flowable/flowable-engine · warning · FlowableIllegalArgumentException

Case instance with id '${caseInstance.getId()}' has no graph

Error message

Case instance with id '${caseInstance.getId()}' has no graphical notation defined.

What it means

getCaseInstanceDiagram returns this error when the case instance's case definition has no graphical notation (no diagram resource) defined. The library throws FlowableIllegalArgumentException because a PNG cannot be produced for a model without BPMN/CMMN DI diagram information.

Source

Thrown at modules/flowable-cmmn-rest/src/main/java/org/flowable/cmmn/rest/service/api/runtime/caze/CaseInstanceDiagramResource.java:81

        CaseDefinition caseDef = repositoryService.getCaseDefinition(caseInstance.getCaseDefinitionId());

        if (caseDef != null && caseDef.hasGraphicalNotation()) {
            CmmnModel cmmnModel = repositoryService.getCmmnModel(caseDef.getId());
            CaseDiagramGenerator diagramGenerator = cmmnEngineConfiguration.getCaseDiagramGenerator();
            InputStream resource = diagramGenerator.generateDiagram(cmmnModel, "png", cmmnEngineConfiguration.getActivityFontName(), cmmnEngineConfiguration.getLabelFontName(),
                            cmmnEngineConfiguration.getAnnotationFontName(), cmmnEngineConfiguration.getClassLoader(), 1.0);

            HttpHeaders responseHeaders = new HttpHeaders();
            responseHeaders.set("Content-Type", "image/png");
            try {
                return new ResponseEntity<>(IOUtils.toByteArray(resource), responseHeaders, HttpStatus.OK);
            } catch (Exception e) {
                throw new FlowableIllegalArgumentException("Error exporting diagram", e);
            }

        } else {
            throw new FlowableIllegalArgumentException("Case instance with id '" + caseInstance.getId() + "' has no graphical notation defined.");
        }
    }
}

View on GitHub (pinned to d6d39ce1c6)

Solutions

1. Redeploy the case definition including graphical DI information from the CMMN modeler.
2. Check caseDefinition.hasGraphicalNotation() / the definition's diagram resource before requesting the diagram.
3. Handle the 409/400 response and fall back to a non-graphical representation of the case.
4. Do not call the diagram endpoint for definitions known to be headless.

Example fix

// before
GET /cmmn-runtime/case-instances/case-123/diagram // definition has no DI
// after
if (caseDefinitionResponse.isGraphicalNotationDefined()) { /* call diagram endpoint */ }

// Java
boolean hasDiagram = caseDefinition.hasGraphicalNotation();
if (!hasDiagram) { /* do not call the diagram endpoint */ }

try { return fetchDiagram(id); }
catch (FlowableIllegalArgumentException e) { return renderModelXmlFallback(id); }

When it happens

Trigger: GET /cmmn-runtime/case-instances/{caseInstanceId}/diagram where the underlying case definition was deployed without diagram interchange information (no visual model in the XML).

Common situations: CMMN XML authored without DI/diagram sections (headless/generated models); models converted programmatically; deployments stripped of diagram info by build tooling.

Understand the failure class

Background: 'Could not be found', 'does not exist', 'not found in database': the resource-not-found family when an ID, slug, key, or URI lookup comes back empty — this error's family across 20 libraries.

Related errors

• Error exporting diagram
• Case definition with id '${caseDefinition.getId()}' has no i
• ${aonfe.getMessage()}
• Illegal action: '${request.getAction()}'.
• Error exporting diagram

AI-assisted analysis of flowable/flowable-engine@d6d39ce1c6 (2026-09-11). Data as JSON: /api/errors/df311515356e0f67. Report an issue: GitHub.