flowable/flowable-engine · error · FlowableObjectNotFoundException

Cannot find case definition with id

Error message

Cannot find case definition with id

What it means

AddIdentityLinkForCaseDefinitionCmd looks up the case definition by id and throws FlowableObjectNotFoundException (with CaseDefinition.class as the object type) when the entity manager returns null — i.e. no case definition with that id exists in the CMMN repository.

Source

Thrown at modules/flowable-cmmn-engine/src/main/java/org/flowable/cmmn/engine/impl/cmd/AddIdentityLinkForCaseDefinitionCmd.java:67

        this.cmmnEngineConfiguration = cmmnEngineConfiguration;
    }

    protected void validateParams(String userId, String groupId, String caseDefinitionId) {
        if (caseDefinitionId == null) {
            throw new FlowableIllegalArgumentException("caseDefinitionId is null");
        }

        if (userId == null && groupId == null) {
            throw new FlowableIllegalArgumentException("userId and groupId cannot both be null");
        }
    }

    @Override
    public Void execute(CommandContext commandContext) {
        CaseDefinitionEntity caseDefinition = cmmnEngineConfiguration.getCaseDefinitionEntityManager().findById(caseDefinitionId);

        if (caseDefinition == null) {
            throw new FlowableObjectNotFoundException("Cannot find case definition with id " + caseDefinitionId, CaseDefinition.class);
        }

        IdentityLinkEntity identityLinkEntity = cmmnEngineConfiguration.getIdentityLinkServiceConfiguration().getIdentityLinkService()
                .createScopeDefinitionIdentityLink(caseDefinition.getId(), ScopeTypes.CMMN, userId, groupId);
        caseDefinition.getIdentityLinks().add(identityLinkEntity);

        return null;
    }

}

View on GitHub (pinned to d6d39ce1c6)

Solutions

  1. Verify the id exists via cmmnRepositoryService.createCaseDefinitionQuery().caseDefinitionId(id).singleResult() before linking
  2. Re-query the latest deployed definition by key instead of persisting an id across environments
  3. Check engine/tenant configuration — ensure you query the same CMMN engine the definition was deployed to

Example fix

// before
repositoryService.addIdentityLink(caseDefinitionId, userId, null, IdentityLinkType.CANDIDATE);
// after
CaseDefinition def = repositoryService.createCaseDefinitionQuery()
    .caseDefinitionId(caseDefinitionId).singleResult();
if (def == null) throw new IllegalStateException("Unknown case definition: " + caseDefinitionId);
repositoryService.addIdentityLink(def.getId(), userId, null, IdentityLinkType.CANDIDATE);
Defensive patterns

Strategy: try-catch

Validate before calling

CaseDefinition def = repositoryService.createCaseDefinitionQuery()
    .caseDefinitionId(caseDefinitionId).singleResult();
if (def == null) throw new IllegalStateException("Unknown case definition: " + caseDefinitionId);

Try / catch

try {
    repositoryService.addIdentityLink(defId, userId, groupId, type);
} catch (FlowableObjectNotFoundException e) {
    log.error("Case definition {} not found (wrong env/deleted?)", defId, e);
}

Prevention

When it happens

Trigger: Calling cmmnRepositoryService.addIdentityLink(...) with a caseDefinitionId that was never deployed, was deleted, belongs to a different engine/database, or has a typo/wrong case.

Common situations: Referencing a definition id from another environment (test vs prod DB), id captured before redeployment replaced the definition, tenant mismatch so the query filters it out, or using a process-definition id on the CMMN engine.

Understand the failure class

Background: "Not found" and "does not exist" errors: why "Task not found", "No such folder", and "Can't find" fire when a lookup comes back empty — this error's family across 14 libraries.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of flowable/flowable-engine@d6d39ce1c6 (2026-09-11). Data as JSON: /api/errors/c882335b686407df. Report an issue: GitHub.