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'ActivitiException: Unknown property' usinig Call Activity

alef

Hi all,
I'm using a Call Activity element in order define a reusable process definition which is common to several process.
This subprocess try to execute an operation, an in case of failure it retries the action until success.
The problem is that after some retries the following exception is thrown:

org.activiti.engine.ActivitiException: Unknown property used in expression: #{msisdnLockManager.lockMSISDN(action)} ‍

Invocation of msisdnLockManager.lockMSISDN(action) method works for some times before have the exception.
As you can see below

msisdnLockManager‍

bean is correctly declared and passed to

ProcessEngineConfiguration‍

<bean id="processEngineConfiguration" class="org.activiti.spring.SpringProcessEngineConfiguration">
      <property name="dataSource" ref="dataSource" />
      <property name="transactionManager" ref="dbTransactionManager" />
      <property name="databaseSchemaUpdate" value="true" />
      <property name="asyncExecutorEnabled" value="false" />
      <property name="asyncExecutorActivate" value="false" />   
      <property name="jobExecutorActivate" value="true" />      
      <property name="beans">
         <map>
            <entry key="msisdnLockManager" value-ref="msisdnLockManager" />
            <entry key="wfCreateOrder" value-ref="wfCreateOrder" />
         </map>
      </property>
   </bean>

   <bean id="processEngine" class="org.activiti.spring.ProcessEngineFactoryBean">
      <property name="processEngineConfiguration" ref="processEngineConfiguration" />
   </bean>

   <bean id="repositoryService" factory-bean="processEngine" factory-method="getRepositoryService" />
   <bean id="runtimeService" factory-bean="processEngine" factory-method="getRuntimeService" />

   <!– BEGIN:Workflow components –>
   <bean id="msisdnLockManager" class="my.package.workflow.MSISDNLockManager" />
   <bean id="wfCreateOrder" class="my.package.workflow.processor.WFCreateOrder" />
   <!– END:Workflow components –>

</beans>‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍

Both the diagram are uploaded below. Subprocess is LockMSISDNProcess.bpmn file.

Could anyone help me to understand where is the problem?
Thanks in advance.

LockMSISDNProcess.bpmn_.txt.zip

MyProcess.bpmn_.txt.zip

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Comments

jbarrez

That looks allright. Are you sure the 'action' variable is present?

alef

Thanks for the answer.
Yes, I'm sure. I start the workflow in this way:
<java>Map<String, Object> variableMap = new HashMap<String, Object>();
variableMap.put("action", action);
runtimeService.startProcessInstanceByKey("WFCreateWWSIOrder", variableMap);</java>

I've also set source and target for callActivity like this:
<code><activiti:in source="action" target="action"></activiti:in></code>

Lastly, the Call Activity is successfully retried two/three times before the exception is thrown.

I don't know if this can help you. The subprocess performs actions on DB within a transaction.
Could this be the cause of the problem?

trademak

If you have any way to reproduce this please let us know. We haven't experienced this behaviour yet.

Best regards,

alef

Hi, I've created a simple project with the configuration used above. See the attachement.
You can build it with Maven. Before run it you have to configure the datasource in "resources/datasource.xml" file.
To test it you can invoke a servlet like this:
<code>[ip]:[port]/test/WorkflowServlet</code>

You can see the output in you app server log.
As you'll can see the subtask retries some times and then you'll get the following exception:
<code>org.activiti.engine.impl.javax.el.PropertyNotFoundException: Cannot resolve identifier 'subProcess'</code>

test.zip_.txt.zip

alef

Any news about this issue?

jbarrez

I've tried it here. Changed the jndi datasource to a local one and used a main:

<code>
public static void main(String[] args) {
     ClassPathXmlApplicationContext applicationContext = new ClassPathXmlApplicationContext("applicationContext.xml");

     RepositoryService repositoryService = applicationContext.getBean(RepositoryService.class);
     repositoryService.createDeployment().addClasspathResource("Mainprocess.bpmn").addClasspathResource("SubProcess.bpmn").deploy();

     applicationContext.getBean(ProcessActivator.class);
     ProcessActivator processActivator = applicationContext.getBean(ProcessActivator.class);
processActivator.startProcess();
    }
</code>

