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New to Activiti: Question about multi instance activity

elkammar

Hi,

We are running few POC's to evaluate if we can use Activiti for our automation framework. So far I like it, however, I just have difficulties understanding how does Activiti handles the multi-instance activity in parallel, so far it appears to be doing that on the same thread, is that normal or am I missing something here?

What I have done is a very simple workflow, that has a call-activity, that has a specific number for its "loop cardinality" parameter, and I set "sequential" to false. I was expecting all instance threads to start around the same time and run in parallel, but what I saw is that they use the same thread and they start sequentially.

I use activity engine version 5.17.0, I have set the "asyncExecutorEnabled" and "asyncExecutorActivate" to true, and disabled "jobExecutorActivate", I tested this scenario on the Activiti explorer.

I apologize if I am missing something obvious as I just started using it to see how it fits in our architecture.

Thank you!

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Comments

martin_grofcik

Hi Abdullah,

try make the first multiinstance task asynchronous.
In that case multiinstnace will create n jobs sequentially and jobs are executed in parallel.

Regards
Martin

elkammar

Thanks, Martin!
That helped and seem to work, the engine consumes the tasks in parallel now and it takes two at a time and then it throws this:
<blockcode>ERROR org.activiti.engine.impl.cmd.JobRetryCmd - activitiy or FailedJobRetryTimerCycleValue is null in job 91'. only decrementing retries.</blockcode>

Does that mean it was pulling and found nothing int he queue or does it mean my task was failed and it was retrying it?
FYI, I am just testing using <java>Thread.sleep();</java>, but I wanted to understand how it works under the covers, I understand from the user guide that <java>AsyncExecutor</java> manages a thread pool but I am trying to understand how it works a bit more, for instance, if the engine executes two tasks in parallel at a time then can this(or the size of the thread pool) be configured?

Appreciate your help!

martin_grofcik

Hi Abdullah,

could you create jUnit test for it (http://forums.activiti.org/content/sticky-how-write-unit-test). It is hard to guess when I do not see it.

Regards
Martin

elkammar

I posted my test class and bpmn files here yesterday, but I think it's going through some approval process..?

elkammar

Ok here it is again in case my previous comment was lost somehow:
My test case:
<java>
@Test
@Deployment(resources = {"org/activiti/test/main-process.bpmn"
, "org/activiti/test/call-activity-process.bpmn"})
public void test() {
ProcessInstance processInstance = runtimeService.startProcessInstanceByKey("main-process");
waitForJobExecutorToProcessAllJobs(100000L, 100);
assertNotNull(processInstance);
}
</java>

main-process.bpmn
<code>
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<definitions xmlns="http://www.omg.org/spec/BPMN/20100524/MODEL" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:activiti="http://activiti.org/bpmn" xmlns:bpmndi="http://www.omg.org/spec/BPMN/20100524/DI" xmlns

mgdc="http://www.omg.org/spec/DD/20100524/DC" xmlns

mgdi="http://www.omg.org/spec/DD/20100524/DI" typeLanguage="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" expressionLanguage="http://www.w3.org/1999/XPath" targetNamespace="http://www.activiti.org/test">
<process id="main-process" isExecutable="true">
    <startEvent id="start"></startEvent>
    <callActivity id="callactivity1" name="Call activity" calledElement="subprocess">
      <multiInstanceLoopCharacteristics isSequential="false">
        <loopCardinality>5</loopCardinality>
      </multiInstanceLoopCharacteristics>
    </callActivity>
    <sequenceFlow id="flow1" sourceRef="start" targetRef="callactivity1"></sequenceFlow>
    <endEvent id="endevent1" name="End"></endEvent>
    <sequenceFlow id="flow2" sourceRef="callactivity1" targetRef="endevent1"></sequenceFlow>
</process>

</definitions>
</code>

call-activity-process.bpmn:
<code>
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<definitions xmlns="http://www.omg.org/spec/BPMN/20100524/MODEL" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:activiti="http://activiti.org/bpmn" xmlns:bpmndi="http://www.omg.org/spec/BPMN/20100524/DI" xmlns

mgdc="http://www.omg.org/spec/DD/20100524/DC" xmlns

mgdi="http://www.omg.org/spec/DD/20100524/DI" typeLanguage="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" expressionLanguage="http://www.w3.org/1999/XPath" targetNamespace="http://www.activiti.org/test">
<process id="subprocess" name="Sub" isExecutable="true">
    <startEvent id="startevent1" name="Start"></startEvent>
    <serviceTask id="servicetask1" name="Service Task" activiti:async="true" activiti:exclusive="false" activiti:class="org.activiti.delegates.ServiceTask"></serviceTask>
    <endEvent id="endevent1" name="End"></endEvent>
    <sequenceFlow id="flow1" sourceRef="servicetask1" targetRef="endevent1"></sequenceFlow>
    <sequenceFlow id="flow2" sourceRef="startevent1" targetRef="servicetask1"></sequenceFlow>
</process>

</definitions>
</code>

And my JavaDelegate subclass has just <java>Thread.sleep(5000)</java> in it.
The jUnit test will pass, but it will produce the below error multiple times which I am trying to understand what am I missing here.
ERROR org.activiti.engine.impl.cmd.JobRetryCmd - activitiy or FailedJobRetryTimerCycleValue is null in job 91'. only decrementing retries.

martin_grofcik

Hi,

https://github.com/martin-grofcik/activiti-unit-test-template/tree/abdullah

The log message is written when is no activity or FailedJobRetryTimeCycleValue set.

<br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; if (activity == null || activity.getFailedJobRetryTimeCycleValue() == null) {<br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; log.error("activitiy or FailedJobRetryTimerCycleValue is null in job " + jobId + "'. only decrementing retries.");<br><br>

Regards
Martin