flowable/flowable-engine · error · FlowableObjectNotFoundException

No plan item instance found for id

Error message

No plan item instance found for id 

What it means

Flowable's RemoveLocalVariablesCmd removes local variables from a CMMN plan item instance. Before doing so it looks up the plan item instance by the given id; if no such entity exists in the database, it throws FlowableObjectNotFoundException so the caller knows the id does not reference an existing plan item instance.

Source

Thrown at modules/flowable-cmmn-engine/src/main/java/org/flowable/cmmn/engine/impl/cmd/RemoveLocalVariablesCmd.java:48

    protected Collection<String> variableNames;
    
    public RemoveLocalVariablesCmd(String planItemInstanceId, Collection<String> variableNames) {
        this.planItemInstanceId = planItemInstanceId;
        this.variableNames = variableNames;
    }
    
    @Override
    public Void execute(CommandContext commandContext) {
        if (planItemInstanceId == null) {
            throw new FlowableIllegalArgumentException("planItemInstanceId is null");
        }
        if (variableNames == null) {
            throw new FlowableIllegalArgumentException("variableNames is null");
        }
     
        PlanItemInstanceEntity planItemInstanceEntity = CommandContextUtil.getPlanItemInstanceEntityManager(commandContext).findById(planItemInstanceId);
        if (planItemInstanceEntity == null) {
            throw new FlowableObjectNotFoundException("No plan item instance found for id " + planItemInstanceId, PlanItemInstanceEntity.class);
        }
        planItemInstanceEntity.removeVariables(variableNames);
        
        return null;
    }

}

View on GitHub (pinned to d6d39ce1c6)

Solutions

1. Verify the plan item instance id exists before calling: PlanItemInstanceQuery q = cmmnRuntimeService.createPlanItemInstanceQuery().planItemInstanceId(id); singleResult() != null
2. Use the correct id type — plan item instance ids come from PlanItemInstance.getId(), not CaseInstance.getId() or Task.getId()
3. Check you are connected to the same database/schema the case was created in
4. If the plan item may legitimately be gone, catch FlowableObjectNotFoundException and handle gracefully

Example fix

// before
cmmnRuntimeService.removeLocalVariables(planItemInstanceId, names);
// after
if (cmmnRuntimeService.createPlanItemInstanceQuery().planItemInstanceId(planItemInstanceId).count() > 0) {
    cmmnRuntimeService.removeLocalVariables(planItemInstanceId, names);
} else {
    logger.warn("Plan item instance {} not found, skipping variable removal", planItemInstanceId);
}

boolean exists = cmmnRuntimeService.createPlanItemInstanceQuery().planItemInstanceId(planItemInstanceId).count() > 0;
if (!exists) throw new IllegalArgumentException("Unknown planItemInstanceId: " + planItemInstanceId);

try { cmmnRuntimeService.removeLocalVariables(id, names); } catch (FlowableObjectNotFoundException e) { log.warn("Plan item instance {} not found", id); }

When it happens

Trigger: Calling RuntimeService/TaskService local variable removal (e.g. removeLocalVariables(planItemInstanceId, names)) with a planItemInstanceId that does not exist, was already deleted (case/completed plan item purged), or belongs to another engine database.

Common situations: Stale ids cached in application code after case instance completion; using a case instance id or plan item id interchangeably; querying the wrong CMMN database/schema in multi-datasource setups.

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

• plan item instance ${planItemInstanceId} doesn't exist
• plan item instance ${planItemInstanceId} doesn't exist
• No case instance found for id ${caseInstanceId}
• No case instance found for id ${caseInstanceId}
• Plan item instance '${id}' does not have a variable '${varia

AI-assisted analysis of flowable/flowable-engine@d6d39ce1c6 (2026-09-11). Data as JSON: /api/errors/c9ba7dd4303302d1. Report an issue: GitHub.