flowable/flowable-engine · error · FlowableIllegalArgumentException

activity tenant id is null

Error message

activity tenant id is null

What it means

HistoricActivityInstanceQueryImpl.activityTenantId(String) requires a non-null tenant id to filter activity instances by exact tenant. Passing null throws FlowableIllegalArgumentException since the criterion would be ambiguous; to query across all tenants, simply do not call this method.

Source

Thrown at modules/flowable-engine/src/main/java/org/flowable/engine/impl/HistoricActivityInstanceQueryImpl.java:213

        return this;
    }

    @Override
    public HistoricActivityInstanceQuery deleteReason(String deleteReason) {
        this.deleteReason = deleteReason;
        return this;
    }

    @Override
    public HistoricActivityInstanceQuery deleteReasonLike(String deleteReasonLike) {
        this.deleteReasonLike = deleteReasonLike;
        return this;
    }

    @Override
    public HistoricActivityInstanceQueryImpl activityTenantId(String tenantId) {
        if (tenantId == null) {
            throw new FlowableIllegalArgumentException("activity tenant id is null");
        }
        this.tenantId = tenantId;
        return this;
    }

    public String getTenantId() {
        return tenantId;
    }

    @Override
    public HistoricActivityInstanceQueryImpl activityTenantIdLike(String tenantIdLike) {
        if (tenantIdLike == null) {
            throw new FlowableIllegalArgumentException("activity tenant id is null");
        }
        this.tenantIdLike = tenantIdLike;
        return this;
    }

View on GitHub (pinned to d6d39ce1c6)

Solutions

1. Only call activityTenantId(tenantId) when tenantId != null
2. Fix tenant resolution (default tenant provider) so a valid tenant id is always available
3. Use activityTenantIdLike(pattern) with a non-null pattern if fuzzy matching across tenants is intended

Example fix

// before
query.activityTenantId(TenantContext.getCurrentTenantId());

// after
String tenantId = TenantContext.getCurrentTenantId();
if (tenantId != null) {
    query.activityTenantId(tenantId);
}

if (tenantId != null) {
    query.activityTenantId(tenantId);
}

boolean hasTenantId(String t) { return t != null && !t.trim().isEmpty(); }

try {
    query.activityTenantId(tenantId);
} catch (FlowableIllegalArgumentException e) {
    if (!e.getMessage().contains("activity tenant id is null")) throw e;
    // rebuild query without tenant filter
}

When it happens

Trigger: Calling query.activityTenantId(null), or passing a tenant id resolved from context/config that is null (e.g. multi-tenant apps where the current tenant was not resolved).

Common situations: Multi-tenant deployments where tenant resolution fails or defaults are missing; code that unconditionally applies tenant filters even when the request is tenant-less.

Related errors

• variableNames is null or empty
• planItemDefinitionId is null
• planItemDefinitionIds is null
• involvedUser is null
• userId is null

AI-assisted analysis of flowable/flowable-engine@d6d39ce1c6 (2026-09-11). Data as JSON: /api/errors/2a979098127262f0. Report an issue: GitHub.