Question

Workflow status: waiting and running, what's the diff?

Workflow

Updated March 19, 2014

asked on March 18, 2014

In the Workflow Designer, Search Results, there is a field Workflow Status. At first glance it seems self explanatory, but after further investigation it seems some instances that are waiting for a condition to be met in a routing activity show status of running. At the same time most of the instances show a status of waiting, which is what I would expect.

Anyone know difference between these 2 statuses?

Replies

replied on March 18, 2014

I have two ideas you can try if you are on WF 9.1 to try and jog them into working. Try the methods separately and report back if either work (depending on which one works, it might give me insight on the problem to prevent it from happening again):

Open the Workflow Admin Console.
Browse to "Advanced Diagnostics"
Browse to 'Persisted Instances'
Browse to the workflow that is displaying this property
Find one of your instances (by either instance ID or date)
Right click on it and click 'Resume Instance'

Alternatively, try restarting the workflow server and after a few minutes check the status of these workflows.

replied on March 18, 2014

Ok, so upon further examination, I have instances that are both sitting waiting for user to change approval field. Some show running, while others show waiting. Those with status of Running show several activities running for days; while those with status of Waiting show similar activities completed within seconds or milliseconds.

I have been having a problem with some workflows meeting wait conditions but 'stalling' and not moving on to subsequent activities. I'm wondering if this is related.

Cap of Activities tab for instance with status: Running

And one with status: Waiting

I have an email that repeats every day for 90 days until the wait condition is met. it looks like WF might be hanging on those activities. Do you think that is the case?

replied on March 19, 2014

Ed,

Ok, I tried both options and the instances are still stuck running those email activities. I have a case open with Laserfiche Support and have updated it with this new information.

Thanks very much for the input,

John

replied on March 18, 2014

Waiting indicates that the workflow is waiting for some external action to happen. It could be that it is waiting for a timer, condition, or one of the out of workflow 'tasks' to finish (like a script).

Running indicates that the workflow is actively doing some work at this moment and is taking up one of the concurrent queue spots for that definition (which typically is 4 per logical CPU of the server machine).

All activities can be in the running state fleetingly.

replied on March 30, 2014 • Show version history

I had similar problem before, WF hang in waiting state.

I think you were using “route entry to” and it was waiting, and you updated the WF and then you updated the running instance.

Check your WF admin console Error Log: Current Error Log, and look for this error: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.

if the error is there, then take a look at this page:

https://support.laserfiche.com/ForumsFrames.aspx?Link=viewtopic.php%3ft%3d19945%26amp

These are the steps to recreate the problem:

1- Publish a WF with Route Entry to Folder with waiting status for example <tag> is set and to Send Email every 5 minutes for 60 email - the idea is to have "Route Entry to Folder" to be in waiting state while sending emails.

2- Run it on entry

Definition: Version 1
Designer : Version 1 - Waiting

Diagnostic: Version 1 - False - Next Timer: (Date/Time + 5 minutes)

2- Wait for the first email to be sent so you can 5 minutes to do next step

3- Publish: Overwrite: Yes - Update running WF: Yes

Definition: Version 2
Designer : Version 1 - Waiting
Diagnostic: Version 2 - True - Next Timer: (Date/Time + 5 minutes)

4- Wait for the next email, then notice values changed

Definition: Version 2
Designer : Version 2 - Waiting
Diagnostic: Version 1 - False - Next Timer: (Date/Time + 5 minutes)

5- When the Next Timer the WF will stuck on running with these values

Definition: Version 2
Designer : Version 2 - Running
Diagnostic: Version 1 - False - Next Timer: Empty

6- Error in Activity log but last modified date remain the same

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if you continue then you will have another problem:

https://answers.laserfiche.com/questions/52073/Wait-condition-met-but-workflow-does-not-move-to-next-step#53438

7- Set the tag to true to end the wait and you will see an activity (wait for entry change) highlighted in blue in the instance details, but the conditions tab shows the conditions for it have evaluated successfully.

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