flowable/flowable-engine · error · FlowableException

No parent process found for execution with activity id

Error message

No parent process found for execution with activity id ${activityId}

What it means

When the move operation requests moveToParentProcess (move out to the parent process of a callActivity instance), the code resolves the current process instance's superExecution. If it is null, the process instance is not a subprocess instance of a call activity, so there is no parent process to move to.

Solutions

  1. Only use moveToParentProcess on process instances spawned by a callActivity; verify execution.getSuperExecution() exists first
  2. If you intended a plain move within the same process, use moveActivityIdTo instead
  3. If the parent scope already ended, restart the desired parent process instance instead of moving

Example fix

// before
.moveActivityIdToParentProcess("childTask"); // root instance
// after
if (execution.getSuperExecution() != null) {
    builder.moveActivityIdToParentProcess("childTask");
} else {
    builder.moveActivityIdTo("childTask", "nextTask");
}
Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

Execution exec = runtimeService.createExecutionQuery().processInstanceId(piId).singleResult();
boolean hasParent = exec != null && ((ExecutionEntity) exec).getSuperExecution() != null;

Try / catch

try { builder.changeState(); } catch (FlowableException e) { if (e.getMessage().startsWith("No parent process found")) { /* use same-process move instead */ } else throw e; }

Prevention

When it happens

Trigger: Calling moveActivityIdToParentProcess() (or equivalent container flag) on a top-level process instance that was not started via a callActivity, or whose parent callActivity execution already terminated.

Common situations: Misusing moveToParentProcess on a root process instance; attempting the move after the parent callActivity scope was already left or terminated; wrong process instance (not the child of the call activity).

Understand the failure class

Background: "Invalid state transition" errors: "status must be X, actually Y", "already rejected/charging/uninstalled", "cannot ... while running" — what they mean when a library rejects your call — this error's family across 31 libraries.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of flowable/flowable-engine@d6d39ce1c6 (2026-09-11). Data as JSON: /api/errors/1659cfd4765e08e6. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at modules/flowable-engine/src/main/java/org/flowable/engine/impl/dynamic/AbstractDynamicStateManager.java:345

        if (executions.isEmpty()) {
            throw new FlowableIllegalArgumentException("Active execution could not be found with activity id " + activityId);
        }

        return executions;
    }

    protected MoveExecutionEntityContainer createMoveExecutionEntityContainer(MoveActivityIdContainer activityContainer, List<ExecutionEntity> executions, CommandContext commandContext) {
        MoveExecutionEntityContainer moveExecutionEntityContainer = new MoveExecutionEntityContainer(executions, 
                activityContainer.getMoveToActivityIds(), activityContainer.getActivityOptions());
        if (moveExecutionEntityContainer.getActivityOptions() != null) {
            activityContainer.setActivityOptions(moveExecutionEntityContainer.getActivityOptions());
        }

        if (activityContainer.isMoveToParentProcess()) {
            ExecutionEntity processInstanceExecution = executions.get(0).getProcessInstance();
            ExecutionEntity superExecution = processInstanceExecution.getSuperExecution();
            if (superExecution == null) {
                throw new FlowableException("No parent process found for execution with activity id " + executions.get(0).getCurrentActivityId());
            }

            moveExecutionEntityContainer.setMoveToParentProcess(true);
            moveExecutionEntityContainer.setSuperExecution(superExecution);

        } else if (activityContainer.isMoveToSubProcessInstance()) {
            moveExecutionEntityContainer.setMoveToSubProcessInstance(true);
            moveExecutionEntityContainer.setCallActivityId(activityContainer.getCallActivityId());
            moveExecutionEntityContainer.setCallActivitySubProcessVersion(activityContainer.getCallActivitySubProcessVersion());
        }
        return moveExecutionEntityContainer;
    }

    protected void prepareMoveExecutionEntityContainer(MoveExecutionEntityContainer moveExecutionContainer, ProcessDefinition migrateToProcessDefinition, CommandContext commandContext) {
        ExpressionManager expressionManager = CommandContextUtil.getProcessEngineConfiguration(commandContext).getExpressionManager();

        BpmnModel bpmnModelToMigrateTo = null;
        if (migrateToProcessDefinition != null) {

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