flowable/flowable-engine · error · FlowableIllegalArgumentException

No historic case instance id provided

Error message

No historic case instance id provided

What it means

ReactivateHistoricCaseInstanceCmd reactivates a finished (historic) case instance back into the runtime. It first validates that the reactivation builder carries a case instance id; if reactivationBuilder.getCaseInstanceId() is null it throws FlowableIllegalArgumentException 'No historic case instance id provided'.

Solutions

1. Call .caseInstanceId(historicCaseInstanceId) on the reactivation builder before .reactivate()
2. Fetch the historic id first via cmmnHistoryService.createHistoricCaseInstanceQuery() and null-check it
3. Guard the builder input in application code before invoking reactivate()

Example fix

// before
cmmnRuntimeService.createCaseInstanceReactivationBuilder().setReactivationListener(...).reactivate();
// after
cmmnRuntimeService.createCaseInstanceReactivationBuilder()
    .caseInstanceId(historicCaseInstanceId)
    .setReactivationListener(...)
    .reactivate();

if (historicCaseInstanceId == null || historicCaseInstanceId.isEmpty()) throw new IllegalArgumentException("Historic case instance id is required for reactivation");

try { reactivationBuilder.caseInstanceId(id).reactivate(); } catch (FlowableIllegalArgumentException e) { log.error("Reactivation misconfigured: {}", e.getMessage()); }

When it happens

Trigger: Calling cmmnRuntimeService.createCaseInstanceReactivationBuilder() and then .reactivate() without ever calling .caseInstanceId(historicId) — e.g. the id variable was null because the historic lookup returned nothing earlier.

Common situations: Builders where the chain skipped the mandatory caseInstanceId(...) call; a null id propagated from a UI/form field; reactivating by key/version assumptions that don't exist in this API.

Understand the failure class

Background: "missing required argument" and "the following required arguments were not provided": what required-argument errors mean and how to fix them — this error's family across 20 libraries.

Related errors

• activatedBefore is null
• after time is null
• assignee is null
• availableAfter is null
• availableBefore is null

AI-assisted analysis of flowable/flowable-engine@d6d39ce1c6 (2026-09-11). Data as JSON: /api/errors/950f657c5b249ff5. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at modules/flowable-cmmn-engine/src/main/java/org/flowable/cmmn/engine/impl/cmd/ReactivateHistoricCaseInstanceCmd.java:61

/**
 * This command reactivates a history case instance by putting it back to the runtime and triggering the reactivation event on its CMMN model. If there is no
 * reactivation event explicitly available, an exception is thrown.
 *
 * @author Micha Kiener
 */
public class ReactivateHistoricCaseInstanceCmd implements Command<CaseInstance>, Serializable {

    private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L;
    protected final CaseReactivationBuilderImpl reactivationBuilder;

    public ReactivateHistoricCaseInstanceCmd(CaseReactivationBuilderImpl reactivationBuilder) {
        this.reactivationBuilder = reactivationBuilder;
    }

    @Override
    public CaseInstance execute(CommandContext commandContext) {
        if (reactivationBuilder.getCaseInstanceId() == null) {
            throw new FlowableIllegalArgumentException("No historic case instance id provided");
        }

        // Check if the historic case instance is found and if it is no longer running
        CmmnEngineConfiguration cmmnEngineConfiguration = CommandContextUtil.getCmmnEngineConfiguration(commandContext);
        HistoricCaseInstance instance = cmmnEngineConfiguration.getHistoricCaseInstanceEntityManager().createHistoricCaseInstanceQuery()
            .caseInstanceId(reactivationBuilder.getCaseInstanceId())
            .singleResult();

        if (instance == null) {
            throw new FlowableObjectNotFoundException("No historic case instance to be reactivated found with id: " + reactivationBuilder.getCaseInstanceId(), HistoricCaseInstance.class);
        }
        if (instance.getEndTime() == null) {
            throw new FlowableIllegalStateException("Case instance is still running, cannot reactivate historic case instance: " + reactivationBuilder.getCaseInstanceId());
        }

        // move the case instance back to the runtime (this also checks, if the reactivation listener is even existent)
        CaseInstanceEntity caseInstanceEntity = cmmnEngineConfiguration.getCaseInstanceHelper()
            .copyHistoricCaseInstanceToRuntime(instance);

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