What causes "Could not find an app deployment with id ' " in flowable/flowable-engine?

List valid ids via GET /app-repository/app-deployments and use one that exists

flowable/flowable-engine · error · FlowableObjectNotFoundException

Could not find an app deployment with id '<deploymentId>

Error message

Could not find an app deployment with id '<deploymentId>

What it means

FlowableObjectNotFoundException thrown when no AppDeployment exists for the given deploymentId in the app repository. The query returns null and the REST layer converts that into a 404-style error. The id simply does not match any app deployment in the database.

Source

Thrown at modules/flowable-app-engine-rest/src/main/java/org/flowable/app/rest/service/api/repository/AppDeploymentResourceDataResource.java:74

            @ApiResponse(code = 200, message = "Indicates both app deployment and resource have been found and the resource data has been returned."),
            @ApiResponse(code = 404, message = "Indicates the requested app deployment was not found or there is no resource with the given id present in the app deployment. The status-description contains additional information.") })
    @GetMapping(value = "/app-repository/deployments/{deploymentId}/resourcedata/{resourceName}")
    @ResponseBody
    public byte[] getAppDeploymentResource(@ApiParam(name = "deploymentId") @PathVariable("deploymentId") String deploymentId,
            @ApiParam(name = "resourceName") @PathVariable("resourceName") String resourceName,
            HttpServletResponse response) {
        
        if (deploymentId == null) {
            throw new FlowableIllegalArgumentException("No deployment id provided");
        }
        if (resourceName == null) {
            throw new FlowableIllegalArgumentException("No resource name provided");
        }

        // Check if deployment exists
        AppDeployment deployment = appRepositoryService.createDeploymentQuery().deploymentId(deploymentId).singleResult();
        if (deployment == null) {
            throw new FlowableObjectNotFoundException("Could not find an app deployment with id '" + deploymentId);
        }
        
        if (restApiInterceptor != null) {
            restApiInterceptor.accessDeploymentById(deployment);
        }

        List<String> resourceList = appRepositoryService.getDeploymentResourceNames(deploymentId);

        if (resourceList.contains(resourceName)) {
            response.setContentType("application/json");
            try (final InputStream resourceStream = appRepositoryService.getResourceAsStream(deploymentId, resourceName)) {
                return IOUtils.toByteArray(resourceStream);
                
            } catch (Exception e) {
                throw new FlowableException("Error converting resource stream", e);
            }
            
        } else {

View on GitHub (pinned to d6d39ce1c6)

Solutions

List valid ids via GET /app-repository/app-deployments and use one that exists
Check the app engine is configured against the database you expect
Re-deploy the app if the deployment was removed

Example fix

// before
curl http://host/flowable-rest/app-repository/app-deployments/999/resources/app.json
// after
curl http://host/flowable-rest/app-repository/app-deployments  # find real id first
curl http://host/flowable-rest/app-repository/app-deployments/<realId>/resources/app.json

Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

AppDeployment d = appRepositoryService.createDeploymentQuery().deploymentId(deploymentId).singleResult();
if (d == null) { throw new EntityNotFoundException("App deployment " + deploymentId + " does not exist"); }

Try / catch

try { ... } catch (FlowableObjectNotFoundException e) { return ResponseEntity.status(404).body("Unknown deployment id"); }

Prevention

Resolve ids dynamically from a deployment list query instead of hard-coding
Check the app engine's database configuration matches your data source
Handle 404s explicitly when ids come from user input

When it happens

Trigger: GET /app-repository/app-deployments/{deploymentId}/resources/{resourceName} where deploymentId is wrong, was deleted, or belongs to a different Flowable engine/database schema.

Common situations: Typo or stale id after redeployment, pointing at the process-engine deployments table instead of the app-engine table, using an id from another environment.

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

AI-assisted analysis of flowable/flowable-engine@d6d39ce1c6 (2026-09-11). Data as JSON: /api/errors/5937ef6ec88bdd5f. Report an issue: GitHub.