What causes "created before time is null" in flowable/flowable-engine?

Validate/parse the date before calling createdBefore() and substitute a concrete cutoff (e.g. new Date())

flowable/flowable-engine · error · FlowableIllegalArgumentException

created before time is null

Error message

created before time is null

What it means

EventSubscriptionQueryImpl.createdBefore() requires a non-null java.util.Date boundary. Flowable throws FlowableIllegalArgumentException when the before-time is null because a null date cannot be translated into a SQL comparison predicate. Query criteria setters are strict about null inputs.

Solutions

Validate/parse the date before calling createdBefore() and substitute a concrete cutoff (e.g. new Date())
Skip the createdBefore() call when no end boundary is desired
Fix date parsing so it cannot silently return null (check parse errors explicitly)

Example fix

// before
query.createdBefore(userProvidedEnd);

// after
if (userProvidedEnd != null) {
    query.createdBefore(userProvidedEnd);
}

Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

if (beforeTime == null) {
    beforeTime = new Date();
}

Type guard

boolean validDate(Date d) { return d != null && d.after(new Date(0)); }

Try / catch

try {
    query.createdBefore(beforeTime);
} catch (FlowableIllegalArgumentException e) {
    log.warn("createdBefore null", e);
}

Prevention

Default date boundaries before query building
Fail fast at the API boundary when a required date is missing
Wrap date parsing so parse failures throw instead of returning null

When it happens

Trigger: Calling eventSubscriptionQuery.createdBefore(null), typically when the cutoff date is computed from a nullable variable, request parameter, or Date parsing that returned null.

Common situations: Building time-window queries where an end date comes from user input or an optional API parameter; SimpleDateFormat.parse failures or unset configuration yielding a null Date.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of flowable/flowable-engine@d6d39ce1c6 (2026-09-11). Data as JSON: /api/errors/453106f06bd6f683. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at modules/flowable-eventsubscription-service/src/main/java/org/flowable/eventsubscription/service/impl/EventSubscriptionQueryImpl.java:364

    @Override
    public EventSubscriptionQueryImpl scopeType(String scopeType) {
        if (scopeType == null) {
            throw new FlowableIllegalArgumentException("Provided scope type is null");
        }

        if (inOrStatement) {
            this.currentOrQueryObject.scopeType = scopeType;
        } else {
            this.scopeType = scopeType;
        }

        return this;
    }

    @Override
    public EventSubscriptionQueryImpl createdBefore(Date beforeTime) {
        if (beforeTime == null) {
            throw new FlowableIllegalArgumentException("created before time is null");
        }

        if (inOrStatement) {
            this.currentOrQueryObject.createdBefore = beforeTime;
        } else {
            this.createdBefore = beforeTime;
        }

        return this;
    }

    @Override
    public EventSubscriptionQueryImpl createdAfter(Date afterTime) {
        if (afterTime == null) {
            throw new FlowableIllegalArgumentException("created after time is null");
        }

        if (inOrStatement) {

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