flowable/flowable-engine · error · FlowableException

Could not parse Mybatis configuration file

Error message

Could not parse Mybatis configuration file

What it means

registerCustomMybatisMappings parses the custom MyBatis XML configuration with a DOM parser. If the document is malformed XML (ParserConfigurationException or SAXException), the engine throws this FlowableException with the parse error as cause.

Solutions

1. Validate the XML file with an XML parser/linter and fix syntax errors
2. Check the wrapped cause (SAXParseException) for the exact line/column of the problem
3. Replace the file with a known-good copy and re-deploy

try { DocumentBuilderFactory.newInstance().newDocumentBuilder().parse(new File("mybatis-mappings.xml")); } catch (SAXException | ParserConfigurationException | IOException e) { throw new IllegalStateException("invalid MyBatis XML", e); }

try { engine = cfg.buildProcessEngine(); } catch (FlowableException e) { if (e.getMessage().contains("Could not parse")) { log.error("XML parse error", e.getCause()); } throw e; }

When it happens

Trigger: beforeInit -> registerCustomMybatisMappings: DocumentBuilder fails to parse the custom MyBatis XML due to invalid syntax, unclosed tags, bad encoding, or invalid DTD/schema references.

Common situations: Hand-edited custom MyBatis XML with syntax errors, wrong file encoding, truncated/corrupted file in deployment, XML that doesn't follow the expected mapping-config structure.

Understand the failure class

Background: Schema validation failed / invalid input schema: payload rejected because its shape doesn't match the expected schema — this error's family across 28 libraries.

Related errors

• Class has not been found.
• Could not deserialize event to xml
• Could not evaluate xpath expression
• Could not evaluate xpath expression
• Could not read IDM Mybatis configuration file

AI-assisted analysis of flowable/flowable-engine@d6d39ce1c6 (2026-09-11). Data as JSON: /api/errors/ed2335b874e39ded. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at modules/flowable-engine-common/src/main/java/org/flowable/common/engine/impl/AbstractEngineConfigurator.java:155

                                                node.getAttributes().getNamedItem("handler").getTextContent());
                            } catch (Exception e) {
                                throw new FlowableException("Failed to load type handler class", e);
                            }
                        }
                    };
                    typeHandlerConfigurators.add(typeHandler);
                }
                
                NodeList nodeList = document.getElementsByTagName("mapper");
                for (int i = 0; i < nodeList.getLength(); i++) {
                    Node node = nodeList.item(i);
                    resources.add(node.getAttributes().getNamedItem("resource").getTextContent());
                }
                
            } catch (IOException e) {
                throw new FlowableException("Could not read IDM Mybatis configuration file", e);
            } catch (ParserConfigurationException | SAXException e) {
                throw new FlowableException("Could not parse Mybatis configuration file", e);
            }
            
            if (typeAliasConfigurators.size() > 0) {
                if (engineConfiguration.getDependentEngineMybatisTypeAliasConfigs() == null) {
                    engineConfiguration.setDependentEngineMybatisTypeAliasConfigs(typeAliasConfigurators);
                    
                } else {
                    engineConfiguration.getDependentEngineMybatisTypeAliasConfigs().addAll(typeAliasConfigurators);
                }
            }
            
            if (typeHandlerConfigurators.size() > 0) {
                if (engineConfiguration.getDependentEngineMybatisTypeHandlerConfigs() == null) {
                    engineConfiguration.setDependentEngineMybatisTypeHandlerConfigs(typeHandlerConfigurators);
                    
                } else {
                    engineConfiguration.getDependentEngineMybatisTypeHandlerConfigs().addAll(typeHandlerConfigurators);
                }

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