I am not seeing your error. I'm seeing

<code>
Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM warning: ignoring option MaxPermSize=512m; support was removed in 8.0
SLF4J: Failed to load class "org.slf4j.impl.StaticLoggerBinder".
SLF4J: Defaulting to no-operation (NOP) logger implementation
SLF4J: See http://www.slf4j.org/codes.html#StaticLoggerBinder for further details.
Starting activiti process…
SubProcess: Action: someValue
Activiti process started with id 8
SubProcess: Action: someValue
SubProcess: Action: someValue
SubProcess: Action: someValue
SubProcess: Action: someValue
SubProcess: Action: someValue
SubProcess: Action: someValue
SubProcess: Action: someValue
SubProcess: Action: someValue
SubProcess: Action: someValue
SubProcess: Action: someValue
</code>

So … anything that would be different for my setup and why it could be failing for you?

alef

Which DBMS did you use?
I did the same test of you and it seems that with Oracle the process remains blocked on the first execution of SubProcess.
Instead with MySQL it retries forever, as expected!

In both cases I used a direct connection toward the DB like this:

<code>
       <!– ORACLE –>
        <bean id="dataSource" class="org.apache.commons.dbcp.BasicDataSource">
     <property name="driverClassName" value="oracle.jdbc.OracleDriver" />
     <property name="url" value="jdbc

racle:thin:@//localhost:1521/ORCL" />
     …
</bean>

        <!– MySQL –>
<bean id="dataSource" class="org.apache.commons.dbcp.BasicDataSource">
     <property name="driverClassName" value="com.mysql.jdbc.Driver" />
     <property name="url" value="jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/test" />
     …
</bean></code>

From your point of view, can be this the problem?
Thanks again for your support!

jbarrez

I did use MySQL indeed.

Theoretically, there should not be a difference between oracle and mysql, from the Activiti point of view. Is the Oracle configured with the same isolation level? (really guessing here …)

alef

Same code. I changed just the datasource configuration.
Running the application on WebLogic I have the problem using both the DBMS.

Could you please test it using an application server?

jbarrez

> Could you please test it using an application server?

Not immediately, running a unit test is one thing, but setting up an application server with a specific config takes quite some time. If I'd do that for every issue here, the forum would be my day job …

> It seems that the executor cannot reference the bean.

I don't think it's due to the executor. I thinks it's the classloader of Weblogic screwing it up and not acting like a normal JDK would do.

alef

For your information, if I put all in a single diagram I have the same problem. Sometimes I have the exception "Unknown property used in expression: #{subProcess.doStuff(action)}".
It seems that after the first retries the executor cannot references the bean anymore.

alef

If you have an application server installed it's just matter of change the database configuration to run it.

Anyway, I run the application on Tomcat and Jetty. I don't see anymore the exception, but the execution stops after one or two retries.
The execution remains blocked on the receive task, as you can see in the attachement.

Moreover, when the executor can perform more than one retry, the Time Duration of PT10S is not respected.

<code>INFO 10:33:47,574 org.activiti.test.ProcessActivator - Starting activiti process…
INFO 10:33:48,017 org.activiti.test.SubProcess - Action: someValue
INFO 10:33:48,048 org.activiti.test.ProcessActivator - Activiti process started with id 20001
INFO 10:34:00,081 org.activiti.test.SubProcess - Action: someValue
INFO 10:34:35,040 org.activiti.test.SubProcess - Action: someValue</code>

jbarrez

I tried it here on a tomcat 7, and changed the config to use the new async executor:

<code>
<bean id="dataSource" class="org.springframework.jdbc.datasource.SimpleDriverDataSource">
        <property name="driverClass" value="com.mysql.jdbc.Driver"/>
        <property name="url" value="jdbc:mysql://127.0.0.1:3306/forum?characterEncoding=UTF-8"/>
        <property name="username" value="alfresco"/>
        <property name="password" value="alfresco"/>
    </bean>

