flowable/flowable-engine · error · FlowableIllegalArgumentException

Provided job id is null

Error message

Provided job id is null

What it means

Flowable's TimerJobQueryImpl.jobId(String) throws FlowableIllegalArgumentException when the caller passes a null job id. The query API validates every filter argument up front so that an invalid query fails fast at build time rather than producing a broken SQL query or silently empty results. Passing null to a single-value filter is never meaningful, so it is rejected unconditionally.

Source

Thrown at modules/flowable-job-service/src/main/java/org/flowable/job/service/impl/TimerJobQueryImpl.java:98

    protected boolean inOrStatement;

    public TimerJobQueryImpl() {
    }

    public TimerJobQueryImpl(CommandContext commandContext, JobServiceConfiguration jobServiceConfiguration) {
        super(commandContext);
        this.jobServiceConfiguration = jobServiceConfiguration;
    }

    public TimerJobQueryImpl(CommandExecutor commandExecutor, JobServiceConfiguration jobServiceConfiguration) {
        super(commandExecutor);
        this.jobServiceConfiguration = jobServiceConfiguration;
    }

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

    @Override
    public TimerJobQuery jobIds(Collection<String> jobIds) {
        if (jobIds == null) {
            throw new FlowableIllegalArgumentException("Provided job id list is null");
        }
        if (inOrStatement) {
            this.currentOrQueryObject.jobIds = jobIds;
        } else {
            this.jobIds = jobIds;

View on GitHub (pinned to d6d39ce1c6)

Solutions

1. Ensure the jobId value is populated before building the query (check the source variable/expression for null)
2. If the job may not exist, guard the query call: only build/run the query when id != null
3. If you intended a broad query, omit the jobId() filter entirely instead of passing null
4. Catch FlowableIllegalArgumentException and handle it as invalid input if the id comes from user input

Example fix

// before
timerJobQuery.jobId(variables.get("timerJobId"));
// after
String jobId = (String) variables.get("timerJobId");
if (jobId != null) {
    timerJobQuery.jobId(jobId);
}

if (jobId == null) { throw new IllegalArgumentException("jobId is required before calling timerJobQuery.jobId()"); }

boolean hasJobId(String jobId) { return jobId != null && !jobId.isEmpty(); }

try { query.jobId(jobId); } catch (FlowableIllegalArgumentException e) { log.warn("Invalid job id filter: {}", e.getMessage()); }

When it happens

Trigger: Calling timerJobService.createTimerJobQuery().jobId(null), directly or via wrapper code that forwards an uninitialized/nullable variable.

Common situations: Resolving a job id from a optional configuration property, a REST parameter, or a process variable that is unset; refactoring code where the id variable became nullable; passing a lookup result that returned null because the entity does not exist.

Related errors

• Business key is null
• Business status is null
• Process definition category is null
• categoryLike is null
• categoryNotEquals is null

AI-assisted analysis of flowable/flowable-engine@d6d39ce1c6 (2026-09-11). Data as JSON: /api/errors/2b43b4d5b967860a. Report an issue: GitHub.