flowable/flowable-engine · error · FlowableIllegalArgumentException

Provided token date is null

Error message

Provided token date is null

What it means

Flowable's TokenQueryImpl.tokenDate(Date tokenDate) throws FlowableIllegalArgumentException when the tokenDate argument is null. An exact-match date criterion must be non-null to be bound as a query parameter. The validation runs inside the fluent method, before any database access.

Source

Thrown at modules/flowable-idm-engine/src/main/java/org/flowable/idm/engine/impl/TokenQueryImpl.java:92

            throw new FlowableIllegalArgumentException("Provided ids is null");
        }
        this.ids = ids;
        return this;
    }

    @Override
    public TokenQuery tokenValue(String tokenValue) {
        if (tokenValue == null) {
            throw new FlowableIllegalArgumentException("Provided token value is null");
        }
        this.tokenValue = tokenValue;
        return this;
    }

    @Override
    public TokenQuery tokenDate(Date tokenDate) {
        if (tokenDate == null) {
            throw new FlowableIllegalArgumentException("Provided token date is null");
        }
        this.tokenDate = tokenDate;
        return this;
    }

    @Override
    public TokenQuery tokenDateBefore(Date tokenDateBefore) {
        if (tokenDateBefore == null) {
            throw new FlowableIllegalArgumentException("Provided tokenDateBefore is null");
        }
        this.tokenDateBefore = tokenDateBefore;
        return this;
    }

    @Override
    public TokenQuery tokenDateAfter(Date tokenDateAfter) {
        if (tokenDateAfter == null) {
            throw new FlowableIllegalArgumentException("Provided tokenDateAfter is null");

View on GitHub (pinned to d6d39ce1c6)

Solutions

1. Parse and validate the date before calling tokenDate, rejecting invalid input in your own layer
2. Use tokenDateBefore/tokenDateAfter for range filtering, applying them only when non-null
3. Omit the criterion when the date is absent to query without a date filter

Example fix

// before
TokenQuery query = identityService.createTokenQuery().tokenDate(date);
// after
TokenQuery query = identityService.createTokenQuery();
if (date != null) {
    query.tokenDate(date);
} else {
    // handle missing date input
}

if (tokenDate == null) { throw new IllegalArgumentException("tokenDate must not be null before tokenDate()"); }

boolean hasDate(Date d) { return d != null; }

try { query.tokenDate(date); } catch (FlowableIllegalArgumentException e) { log.warn("Invalid token query: {}", e.getMessage()); }

When it happens

Trigger: Calling tokenDate(null) on a TokenQuery, e.g. when a timestamp parsed from a request or configuration was null because parsing failed or the field was absent.

Common situations: Filtering tokens by creation date where the date comes from optional request parameters; date fields lost in JSON deserialization; timezone/parsing utilities returning null on failure.

Related errors

• Provided tokenDateBefore is null
• Provided tokenDateAfter is null
• Provided id is null
• Provided ids is null
• Provided token value is null

AI-assisted analysis of flowable/flowable-engine@d6d39ce1c6 (2026-09-11). Data as JSON: /api/errors/aa65d9c8c1217142. Report an issue: GitHub.