flowable/flowable-engine · error · ActivitiObjectNotFoundException

no processes deployed with key '<processDefinitionKey>' for

Error message

no processes deployed with key '<processDefinitionKey>' for tenant identifier '<tenantId>'

What it means

Tenant-aware variant of the 'no processes deployed with key' error: findDeployedLatestProcessDefinitionByKeyAndTenantId throws ActivitiObjectNotFoundException when no process definition with the given key exists for the specified tenant. The definition may be deployed but under a different tenantId (or the global 'no tenant' scope), so the tenant-filtered query returns null.

Source

Thrown at modules/flowable5-engine/src/main/java/org/activiti/engine/impl/persistence/deploy/DeploymentManager.java:162

        ProcessDefinition processDefinition = Context
                .getCommandContext()
                .getProcessDefinitionEntityManager()
                .findLatestProcessDefinitionByKey(processDefinitionKey);

        if (processDefinition == null) {
            throw new ActivitiObjectNotFoundException("no processes deployed with key '" + processDefinitionKey + "'", ProcessDefinition.class);
        }
        processDefinition = resolveProcessDefinition(processDefinition).getProcessDefinition();
        return processDefinition;
    }

    public ProcessDefinition findDeployedLatestProcessDefinitionByKeyAndTenantId(String processDefinitionKey, String tenantId) {
        ProcessDefinition processDefinition = Context
                .getCommandContext()
                .getProcessDefinitionEntityManager()
                .findLatestProcessDefinitionByKeyAndTenantId(processDefinitionKey, tenantId);
        if (processDefinition == null) {
            throw new ActivitiObjectNotFoundException("no processes deployed with key '" + processDefinitionKey + "' for tenant identifier '" + tenantId + "'", ProcessDefinition.class);
        }
        processDefinition = resolveProcessDefinition(processDefinition).getProcessDefinition();
        return processDefinition;
    }

    public ProcessDefinition findDeployedProcessDefinitionByKeyAndVersion(String processDefinitionKey, Integer processDefinitionVersion) {
        ProcessDefinition processDefinition = (ProcessDefinitionEntity) Context
                .getCommandContext()
                .getProcessDefinitionEntityManager()
                .findProcessDefinitionByKeyAndVersion(processDefinitionKey, processDefinitionVersion);
        if (processDefinition == null) {
            throw new ActivitiObjectNotFoundException("no processes deployed with key = '" + processDefinitionKey + "' and version = '" + processDefinitionVersion + "'", ProcessDefinition.class);
        }
        processDefinition = resolveProcessDefinition(processDefinition).getProcessDefinition();
        return processDefinition;
    }

    public ProcessDefinitionCacheEntry resolveProcessDefinition(ProcessDefinition processDefinition) {

View on GitHub (pinned to d6d39ce1c6)

Solutions

1. Deploy the process with the same tenantId: deploymentBuilder.tenantId(tenantId)
2. Verify with repositoryService.createProcessDefinitionQuery().processDefinitionKey(key).processDefinitionTenantId(tenantId).count()
3. If the process is deployed without a tenant, start it without tenantId or redeploy it with the tenant
4. Normalize tenantId strings (trim/case) to match what was used at deployment time

Example fix

// before
runtimeService.startProcessInstanceByKeyAndTenantId("OrderProcess", "acme"); // deployed as 'ACME'
// after
repositoryService.createDeployment().addClasspathResource("order.bpmn20.xml").tenantId("acme").deploy();
runtimeService.startProcessInstanceByKeyAndTenantId("OrderProcess", "acme");

if (repositoryService.createProcessDefinitionQuery()
        .processDefinitionKey(key)
        .processDefinitionTenantId(tenantId).count() == 0) {
    throw new IllegalStateException("No process " + key + " for tenant " + tenantId);
}

try {
    return runtimeService.startProcessInstanceByKeyAndTenantId(key, tenantId);
} catch (ActivitiObjectNotFoundException e) {
    // fall back to tenant-less start or surface tenant misconfiguration
}

When it happens

Trigger: Calling RuntimeService.startProcessInstanceByKeyAndTenantId(key, tenantId) or RepositoryService query with processDefinitionKeyAndTenantId when the key is deployed only for another tenant or without a tenant.

Common situations: Multi-tenant setups where the tenantId string doesn't match the tenant deployed with (case/whitespace mismatch), processes deployed tenant-lessly but started with a tenantId, or missing tenant configuration on the deployment.

Understand the failure class

Background: 'Could not be found', 'does not exist', 'not found in database': the resource-not-found family when an ID, slug, key, or URI lookup comes back empty — this error's family across 20 libraries.

Related errors

• No deployed process definition found for key '{processDefini
• no processes deployed with key '" + processDefinitionKey + "
• no processes deployed with key '" + processDefinitionKey + "
• No process definition found for id '<processDefinitionId>'
• No process definition found for key '<processDefinitionKey>'

AI-assisted analysis of flowable/flowable-engine@d6d39ce1c6 (2026-09-11). Data as JSON: /api/errors/24637568878d3023. Report an issue: GitHub.