flowable/flowable-engine · error · FlowableObjectNotFoundException

Cannot find process instance with id

Error message

Cannot find process instance with id ${processInstanceId}

What it means

GetEntityLinkParentsForProcessInstanceCmd looks up the process instance and throws FlowableObjectNotFoundException if findById returns null. Parent entity links can only be resolved from an existing BPMN process instance scope.

Solutions

1. Guard the call with runtimeService.createProcessInstanceQuery().processInstanceId(id).singleResult() != null.
2. Use history entity-link queries once the process instance has completed.
3. Double-check you are passing the root process instance id, not a child execution id.
4. Verify engine/database configuration matches where the instance was started.

Example fix

// before
runtimeService.getEntityLinkParentsForProcessInstance(pid);
// after
if (runtimeService.createProcessInstanceQuery().processInstanceId(pid).count() > 0) {
    runtimeService.getEntityLinkParentsForProcessInstance(pid);
}

boolean exists = runtimeService.createProcessInstanceQuery()
    .processInstanceId(processInstanceId).count() > 0;

try {
    runtimeService.getEntityLinkParentsForProcessInstance(id);
} catch (FlowableObjectNotFoundException e) {
    // handle missing instance (completed or wrong id)
}

When it happens

Trigger: Calling RuntimeService.getEntityLinkParentsForProcessInstance(processInstanceId) when the id does not correspond to a live process instance execution.

Common situations: Querying after the instance ended; stale ids cached in an external app; id from a different engine database; mistyped id string.

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

• Cannot find process instance with id
• Cannot find process instance with id
• Cannot find process definition with id
• Cannot find process instance with id
• Cannot find process instance with id

AI-assisted analysis of flowable/flowable-engine@d6d39ce1c6 (2026-09-11). Data as JSON: /api/errors/1f0cd67b4e7617f1. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at modules/flowable-engine/src/main/java/org/flowable/engine/impl/cmd/GetEntityLinkParentsForProcessInstanceCmd.java:47

 * @author Javier Casal
 */
public class GetEntityLinkParentsForProcessInstanceCmd implements Command<List<EntityLink>>, Serializable {

    private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L;

    protected String processInstanceId;

    public GetEntityLinkParentsForProcessInstanceCmd(String processInstanceId) {
        this.processInstanceId = processInstanceId;
    }

    @Override
    public List<EntityLink> execute(CommandContext commandContext) {
        ProcessEngineConfigurationImpl processEngineConfiguration = CommandContextUtil.getProcessEngineConfiguration(commandContext);
        ExecutionEntity processInstance = processEngineConfiguration.getExecutionEntityManager().findById(processInstanceId);

        if (processInstance == null) {
            throw new FlowableObjectNotFoundException("Cannot find process instance with id " + processInstanceId, ExecutionEntity.class);
        }

        return processEngineConfiguration.getEntityLinkServiceConfiguration().getEntityLinkService()
                .findEntityLinksByReferenceScopeIdAndType(processInstanceId, ScopeTypes.BPMN, EntityLinkType.CHILD);
    }

}

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