Stopped (error): Failed to find workflow instance. Failed to find workflow instance.

We recently recently came across an issue at a client site where workflows instances would be completed but the status would be “Stopped (error)” with error messages saying “Failed to find workflow instance. Failed to find workflow instance. Failed to find workflow instance. Failed to find workflow instance” after investigating the issue for quite a while and not finding a solution I eventually found a post at “Peng’s Dynamics AX“ Blog where he listed a hotfix that Microsoft released to resolve this bug. The knowledge base article for KB2398999 and download link can be found at: http://support.microsoft.com/hotfix/KBHotfix.aspx?kbnum=2398999&kbln=en-us&sd=mbs#step2

Thanks to Peng for reporting this issue to Microsoft and following up with them for a year! You can view the original blog post here.

Resource Page for Known issues in AX2009 Workflow

Recently came across this blog page with a list of workflow resources including hotfixes videos etc…

https://community.dynamics.com/product/ax/axtechnical/b/axresources/archive/2012/02/13/resource-page-for-workflow-in-microsoft-dynamics-ax-2009.aspx

Rollup 7 Released

Microsoft has release rollup 7 for Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 service pack 1. Of course the most interesting part to me are the two workflow bugs that it resolves.

1. One can start multiple workflow instances for the same record
2. Records in the workflow history form are displayed very slowly

We’ve come across both of these issues and are really glad that official fixes have now been released.

Happy Daxing

Rollup 6 Workflow fixes

With the release of Hotfix Rollup 6 for Dynamics AX, it seems like a number of issues relating to workflow have been resolved. Checkout the full list over at the Knowledge Base. The one in particular that I’m quite interested in relates to last weeks post on security issues for workflow.

The work-items that were being created when that issue occured remained in status pending and were not removed from the processing queue. The hotfix (KB971260) makes a change to the SysWorkflowEventDispatcher class to catch the error and stop the workitem from processing. It doesn’t seem like the correct security is being applied as yet.

 

Running Multiple AOS on the same box all using workflow

We recently were struggling to manage our Dynamics AX Workflow developments, as we have a number of AOS running on the same physical machine. The IIS also sits on the same physical server. Much to our consternation it was discovered that the workflow website only connects using the currently active Business Connector configuration (on the box which workflow is running on). We only discovered this via examining the System event log numerous times and doing a Shurlock Holmes to eliminate the possibilities until we figured it out.

This all being figured out we were able to activate the correct business connector based on the environment that we were working on. Irritating, but it worked. However this week while searching the knowledge base on partner source we discovered an even better solution. Apparently this was a bug and has subsequently been fixed by Hotfix #960801 from Microsoft, available for download at PartnerSource. In essence the process for environments like ours is as follows. Install hotfix, duplicate Workflow Website (with application pool), Rename the new Website, add a line to your new websites config file to specify which Business Connector configuration to use and link your AOS to the new website.  Easy!

More details:

1) Install Hotfix 960801
2) Create a duplicate Workflow Website in IIS:
2.1) Duplicate the Workflow folder in your directory (typically C:\Program Files\Microsoft Dynamics AX\50)
2.2) Rename the folder to something logical for you to know which environment it will be pointing to e.g. WorkflowClientx
2.3) In IIS Manager, duplicate both your application pool and your virtual directory and name them accordingly e.g MicrosoftDynamicsAXWorkflow50Clientx
2.4) Link your New website to the folder that you duplicated in 2.1, and link it to your new application pool.
2.5) Edit the new website’s config file change: <appSettings /> to
<appSettings>
<add key=”BUSINESS_CONNECTOR_CONFIGURATION” value=”[BCPROXY CONFIG NAME]” />
</appSettings>

3) Restart IIS
4) Run the Workflow Infrastructure Configuration Wizard, in your new AOS and choose your new websites URL. e.g http://SERVER01:80/MicrosoftDynamicsAXWorkflow50Clientx
5) Enjoy your multiple AOS!