flowable/flowable-engine · error · ActivitiException

Error while sending signal for event subscription '${eventSu

Error message

Error while sending signal for event subscription '${eventSubscription.getId()}': no activity associated with event subscription. Hint: The activityId of this event should be present in the BPMN.

What it means

When an event (signal/message) subscription fires, AbstractEventHandler signals the execution at the subscription's activity. If the activity resolved from the subscription's activityId is null — the BPMN no longer contains that activity — the handler throws ActivitiException instead of delivering the signal.

Source

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

import org.activiti.engine.impl.persistence.entity.ExecutionEntity;
import org.activiti.engine.impl.pvm.process.ActivityImpl;
import org.flowable.common.engine.impl.interceptor.EngineConfigurationConstants;
import org.flowable.engine.impl.delegate.ActivityBehavior;

/**
 * @author Daniel Meyer
 * @author Falko Menge
 */
public abstract class AbstractEventHandler implements EventHandler {

    @Override
    public void handleEvent(EventSubscriptionEntity eventSubscription, Object payload, CommandContext commandContext) {

        ExecutionEntity execution = eventSubscription.getExecution();
        ActivityImpl activity = eventSubscription.getActivity();

        if (activity == null) {
            throw new ActivitiException("Error while sending signal for event subscription '" + eventSubscription.getId() + "': "
                    + "no activity associated with event subscription. Hint: The activityId of this event should be present in the BPMN.");
        }

        if (payload instanceof Map) {
            @SuppressWarnings("unchecked")
            Map<String, Object> processVariables = (Map<String, Object>) payload;
            execution.setVariables(processVariables);
        }

        ActivityBehavior activityBehavior = activity.getActivityBehavior();
        if (activityBehavior instanceof BoundaryEventActivityBehavior
                || activityBehavior instanceof EventSubProcessStartEventActivityBehavior) {

            try {

                dispatchActivitiesCanceledIfNeeded(eventSubscription, execution, activity, commandContext);

                activityBehavior.execute(execution);

View on GitHub (pinned to d6d39ce1c6)

Solutions

1. Redeploy the process definition so the activityId referenced by the subscription exists in the BPMN
2. Delete or migrate stale event subscriptions (runtimeService.createEventSubscriptionQuery()...delete / migration) before signaling
3. Corrupt-process-data-fix: verify the event subscription's activityId matches an element id in the current BPMN XML

EventSubscription sub = runtimeService.createEventSubscriptionQuery()
        .subscriptionId(id).singleResult();
if (sub == null || sub.getActivityId() == null) {
    throw new IllegalStateException("Subscription has no resolvable activity");
}

boolean isSignalable(EventSubscriptionEntity s) {
    return s.getActivity() != null;
}

try {
    runtimeService.signalEventReceived(signalName);
} catch (ActivitiException e) {
    if (e.getMessage() != null && e.getMessage().contains("no activity associated")) {
        // redeploy definition / delete stale subscription
    }
}

When it happens

Trigger: handleEvent invoked for an EventSubscriptionEntity whose getActivity() returns null: the subscription references an activityId missing from the deployed process definition (changed/deleted BPMN, stale subscription from an older deployment).

Common situations: Redeploying a process model where an event-bound activity (boundary event, intermediate catch) was renamed or removed while subscriptions from old instances remain; signaling via runtimeService.signalEventReceived for a stale subscription.

Understand the failure class

Background: "Not found" and "does not exist" errors: why "Task not found", "No such folder", and "Can't find" fire when a lookup comes back empty — this error's family across 14 libraries.

Related errors

• Error while sending signal for " + eventSubscription + ": no
• Invalid signal handling: no execution nor process definition
• Plan item instance for {eventSubscription} can not be found
• Cannot deploy process definition '${processDefinition.getRes
• Cannot throw process-instance scoped signal, since the dispa

AI-assisted analysis of flowable/flowable-engine@d6d39ce1c6 (2026-09-11). Data as JSON: /api/errors/db7ad85030f2d9a8. Report an issue: GitHub.