SharePoint 2010 workflows suddenly does not work

Asked 20/9, 2013 at 6:4 Answered 28/9, 2013 at 9:21

sharepoint sharepoint-2010 sharepoint-designer sharepoint-workflow

I've been having this issue and been looking for a solution to no avail.

Situation A: We have a SharePoint 2010 site which contains a list that has a SharePoint Designer workflow. Now everything seems to be working fine, the workflow runs upon item creation and so on, then after quite some time with no one actually editing anything, the workflow just stopped working, no status in the workflow column as well, just suddenly no workflow activities happening in that list, anyone encountered this/knows a solution for this?

Situation B: We have a SharePoint 2010 site, same as above, we have a list that has a SharePoint designer workflow attached to it. Now this workflow intermittently stops, just suddenly doesn't work upon item creation, no status in workflow columns as well. What happens is that we tried to edit the item and save it again multiple times before it runs. Any idea what's happening?

EDIT: As per checking, I can manually start the workflow.

Leitao answered 20/9, 2013 at 6:4 Comment(12)

If you go to the list can you still see the workflow, can you start in manually? – Nonfulfillment 23/9, 2013 at 12:46

will try this one and let you know, but if ever, this is not a good solution for our end though. – Leitao 24/9, 2013 at 5:14

Does the workflow fully work and complete when manually started? What does the workflow do? I'm wondering if whatever the workflow does is throwing an error and isn't being logged, Have you checked through the ULS logs? – Nonfulfillment 24/9, 2013 at 8:23

nothing i see in the ULS logs sadly, I made a workflow that only places a value in a column, shouldn't really have any wrong stuff in the workflow. and yep, the workflow fully works when manually started. – Leitao 24/9, 2013 at 8:37

It's not something to do with permissions is it? Seems very odd that it would just stop.Have you tried redeploying the workflow via designer? Does this happen for all users? – Nonfulfillment 24/9, 2013 at 10:51

sorry for the delayed response, yes, I've tried re-saving and redeploying to no avail. This is also the first time I've encountered this (serious) issue. – Leitao 25/9, 2013 at 6:57

Are there any errors in any of the server logs? – Nonfulfillment 25/9, 2013 at 15:11

Nope, didn't see any errors.. – Leitao 26/9, 2013 at 14:37

Is the Windows SharePoint Services Timer V4 service (SPTimerV4) running? If it is try restarting it. – Drizzle 29/9, 2013 at 20:44

@aquila, done to no avail. – Leitao 30/9, 2013 at 6:36

Are the workflows being triggered on item edit? If so this may be causing recursion and this is not allowed, have a look through the ULS logs for this. – Drizzle 30/9, 2013 at 8:5

Hi Aquila, nope, not being triggered on edit as well, there are (random) times it is being triggered on item creation, and on item edit (wherein both satisfies the workflow conditions at all times) – Leitao 30/9, 2013 at 13:54

Sometimes the Workflow Settings can revert to "No New Instances" when you deploy changes to a workflow. You might want to check that.

Otherwise, it doesn't sound like you have a DelayActivity, but it's historically been a place where workflows can hang because of a bug worked around in this blog: http://the-simple-programmer.blogspot.com/2012/10/sharepoint-workflow-delay-activity.html

You basically have to run:

stsadm -o setproperty -pn job-workflow -pv "Every 5 minutes between 0 and 59" -url http://yoursite

Teaspoon answered 24/9, 2013 at 22:14 Comment(3)

sadly this seems unjustifiable.. first we don't have a delayed workflow running in that subsite.. ever. It was a new subsite created. Also, we can't just run scripts in the server, since this is in a production environment and we cannot replicate the issue in the dev environment where we can test this. And lastly, if it's getting confused, why are there times when it runs and sometimes not. – Leitao 25/9, 2013 at 7:0

i'll be awarding you the bounty though this didn't really work, you've given the best answer so far :) – Leitao 1/10, 2013 at 7:4

Sorry it didn't fix the problem! Those were the best things I could think of to try. – Teaspoon 3/10, 2013 at 19:31

Check your workflow history list. you may get clear picture of what stoping your workflow.

Smuggle answered 23/9, 2013 at 10:50 Comment(1)

nope, it doesn't even show it running at times (totally no status from the workflow column in the list) – Leitao 23/9, 2013 at 12:3

I doubt that this is the reason, but is there a chance that somebody has disabled the Workflows features from the Site settings

Shulins answered 28/9, 2013 at 9:21 Comment(1)

sorry for the late response, but nope, checked that feature as well in the site collection level but it is activated. – Leitao 30/9, 2013 at 6:36

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