flowable/flowable-engine · error · ActivitiException

Error while evaluating the following XPath expression on a B

Error message

Error while evaluating the following XPath expression on a BPMN XML document: '%s'.

What it means

fixFlowNodePositionsIfModelFromAdonis applies Adonis-import corrections by evaluating XPath expressions against the BPMN DOM. Any XPathExpressionException during evaluation is wrapped in an ActivitiException naming the failing expression.

Source

Thrown at modules/flowable5-engine/src/main/java/org/activiti/engine/impl/bpmn/diagram/ProcessDiagramLayoutFactory.java:346

            XPathFactory xPathFactory = XPathFactory.newInstance();
            XPath xPath = xPathFactory.newXPath();
            xPath.setNamespaceContext(new Bpmn20NamespaceContext());
            for (Entry<String, DiagramNode> entry : elementBoundsFromBpmnDi.entrySet()) {
                String elementId = entry.getKey();
                DiagramNode elementBounds = entry.getValue();
                String expression = "local-name(//bpmn:*[@id = '" + elementId + "'])";
                try {
                    XPathExpression xPathExpression = xPath.compile(expression);
                    String elementLocalName = xPathExpression.evaluate(bpmnModel);
                    if (!"participant".equals(elementLocalName)
                            && !"lane".equals(elementLocalName)
                            && !"textAnnotation".equals(elementLocalName)
                            && !"group".equals(elementLocalName)) {
                        elementBounds.setX(elementBounds.getX() - elementBounds.getWidth() / 2);
                        elementBounds.setY(elementBounds.getY() - elementBounds.getHeight() / 2);
                    }
                } catch (XPathExpressionException e) {
                    throw new ActivitiException("Error while evaluating the following XPath expression on a BPMN XML document: '" + expression + "'.", e);
                }
                mapOfFixedBounds.put(elementId, elementBounds);
            }
            return mapOfFixedBounds;
        } else {
            return elementBoundsFromBpmnDi;
        }
    }

    protected boolean isExportedFromAdonis50(Document bpmnModel) {
        return "ADONIS".equals(bpmnModel.getDocumentElement().getAttribute("exporter"))
                && "5.0".equals(bpmnModel.getDocumentElement().getAttribute("exporterVersion"));
    }

}

View on GitHub (pinned to d6d39ce1c6)

Solutions

1. Verify the BPMN XML actually comes from an Adonis import before this correction path runs
2. Check the document contains the elements/namespaces the XPath targets
3. Regenerate the diagram DI section with a standard BPMN tool to bypass the Adonis fix-up

try {
    layout = factory.getProcessDiagramLayout(bpmnStream, imageStream);
} catch (org.activiti.engine.ActivitiException e) {
    if (e.getMessage().startsWith("Error while evaluating the following XPath")) {
        // document is not Adonis-generated or DI section is malformed; use standard layout
    }
}

When it happens

Trigger: fixFlowNodePositionsIfModelFromAdonis, when an XPath expression does not compile against the document context or fails during evaluation of the Adonis-style BPMN DI document.

Common situations: BPMN DI documents lacking the namespaces/attributes the Adonis-specific XPath expects; documents not actually produced by Adonis import; engine/JDK XPath behavior differences.

Related errors

• Error while evaluating the following XPath expression on a B
• The bpmn 2.0 xml is not properly encoded
• Error while reading the BPMN 2.0 XML
• e.getMessage()
• Error reading XML

AI-assisted analysis of flowable/flowable-engine@d6d39ce1c6 (2026-09-11). Data as JSON: /api/errors/c8b07a66c8bd6361. Report an issue: GitHub.