    <bean id="transactionManager" class="org.springframework.jdbc.datasource.DataSourceTransactionManager">
        <property name="dataSource" ref="dataSource"/>
    </bean>

<bean id="processEngineConfiguration" class="org.activiti.spring.SpringProcessEngineConfiguration">
<property name="dataSource" ref="dataSource" />
<property name="transactionManager" ref="transactionManager" />
<property name="databaseSchemaUpdate" value="drop-create" />
<property name="asyncExecutorEnabled" value="true" />
<property name="asyncExecutorActivate" value="true" />
<property name="jobExecutorActivate" value="false" />
<property name="beans">
   <map>
    <entry key="subProcess" value-ref="subProcess" />
    <entry key="mainProcess" value-ref="mainProcess" />
   </map>
</property>
</bean>
</code>

This works:

<code>
Thu Apr 09 11:13:45 CEST 2015 : SubProcess: Action: someValue
Thu Apr 09 11:14:05 CEST 2015 : SubProcess: Action: someValue
Thu Apr 09 11:14:25 CEST 2015 : SubProcess: Action: someValue
Thu Apr 09 11:14:45 CEST 2015 : SubProcess: Action: someValue
Thu Apr 09 11:15:05 CEST 2015 : SubProcess: Action: someValue
Thu Apr 09 11:15:25 CEST 2015 : SubProcess: Action: someValue
Thu Apr 09 11:15:45 CEST 2015 : SubProcess: Action: someValue
Thu Apr 09 11:16:05 CEST 2015 : SubProcess: Action: someValue
Thu Apr 09 11:16:25 CEST 2015 : SubProcess: Action: someValue
Thu Apr 09 11:16:45 CEST 2015 : SubProcess: Action: someValue
Thu Apr 09 11:17:05 CEST 2015 : SubProcess: Action: someValue
Thu Apr 09 11:17:26 CEST 2015 : SubProcess: Action: someValue
Thu Apr 09 11:17:46 CEST 2015 : SubProcess: Action: someValue
Thu Apr 09 11:18:06 CEST 2015 : SubProcess: Action: someValue
Thu Apr 09 11:18:26 CEST 2015 : SubProcess: Action: someValue
</code>

Note that there is a bug showing here: the duration is doubled (this was fixed a couple of weeks ago). So I tested with a local build of master (and changed defaultTimerJobAcquireWaitTimeInMillis to 1 second instead of 10S, as this could skew the results here cause the timer is set to 1 second)

<code>
Starting activiti process…
Thu Apr 09 11:56:11 CEST 2015 [main] : SubProcess: Action: someValue
Activiti process started with id 8
DONE
Thu Apr 09 11:56:21 CEST 2015 [pool-1-thread-1] : SubProcess: Action: someValue
Thu Apr 09 11:56:31 CEST 2015 [pool-1-thread-2] : SubProcess: Action: someValue
Thu Apr 09 11:56:41 CEST 2015 [pool-1-thread-1] : SubProcess: Action: someValue
Thu Apr 09 11:56:51 CEST 2015 [pool-1-thread-2] : SubProcess: Action: someValue
Thu Apr 09 11:57:01 CEST 2015 [pool-1-thread-1] : SubProcess: Action: someValue
Thu Apr 09 11:57:11 CEST 2015 [pool-1-thread-2] : SubProcess: Action: someValue
Thu Apr 09 11:57:21 CEST 2015 [pool-1-thread-1] : SubProcess: Action: someValue
Thu Apr 09 11:57:31 CEST 2015 [pool-1-thread-2] : SubProcess: Action: someValue
Thu Apr 09 11:57:41 CEST 2015 [pool-1-thread-1] : SubProcess: Action: someValue
Thu Apr 09 11:57:51 CEST 2015 [pool-1-thread-2] : SubProcess: Action: someValue
Thu Apr 09 11:58:01 CEST 2015 [pool-1-thread-1] : SubProcess: Action: someValue
</code>

I also added   variables.put("lockResult", false);. When I enabled logging, I could see the property was missing. I don't know how you add it, so I simply added it to the start to keep looping.

Do note that I cleaned the db before I ran this. Old jobs will have an influence of course.