flowable/flowable-engine · error · ActivitiIllegalArgumentException

Deployment id is null

Error message

Deployment id is null

What it means

SetDeploymentCategoryCmd changes a deployment's category, but first rejects a null deploymentId with ActivitiIllegalArgumentException. The deployment id is the key used to look up the deployment entity.

Solutions

1. Pass a valid, non-null deployment id obtained from the Deployment object returned by RepositoryService.createDeployment().deploy().
2. Guard the call site: only call setDeploymentCategory when the id is known non-null.
3. Fix the config/code path that yields a null deployment id.

Example fix

// before
repositoryService.setDeploymentCategory(deploymentId, "my-category"); // deploymentId may be null
// after
if (deploymentId != null) {
    repositoryService.setDeploymentCategory(deploymentId, "my-category");
}

if (deploymentId == null || deploymentId.isEmpty()) throw new IllegalArgumentException("deploymentId required");

try { repositoryService.setDeploymentCategory(deploymentId, category); }
catch (ActivitiIllegalArgumentException e) { log.error("deployment id missing"); }

When it happens

Trigger: Calling RepositoryService.setDeploymentCategory(null, category) or executing SetDeploymentCategoryCmd with a null deploymentId.

Common situations: Deployment id read from config/property that was never set, or a variable expected to hold the deployment id being null after a failed deployment lookup.

Related errors

• bytes array is null
• bytes array is null
• bytes is null
• channel definition bytes is null
• cmmn bytes is null

AI-assisted analysis of flowable/flowable-engine@d6d39ce1c6 (2026-09-11). Data as JSON: /api/errors/bae06cbef2a78917. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at modules/flowable5-engine/src/main/java/org/activiti/engine/impl/cmd/SetDeploymentCategoryCmd.java:42

/**
 * @author Tijs Rademakers
 */
public class SetDeploymentCategoryCmd implements Command<Void> {

    protected String deploymentId;
    protected String category;

    public SetDeploymentCategoryCmd(String deploymentId, String category) {
        this.deploymentId = deploymentId;
        this.category = category;
    }

    @Override
    public Void execute(CommandContext commandContext) {

        if (deploymentId == null) {
            throw new ActivitiIllegalArgumentException("Deployment id is null");
        }

        DeploymentEntity deployment = commandContext
                .getDeploymentEntityManager()
                .findDeploymentById(deploymentId);

        if (deployment == null) {
            throw new ActivitiObjectNotFoundException("No deployment found for id = '" + deploymentId + "'", Deployment.class);
        }

        // Update category
        deployment.setCategory(category);

        if (commandContext.getProcessEngineConfiguration().getEventDispatcher().isEnabled()) {
            commandContext.getProcessEngineConfiguration().getEventDispatcher().dispatchEvent(
                    ActivitiEventBuilder.createEntityEvent(FlowableEngineEventType.ENTITY_UPDATED, deployment),
                    EngineConfigurationConstants.KEY_PROCESS_ENGINE_CONFIG);
        }

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