flowable/flowable-engine · error · FlowableException

Error while closing EntityManager, may have already been clo

Error message

Error while closing EntityManager, may have already been closed or it is container-managed

What it means

At session close, Flowable calls entityManager.close() only if the EntityManager is application-managed and still open. If the JPA provider throws IllegalStateException during close ( EntityManager already closed, or container-managed so the application must not close it), this FlowableException is thrown.

Source

Thrown at modules/flowable-variable-service/src/main/java/org/flowable/variable/service/impl/types/EntityManagerSessionImpl.java:78

                throw new FlowableException("Error while flushing EntityManager: " + pe.getMessage(), pe);
            }
        }
    }

    protected boolean isTransactionActive() {
        if (handleTransactions && entityManager.getTransaction() != null) {
            return entityManager.getTransaction().isActive();
        }
        return false;
    }

    @Override
    public void close() {
        if (closeEntityManager && entityManager != null && entityManager.isOpen()) {
            try {
                entityManager.close();
            } catch (IllegalStateException ise) {
                throw new FlowableException("Error while closing EntityManager, may have already been closed or it is container-managed", ise);
            }
        }
    }

    @Override
    public EntityManager getEntityManager() {
        if (entityManager == null) {
            entityManager = getEntityManagerFactory().createEntityManager();

            if (handleTransactions) {
                // Add transaction listeners, if transactions should be handled
                TransactionListener jpaTransactionCommitListener = new TransactionListener() {
                    @Override
                    public void execute(CommandContext commandContext) {
                        if (isTransactionActive()) {
                            entityManager.getTransaction().commit();
                        }
                    }

View on GitHub (pinned to d6d39ce1c6)

Solutions

1. Configure Flowable to NOT close the EntityManager when it is container-managed (set closeEntityManager false in EntityManagerSessionFactory)
2. Ensure the EntityManagerFactory passed to Flowable creates application-managed EntityManagers
3. Check for code paths that close the EntityManager before the session close runs
4. Review Spring/EE config so the same EM isn't shared and closed elsewhere

Example fix

// before
EntityManagerFactory emf = Persistence.createEntityManagerFactory("containerManagedUnit");
new EntityManagerSessionFactory(emf, true, true); // handleTransactions, closeEntityManager=true
// after
new EntityManagerSessionFactory(emf, true, false); // let the container manage EM lifecycle

// configuration check before engine use
if (usingContainerManagedEm) {
    assert engineConfigJpaFactory.isCloseEntityManager() == false;
}

boolean safeToClose(EntityManager em) { return em != null && em.isOpen(); }

try { session.close(); } catch (FlowableException e) { log.warn("EntityManager close skipped: {}", e.getMessage()); } // close-time failure is non-fatal to business logic

When it happens

Trigger: EntityManagerSession.close() invoked while the underlying EntityManager is already closed or is container-managed (e.g. injected via @PersistenceContext in a Java EE/Spring container) and closeEntityManager was configured true.

Common situations: Mixing container-managed persistence (Spring/Java EE) with Flowable's JPA variable handling; double-closing a session; custom EntityManagerFactory configuration that pre-closes or shares EMs across threads.

Understand the failure class

Background: "Invalid state transition" errors: "status must be X, actually Y", "already rejected/charging/uninstalled", "cannot ... while running" — what they mean when a library rejects your call — this error's family across 31 libraries.

Related errors

• Error while closing EntityManager, may have already been clo
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• lazy loading outside command context for " + this
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AI-assisted analysis of flowable/flowable-engine@d6d39ce1c6 (2026-09-11). Data as JSON: /api/errors/32d9bd693bbbda92. Report an issue: GitHub.