flowable/flowable-engine · error · FlowableIllegalArgumentException

scopeId is empty

Error message

scopeId is empty

What it means

Fluent-setter validation in InternalEntityLinkQueryImpl.scopeId: the scope id filter is null or empty (StringUtils.isEmpty), which would break entity-link SQL scoping; the builder rejects it so the caller fixes the identifier.

Solutions

1. Check the value with StringUtils.isNotBlank before calling scopeId.
2. Ensure the entity whose id you pass actually exists and its id was fetched correctly.
3. Guard the query-building code so the query is only executed when a scope id is available.

Example fix

// before
query.scopeId(scopeId).list(); // may throw if empty

// after
if (StringUtils.isNotBlank(scopeId)) {
    query.scopeId(scopeId).list();
}

if (StringUtils.isBlank(scopeId)) { throw new IllegalArgumentException("scopeId required"); }

try {
    links = entityLinkQuery.scopeId(scopeId).list();
} catch (FlowableIllegalArgumentException e) {
    links = Collections.emptyList();
}

When it happens

Trigger: Calling InternalEntityLinkQuery.scopeId("") or scopeId(null) before executing the query.

Common situations: A process/case variable holding the scope id was not set yet; passing an uninitialized String field from caller code; copying a query builder chain from code where the id lookup failed silently.

Understand the failure class

Background: "must not be empty", "cannot be empty" — required-field validation errors across open-source libraries — this error's family across 41 libraries.

Related errors

• referenceScopeDefinitionId is empty
• referenceScopeId is empty
• referenceScopeType is empty
• scopeDefinitionId is empty
• scopeIds is empty

AI-assisted analysis of flowable/flowable-engine@d6d39ce1c6 (2026-09-11). Data as JSON: /api/errors/e606d84da8325a3d. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at modules/flowable-entitylink-service/src/main/java/org/flowable/entitylink/service/impl/InternalEntityLinkQueryImpl.java:58

    protected String scopeType;
    protected String referenceScopeId;
    protected String referenceScopeDefinitionId;
    protected String referenceScopeType;
    protected String rootScopeId;
    protected String rootScopeType;
    protected String linkType;
    protected String hierarchyType;

    public InternalEntityLinkQueryImpl(Function<InternalEntityLinkQueryImpl<E>, List<E>> listProvider,
            Function<InternalEntityLinkQueryImpl<E>, E> singleResultProvider) {
        this.listProvider = listProvider;
        this.singleResultProvider = singleResultProvider;
    }

    @Override
    public InternalEntityLinkQuery<E> scopeId(String scopeId) {
        if (StringUtils.isEmpty(scopeId)) {
            throw new FlowableIllegalArgumentException("scopeId is empty");
        }
        this.scopeId = scopeId;
        return this;
    }

    @Override
    public InternalEntityLinkQuery<E> scopeIds(Collection<String> scopeIds) {
        if (scopeIds == null || scopeIds.isEmpty()) {
            throw new FlowableIllegalArgumentException("scopeIds is empty");
        }
        this.scopeIds = scopeIds;
        return this;
    }

    @Override
    public InternalEntityLinkQuery<E> scopeDefinitionId(String scopeDefinitionId) {
        if (StringUtils.isEmpty(scopeDefinitionId)) {
            throw new FlowableIllegalArgumentException("scopeDefinitionId is empty");

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