flowable/flowable-engine · error · ActivitiObjectNotFoundException

No process definition found for id = '" +…

Error message

No process definition found for id = '" + processDefinitionId + "'

What it means

SetProcessDefinitionCategoryCmd looks up the definition via ProcessDefinitionEntityManager.findProcessDefinitionById; when no definition matches the id it throws ActivitiObjectNotFoundException carrying the id and ProcessDefinition.class.

Solutions

1. Resolve the current id via RepositoryService.createProcessDefinitionQuery().processDefinitionKey(key).latestVersion().singleResult().
2. Verify the engine points at the database containing the definition.
3. Re-deploy the process definition if it was removed and use the fresh id.

Example fix

// before
repositoryService.setProcessDefinitionCategory(processDefinitionId, "billing");
// after
ProcessDefinition pd = repositoryService.createProcessDefinitionQuery()
        .processDefinitionId(processDefinitionId).singleResult();
if (pd != null) {
    repositoryService.setProcessDefinitionCategory(processDefinitionId, "billing");
}

ProcessDefinition pd = repositoryService.createProcessDefinitionQuery().processDefinitionId(pdId).singleResult();
if (pd == null) throw new IllegalArgumentException("No process definition " + pdId);

try { repositoryService.setProcessDefinitionCategory(pdId, category); }
catch (ActivitiObjectNotFoundException e) { log.warn("definition {} not found", pdId); }

When it happens

Trigger: RepositoryService.setProcessDefinitionCategory(processDefinitionId, category) with an id absent from ACT_RE_PROCDEF — typo, wrong database, or the definition was redeployed with a new id/version.

Common situations: Hard-coded definition ids that changed between deployments, cross-environment id reuse, schema cleaned by deletion jobs, multi-tenant/engine mismatch.

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

• Cannot find process definition for id
• Cannot find process definition for id
• Cannot find process definition for key
• Cannot find process definition for key
• Cannot find process definition with id

AI-assisted analysis of flowable/flowable-engine@d6d39ce1c6 (2026-09-11). Data as JSON: /api/errors/3d00b934e57eccb2. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at modules/flowable5-engine/src/main/java/org/activiti/engine/impl/cmd/SetProcessDefinitionCategoryCmd.java:52

    public SetProcessDefinitionCategoryCmd(String processDefinitionId, String category) {
        this.processDefinitionId = processDefinitionId;
        this.category = category;
    }

    @Override
    public Void execute(CommandContext commandContext) {

        if (processDefinitionId == null) {
            throw new ActivitiIllegalArgumentException("Process definition id is null");
        }

        ProcessDefinitionEntity processDefinition = commandContext
                .getProcessDefinitionEntityManager()
                .findProcessDefinitionById(processDefinitionId);

        if (processDefinition == null) {
            throw new ActivitiObjectNotFoundException("No process definition found for id = '" + processDefinitionId + "'", ProcessDefinition.class);
        }

        // Update category
        processDefinition.setCategory(category);

        // Remove process definition from cache, it will be refetched later
        DeploymentCache<ProcessDefinitionCacheEntry> processDefinitionCache = commandContext.getProcessEngineConfiguration().getProcessDefinitionCache();
        if (processDefinitionCache != null) {
            processDefinitionCache.remove(processDefinitionId);
        }

        if (commandContext.getEventDispatcher().isEnabled()) {
            commandContext.getEventDispatcher().dispatchEvent(
                    ActivitiEventBuilder.createEntityEvent(FlowableEngineEventType.ENTITY_UPDATED, processDefinition),
                    EngineConfigurationConstants.KEY_PROCESS_ENGINE_CONFIG);
        }

        return null;

View on GitHub (pinned to d6d39ce1c6)