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Question

Workflow Fill PDF leaves fields empty/blank after 8.3.2 upgrade to 9.1.1

Workflow Version 9 Installation and Upgrades
Updated May 13, 2014
asked on May 9, 2014

We upgraded to 9.1.1 a few days ago. When I tried kicking off a workflow that fill data into a PDF, the PDF was blank. There were no errors in the workflow. The track tokens show that all the data was available to the workflow.

 

I opened these workflows from the Rule Manager tab and simply re-published them (no changes). After that, it worked.

(Side note: I used the 8.3 designer. I don't think that matters in this case) 

 

I want to know why this happened because now I lack confidence in our production workflow system. This problem did not occur in our test environment.

 

I wanted to leave this for anyone else that runs into it, but also ask if anyone has seen this and why did it happen? Why did re-publishing fix this?

 

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Answer

APPROVED ANSWER
replied on May 13, 2014

Usually republishing after an update is to let a positive change (e.g. bug fix) to take affect. We try hard to make sure the reverse is not true... to make sure there is no issue introduced where republishing is required to fix it.

 

As for what publishing is... it is the process that takes your workflow definition and translates it into a code assembly for workflow to run efficiently. A published workflow often is linked to the version of workflow it published in. A workflow published in version 8.3 will often only support features of 8.3 even though you may have upgraded the workflow server. This is so that workflow's behavior doesn't change when you upgrade. Once you republish, its running against the updated version of Workflow and certain new features may apply (varies by activity). There are some things that do upgrade with the workflow version, usually performance improvements and changes to the underlying libraries (Workflow 9.1 introduced using RA instead of LFSO for instance for communicating with the Laserfiche server).

 

Occasionally, since workflow is a fairly complex product, issues like the one you ran into can occur where some change in the new version wasn't fully compatible with the older version. We have trouble with this type of issue because the fix is relatively easy (republishing) and in doing so 'destroys' our chance to isolate the issue and fix it. Often times, we don't even hear about the issue at all. 

 

If you would like to help us to isolate the exact issue and fix it so that others can avoid the issue... and you have any of the following that you would be willing to share, please contact your VAR and open a support case. Please reference this answers post in the case. We would need either of the the following information along with a copy of the PDF:

 

  • A backup of your workflow definition file (wfx) or a wfi file for the afflicted workflow before you upgraded. 
  • A backup of your workflow database before the upgrade

 

Thank you

 

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Replies

replied on May 12, 2014 • Show version history

This likely was just a need for the connection to the master form to be re-established after the upgrade.

 

Sometimes they change how something works on the back end between upgrades and republishing the workflow will force the new methods to take effect. At least you were able to fix it easily though. Often people forget about this type of troubleshooting and it becomes easy to have no idea what was the issue and then suddenly it is fixed.

 

EDIT: After an upgrade, I always republish every workflow just to make sure that no errors or warnings come up during the republishing stage and to make sure that anything that changed during the upgrade will not change what is happening with the workflows/Business Processes.

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View 1 previous reply
replied on May 12, 2014

Republish all of them? Wow, that will take a little while.

Thanks for your feedback, though. I might have to make this part of my routine.

 

Laserfiche, do you recommend re-publishing all workflows?

Can anyone explain why this happens for sure? Kenneth's suggestion seems likely, but if I can have a solid affirmation from Laserfiche then that will go a long way to satisfying my suspicions of our upgraded server.

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APPROVED ANSWER
replied on May 13, 2014

Usually republishing after an update is to let a positive change (e.g. bug fix) to take affect. We try hard to make sure the reverse is not true... to make sure there is no issue introduced where republishing is required to fix it.

 

As for what publishing is... it is the process that takes your workflow definition and translates it into a code assembly for workflow to run efficiently. A published workflow often is linked to the version of workflow it published in. A workflow published in version 8.3 will often only support features of 8.3 even though you may have upgraded the workflow server. This is so that workflow's behavior doesn't change when you upgrade. Once you republish, its running against the updated version of Workflow and certain new features may apply (varies by activity). There are some things that do upgrade with the workflow version, usually performance improvements and changes to the underlying libraries (Workflow 9.1 introduced using RA instead of LFSO for instance for communicating with the Laserfiche server).

 

Occasionally, since workflow is a fairly complex product, issues like the one you ran into can occur where some change in the new version wasn't fully compatible with the older version. We have trouble with this type of issue because the fix is relatively easy (republishing) and in doing so 'destroys' our chance to isolate the issue and fix it. Often times, we don't even hear about the issue at all. 

 

If you would like to help us to isolate the exact issue and fix it so that others can avoid the issue... and you have any of the following that you would be willing to share, please contact your VAR and open a support case. Please reference this answers post in the case. We would need either of the the following information along with a copy of the PDF:

 

  • A backup of your workflow definition file (wfx) or a wfi file for the afflicted workflow before you upgraded. 
  • A backup of your workflow database before the upgrade

 

Thank you

 

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replied on May 13, 2014

Ed,

I appreciate the detailed response.

 

If I were to summarize what you said, it would be "We try to make it so you don't have to re-publish, but there are a lot of benefits to doing it and it usually fixes the problem."

 

Sounds like I should consider republishing all workflows after each upgrade. It doesn't sound fun. I imagine we'll have 60 to 100 by our next upgrade. Oh well.

 

I'd like to try to help. Would a previous version (downloaded from the WF admin console) work? I have an even older version saved somewhere, but the WF server has the best "old" versions.

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replied on May 13, 2014

Your summary is pretty good, though I'd like to emphasize that we really don't want there to be a problem to fix between upgrades .

 

An old definition could work as long as we have the PDF as well. Please don't attach the workflow to this post however. 

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