flowable/flowable-engine · error · FlowableIllegalArgumentException

Provided element id is null

Error message

Provided element id is null

What it means

ExternalWorkerJobQuery.elementId(String) throws FlowableIllegalArgumentException when the provided flow element id is null. The element id filter targets jobs attached to a specific BPMN element (service task, etc.); null is rejected as an invalid argument. Supply a real element id from the model or drop the filter.

Solutions

1. Pass the BPMN element id (e.g. the service task's id attribute).
2. Guard the call site with a null check before applying the filter.
3. Resolve the element id from the process definition model, handling missing elements explicitly.
4. Log the null element id to surface upstream model issues.

Example fix

// before
query.elementId(flowElement.getId());
// after
if (flowElement != null) {
    query.elementId(flowElement.getId());
}

if (elementId != null && !elementId.isBlank()) {
    query.elementId(elementId);
}

boolean hasElementId(String id) { return id != null && !id.isBlank(); }

try {
    query.elementId(elementId);
} catch (FlowableIllegalArgumentException e) {
    throw new IllegalStateException("Cannot filter jobs: element id unresolved", e);
}

When it happens

Trigger: Calling externalWorkerJobQuery().elementId(null), e.g. when the element id is read from a FlowElement or execution that is not job-related.

Common situations: Retry tooling that resolves the failing element dynamically and the resolution fails; BPMN parsing where the activity reference is missing; generic job inspectors passing through null element references.

Related errors

• after time is null
• category is null
• categoryLike is null
• categoryLike is null
• categoryNotEquals is null

AI-assisted analysis of flowable/flowable-engine@d6d39ce1c6 (2026-09-11). Data as JSON: /api/errors/f39fbac93852d96e. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at modules/flowable-job-service/src/main/java/org/flowable/job/service/impl/ExternalWorkerJobQueryImpl.java:201

    }

    @Override
    public ExternalWorkerJobQuery categoryLike(String categoryLike) {
        if (categoryLike == null) {
            throw new FlowableIllegalArgumentException("Provided categoryLike is null");
        }
        if (inOrStatement) {
            this.currentOrQueryObject.categoryLike = categoryLike;
        } else {
            this.categoryLike = categoryLike;
        }
        return this;
    }

    @Override
    public ExternalWorkerJobQuery elementId(String elementId) {
        if (elementId == null) {
            throw new FlowableIllegalArgumentException("Provided element id is null");
        }
        if (inOrStatement) {
            this.currentOrQueryObject.elementId = elementId;
        } else {
            this.elementId = elementId;
        }
        return this;
    }

    @Override
    public ExternalWorkerJobQuery elementIds(Collection<String> elementIds) {
        if (elementIds == null) {
            throw new FlowableIllegalArgumentException("Provided element ids are null");
        }
        if (inOrStatement) {
            this.currentOrQueryObject.elementIds = elementIds;
        } else {
            this.elementIds = elementIds;

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