flowable/flowable-engine · error · FlowableObjectNotFoundException

No event definition found for id = '${eventDefinitionId}'

Error message

No event definition found for id = '${eventDefinitionId}'

What it means

SetEventDefinitionCategoryCmd throws FlowableObjectNotFoundException when no event definition exists for the given (non-null) id. The lookup findById(eventDefinitionId) returned null, so the category update cannot proceed.

Source

Thrown at modules/flowable-event-registry/src/main/java/org/flowable/eventregistry/impl/cmd/SetEventDefinitionCategoryCmd.java:48

    protected String eventDefinitionId;
    protected String category;

    public SetEventDefinitionCategoryCmd(String eventDefinitionId, String category) {
        this.eventDefinitionId = eventDefinitionId;
        this.category = category;
    }

    @Override
    public Void execute(CommandContext commandContext) {

        if (eventDefinitionId == null) {
            throw new FlowableIllegalArgumentException("Event definition id is null");
        }

        EventDefinitionEntity eventDefinition = CommandContextUtil.getEventDefinitionEntityManager(commandContext).findById(eventDefinitionId);

        if (eventDefinition == null) {
            throw new FlowableObjectNotFoundException("No event definition found for id = '" + eventDefinitionId + "'");
        }

        // Update category
        eventDefinition.setCategory(category);

        // Remove form from cache, it will be refetch later
        DeploymentCache<EventDefinitionCacheEntry> eventDefinitionCache = CommandContextUtil.getEventRegistryConfiguration().getEventDefinitionCache();
        if (eventDefinitionCache != null) {
            eventDefinitionCache.remove(eventDefinitionId);
        }

        CommandContextUtil.getEventDefinitionEntityManager(commandContext).update(eventDefinition);

        return null;
    }

    public String getEventDefinitionId() {
        return eventDefinitionId;

View on GitHub (pinned to d6d39ce1c6)

Solutions

1. Look up the definition by key instead: eventRepositoryService.createEventDefinitionQuery().eventDefinitionKey(key).latestVersion().singleResult(), then use its getId().
2. Verify the id exists in the same database/engine the command runs against.
3. Check whether the event definition was deleted by a prior undeploy/deleteDeployment call.

Example fix

// before
eventRepositoryService.setEventDefinitionCategory("order-event", "billing"); // key, not id
// after
EventDefinition def = eventRepositoryService.createEventDefinitionQuery().eventDefinitionKey("order-event").latestVersion().singleResult();
eventRepositoryService.setEventDefinitionCategory(def.getId(), "billing");

EventDefinition def = eventRepositoryService.createEventDefinitionQuery().eventDefinitionId(id).singleResult();
if (def == null) throw new IllegalArgumentException("No event definition for id " + id);

try { svc.setEventDefinitionCategory(id, cat); } catch (FlowableObjectNotFoundException e) { /* fall back to key-based lookup */ }

When it happens

Trigger: Calling setEventDefinitionCategory with an id that does not correspond to any persisted event definition - wrong engine, deleted definition, or id from a different registry (e.g. a form or process definition id).

Common situations: Reusing ids across engines (process vs event registry), referencing definitions removed by an undeploy, environment mismatch (test id used in prod), or key-vs-id confusion (passing the definition key instead of its database id).

Understand the failure class

Background: Record Not Found Errors: "not found", RecordNotFound, and "was not found" — what they mean and how to fix them — this error's family across 28 libraries.

Related errors

• No event definition found for id = ''
• No event definition found for key ''
• No event definition found for key '${eventDefinitionKey}' fo
• Could not find event model with key '{eventDefinitionKey}'.
• deployment does not exist:

AI-assisted analysis of flowable/flowable-engine@d6d39ce1c6 (2026-09-11). Data as JSON: /api/errors/db5f065c7755fe9e. Report an issue: GitHub.