flowable/flowable-engine · warning · UnsupportedOperationException

Not supported to get process instance id

Error message

Not supported to get process instance id

What it means

This is an UnsupportedOperationException from an anonymous VariableInstance implementation inside BatchDeleteProcessConfig that is backed only by a JSON node used to extract variable values for query population. Process-instance/execution identity is meaningless for this adapter, so the getters explicitly reject calls rather than returning misleading nulls.

Solutions

1. Do not call getProcessInstanceId/getExecutionId on the JSON-backed variable adapter; only getName() and getValue() are supported
2. Use the real VariableInstance entity from the runtime/variable service when you need execution context
3. Construct a full variable instance implementation if your integration needs execution ids

Example fix

// before
String pid = jsonBackedVariableInstance.getProcessInstanceId(); // throws
// after
String pid = realVariableInstanceEntity.getProcessInstanceId();

if (vi instanceof JsonBackedVariableInstance) {
    throw new IllegalStateException("Adapter has no execution context; use the real VariableInstance");
}

boolean hasExecutionContext(VariableInstance vi) {
    return !(isJsonBackedAdapter(vi));
}

try {
    pid = vi.getProcessInstanceId();
} catch (UnsupportedOperationException e) {
    pid = null; // JSON-backed adapter carries no execution identity
}

When it happens

Trigger: Calling getProcessInstanceId() (or getExecutionId()) on the variable-instance adapter produced while deserializing batch-query variable values — only possible if internal code or custom code paths treat the JSON-backed adapter as a real runtime VariableInstance.

Common situations: Custom extensions or copy-pasted internals reusing BatchDeleteProcessConfig's JSON variable adapter for purposes beyond query population; engine version upgrades exposing the adapter through new call paths.

Understand the failure class

Background: UnsupportedOperationException and "is not supported" errors: when a library deliberately refuses a call — this error's family across 30 libraries.

Related errors

• Empty object, no variables can be set
• No execution active, no variables can be created
• No execution active, no variables can be created
• No execution active, no variables can be removed
• No execution active, no variables can be set

AI-assisted analysis of flowable/flowable-engine@d6d39ce1c6 (2026-09-11). Data as JSON: /api/errors/d7304d149f4202ec. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at modules/flowable-engine/src/main/java/org/flowable/engine/impl/delete/BatchDeleteProcessConfig.java:472

        return resultNode.toString();
    }

    protected static class VariableValueJsonNodeValueFields implements ValueFields {

        protected final JsonNode node;

        public VariableValueJsonNodeValueFields(JsonNode node) {
            this.node = node;
        }

        @Override
        public String getName() {
            return node.path("name").stringValue();
        }

        @Override
        public String getProcessInstanceId() {
            throw new UnsupportedOperationException("Not supported to get process instance id");
        }

        @Override
        public String getExecutionId() {
            throw new UnsupportedOperationException("Not supported to get execution id");
        }

        @Override
        public String getScopeId() {
            throw new UnsupportedOperationException("Not supported to get scope id");
        }

        @Override
        public String getSubScopeId() {
            throw new UnsupportedOperationException("Not supported to get sub scope id");
        }

        @Override

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