flowable/flowable-engine · error · ActivitiIllegalArgumentException

Deployment id is null

Error message

Deployment id is null

What it means

Activiti's DeploymentQueryImpl.deploymentId() validates its argument before building the query. If you pass a null deployment id, the library throws ActivitiIllegalArgumentException immediately rather than issuing a query that cannot match or would return wrong results. This is an early-fail guard for a required query parameter.

Source

Thrown at modules/flowable5-engine/src/main/java/org/activiti/engine/impl/DeploymentQueryImpl.java:57

    protected boolean withoutTenantId;
    protected String processDefinitionKey;
    protected String processDefinitionKeyLike;

    public DeploymentQueryImpl() {
    }

    public DeploymentQueryImpl(CommandContext commandContext) {
        super(commandContext);
    }

    public DeploymentQueryImpl(CommandExecutor commandExecutor) {
        super(commandExecutor);
    }

    @Override
    public DeploymentQueryImpl deploymentId(String deploymentId) {
        if (deploymentId == null) {
            throw new ActivitiIllegalArgumentException("Deployment id is null");
        }
        this.deploymentId = deploymentId;
        return this;
    }

    @Override
    public DeploymentQueryImpl deploymentName(String deploymentName) {
        if (deploymentName == null) {
            throw new ActivitiIllegalArgumentException("deploymentName is null");
        }
        this.name = deploymentName;
        return this;
    }

    @Override
    public DeploymentQueryImpl deploymentNameLike(String nameLike) {
        if (nameLike == null) {
            throw new ActivitiIllegalArgumentException("deploymentNameLike is null");

View on GitHub (pinned to d6d39ce1c6)

Solutions

1. Pass a non-null deployment id string to deploymentId()
2. Check for null before calling deploymentId() and skip or branch the query
3. Trace where the id comes from and fix the upstream null (unpersisted entity, failed lookup)
4. If the filter is optional, only add it when the id is present

Example fix

// before
DeploymentQuery q = repositoryService.createDeploymentQuery().deploymentId(request.getDeploymentId());
// after
DeploymentQuery q = repositoryService.createDeploymentQuery();
if (request.getDeploymentId() != null) {
    q = q.deploymentId(request.getDeploymentId());
}

if (deploymentId == null) { throw new IllegalArgumentException("deploymentId must not be null"); }
repositoryService.createDeploymentQuery().deploymentId(deploymentId)...

boolean hasDeploymentId(String id) { return id != null && !id.trim().isEmpty(); }

try {
    Deployment d = repositoryService.createDeploymentQuery().deploymentId(id).singleResult();
} catch (ActivitiIllegalArgumentException e) {
    log.error("Invalid deployment query argument", e);
}

When it happens

Trigger: Calling repositoryService.createDeploymentQuery().deploymentId(null), typically when the id variable was never assigned, came from an optional request parameter, or a previous lookup (e.g. processInstance.getDeploymentId()) returned null.

Common situations: REST/DTO layers mapping optional 'deploymentId' query params straight into the API; code that resolved a deployment id from an entity that has no deployment; refactors that removed an id assignment upstream.

Related errors

• deploymentName is null
• deploymentNameLike is null
• deploymentCategory is null
• deploymentCategoryExclude is null
• key is null

AI-assisted analysis of flowable/flowable-engine@d6d39ce1c6 (2026-09-11). Data as JSON: /api/errors/5cb05e7d5e07eef7. Report an issue: GitHub.