long running task

jbarrez — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 08:04:40 GMT

Are you deleting using the process instance id?

Afaik, the delete should cascade to all its child executions.

Re: Exception when deleting a process with long running task

ronald_van_kuij — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 22:06:11 GMT

I have this same errors and some different but related ones AND it is reproducable. To me it happens when the engine is ending a process and begins with deleting things from the RU tables. If the variables are removed, but the execution is not (yet) and something else writes a variable to the db again, the step of removing the execution fails. This results in the same error as above.

But it could also be that the variables are removed and a not yet removed execution is signalled, goes to a transition with a condition and then you get the error that there is an unknown property

SEVERE: Error while closing command context
org.activiti.engine.ActivitiException: Unknown property used in expression
 at org.activiti.engine.impl.el.JuelExpression.getValue(JuelExpression.java:55)
 at org.activiti.engine.impl.el.UelExpressionCondition.evaluate(UelExpressionCondition.java:37)
 at org.activiti.engine.impl.bpmn.behavior.ExclusiveGatewayActivityBehavior.leave(ExclusiveGatewayActivityBehavior.java:64)
… (nothing interesting below, believe me…)

And playing with some delays in my unit test, I can even get NPE's (note that I DO use the runtimeService!)


SEVERE: Error while closing command context
java.lang.NullPointerException
 at org.activiti.engine.impl.history.handler.ActivityInstanceEndHandler.findActivityInstance(ActivityInstanceEndHandler.java:50)
 at org.activiti.engine.impl.history.handler.ActivityInstanceEndHandler.findActivityInstance(ActivityInstanceEndHandler.java:77)
 at org.activiti.engine.impl.history.handler.ActivityInstanceEndHandler.notify(ActivityInstanceEndHandler.java:36)
 at org.activiti.engine.impl.pvm.runtime.AbstractEventAtomicOperation.execute(AbstractEventAtomicOperation.java:38)
 at org.activiti.engine.impl.interceptor.CommandContext.performOperation(CommandContext.java:76)
 at org.activiti.engine.impl.persistence.entity.ExecutionEntity.performOperation(ExecutionEntity.java:483)
 at org.activiti.engine.impl.persistence.entity.ExecutionEntity.take(ExecutionEntity.java:326)
 at org.activiti.engine.impl.bpmn.behavior.BpmnActivityBehavior.performOutgoingBehavior(BpmnActivityBehavior.java:92)
 at org.activiti.engine.impl.bpmn.behavior.BpmnActivityBehavior.performDefaultOutgoingBehavior(BpmnActivityBehavior.java:49)
 at org.activiti.engine.impl.bpmn.behavior.FlowNodeActivityBehavior.leave(FlowNodeActivityBehavior.java:44)
 at org.activiti.engine.impl.bpmn.behavior.AbstractBpmnActivityBehavior.leave(AbstractBpmnActivityBehavior.java:37)
 at org.activiti.engine.impl.bpmn.behavior.ReceiveTaskActivityBehavior.signal(ReceiveTaskActivityBehavior.java:35)
 at org.activiti.engine.impl.persistence.entity.ExecutionEntity.signal(ExecutionEntity.java:309)
 at org.activiti.engine.impl.cmd.SignalCmd.execute(SignalCmd.java:53)
 at org.activiti.engine.impl.interceptor.CommandExecutorImpl.execute(CommandExecutorImpl.java:24)
 at org.activiti.engine.impl.interceptor.CommandContextInterceptor.execute(CommandContextInterceptor.java:42)
 at org.activiti.engine.impl.interceptor.LogInterceptor.execute(LogInterceptor.java:33)
 at org.activiti.engine.impl.RuntimeServiceImpl.signal(RuntimeServiceImpl.java:131)

I'll attach a zip file shortly

Re: Exception when deleting a process with long running task

ronald_van_kuij — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 22:23:03 GMT

The attached project can be used to create the problems described above. Putting thread.sleep(…) before the set variable in within the loop and/or before the signal can be used to create different errors. Since it is timing related, I cannot tell which values are needed for your system

Re: Exception when deleting a process with long running task

ronald_van_kuij — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 22:57:43 GMT

http://jira.codehaus.org/browse/ACT-813 seems related but with the diference that that is in the SAME context. The above issue is in different contexts, so it might be that a more complex solution is needed. Maybe something like setting the process to 'ended', make sure all inserts to this instance are prevented once the process is marked as ended and only after that start removing things. Marking it is something that needs to be cache aware or whatever. Does not sound like a simple solution…

Re: Exception when deleting a process with long running task

cls — Fri, 10 Mar 2017 11:24:40 GMT

hitting the same problem...the deleteProcessInstance call is actually not terminating anything. Our flow is still continued, and then got the exeception somehow..

Re: Exception when deleting a process with long running task

cls — Fri, 10 Mar 2017 11:25:23 GMT

To add on top of it, after calling deleteProcessInstance, execution.isEnded() always return false, even after the exception above is thrown