flowable/flowable-engine · error · ActivitiObjectNotFoundException

No deployment found for id = '" + deploymentId + "'

Error message

No deployment found for id = '" + deploymentId + "'

What it means

SetDeploymentCategoryCmd looks up the deployment by id via DeploymentEntityManager.findDeploymentById; if no deployment exists, it throws ActivitiObjectNotFoundException (an ActivitiObjectNotFound variant) including the id and Deployment.class as the missing type.

Solutions

  1. Verify the deployment id via RepositoryService.createDeploymentQuery().deploymentId(id).singleResult() before setting the category.
  2. Confirm the engine is connected to the same database where the deployment exists.
  3. Re-deploy the process if the deployment was deleted, then use the new deployment id.

Example fix

// before
repositoryService.setDeploymentCategory(deploymentId, "hr");
// after
Deployment d = repositoryService.createDeploymentQuery().deploymentId(deploymentId).singleResult();
if (d != null) {
    repositoryService.setDeploymentCategory(deploymentId, "hr");
}
Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

Deployment d = repositoryService.createDeploymentQuery().deploymentId(deploymentId).singleResult();
if (d == null) throw new IllegalArgumentException("No deployment " + deploymentId);

Try / catch

try { repositoryService.setDeploymentCategory(deploymentId, category); }
catch (ActivitiObjectNotFoundException e) { log.warn("deployment {} not found", deploymentId); }

Prevention

When it happens

Trigger: RepositoryService.setDeploymentCategory(deploymentId, category) with an id that does not match any deployment in ACT_RE_DEPLOYMENT (e.g. wrong database, deleted deployment, or typo in id).

Common situations: Storing a deployment id across environments, deployments cleaned up by a maintenance job, pointing the app at a different database/schema than the one where the deployment was created.

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

AI-assisted analysis of flowable/flowable-engine@d6d39ce1c6 (2026-09-11). Data as JSON: /api/errors/c106e00ddaf52502. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at modules/flowable5-engine/src/main/java/org/activiti/engine/impl/cmd/SetDeploymentCategoryCmd.java:50

    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);
        }

        return null;
    }

    public String getDeploymentId() {
        return deploymentId;
    }

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