flowable/flowable-engine · error · FlowableIllegalArgumentException

Only one of 'timersOnly' or 'messagesOnly' can be provided.

Error message

Only one of 'timersOnly' or 'messagesOnly' can be provided.

What it means

The job collection endpoint GET /management/jobs supports filtering to timer jobs (timersOnly) or message jobs (messagesOnly). Requesting both filters is contradictory — a job query cannot be timers-only and messages-only at once — so FlowableIllegalArgumentException is thrown.

Solutions

1. Send only one of timersOnly or messagesOnly per request.
2. If you need both timer and message jobs, make two requests without either filter or issue two filtered calls and merge results.
3. Strip mutually exclusive parameters in client code before issuing the request.

Example fix

// before
GET /management/jobs?timersOnly=true&messagesOnly=true
// after
GET /management/jobs?timersOnly=true

if (params.timersOnly != null && params.messagesOnly != null) throw new Error('timersOnly and messagesOnly are mutually exclusive');

try { ... } catch (e) { if (e.status === 400 && /timersOnly/.test(e.message)) fixFiltersAndRetry(); else throw e; }

When it happens

Trigger: GET /management/jobs?timersOnly=true&messagesOnly=true — both request parameters present (regardless of their boolean values).

Common situations: Generic search UI forwarding all active filter checkboxes as parameters; proxy/gateway merging query params from multiple sources; copy-pasted URLs accumulating parameters.

Understand the failure class

Background: "mutually exclusive" flag errors: what "can't supply both nx and xx", "--raw is not compatible with -i" and "cannot be used with" mean, and how to fix them — this error's family across 29 libraries.

Related errors

• Only one of 'orderAscendingColumn' or…
• Only one of 'timersOnly' or 'messagesOnly' can be provided.
• Could not find a dead letter job(s) with id(s)
• Could not find a history job with id ''.
• Could not find a job with id ''.

AI-assisted analysis of flowable/flowable-engine@d6d39ce1c6 (2026-09-11). Data as JSON: /api/errors/c71fb6882cce32d2. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at modules/flowable-rest/src/main/java/org/flowable/rest/service/api/management/TimerJobCollectionResource.java:129

        }
        if (allRequestParams.containsKey("elementId")) {
            query.elementId(allRequestParams.get("elementId"));
        }
        if (allRequestParams.containsKey("handlerType")) {
            query.handlerType(allRequestParams.get("handlerType"));
        }
        if (allRequestParams.containsKey("handlerTypes")) {
            query.handlerTypes(Arrays.asList(allRequestParams.get("handlerTypes").split(",")));
        }
        if (allRequestParams.containsKey("elementName")) {
            query.elementName(allRequestParams.get("elementName"));
        }
        if (allRequestParams.containsKey("executable")) {
            query.executable();
        }
        if (allRequestParams.containsKey("timersOnly")) {
            if (allRequestParams.containsKey("messagesOnly")) {
                throw new FlowableIllegalArgumentException("Only one of 'timersOnly' or 'messagesOnly' can be provided.");
            }
            if (Boolean.parseBoolean(allRequestParams.get("timersOnly"))) {
                query.timers();
            }
        }
        if (allRequestParams.containsKey("messagesOnly") && Boolean.parseBoolean(allRequestParams.get("messagesOnly"))) {
            query.messages();
        }
        if (allRequestParams.containsKey("dueBefore")) {
            query.duedateLowerThan(RequestUtil.getDate(allRequestParams, "dueBefore"));
        }
        if (allRequestParams.containsKey("dueAfter")) {
            query.duedateHigherThan(RequestUtil.getDate(allRequestParams, "dueAfter"));
        }
        if (allRequestParams.containsKey("withException") && Boolean.parseBoolean(allRequestParams.get("withException"))) {
            query.withException();
        }
        if (allRequestParams.containsKey("exceptionMessage")) {

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