Why is infinite loop protection being triggered on my CRM workflow?

Question

Update

I should have added from the outset - this is in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011

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I know CRM well, but I'm at a loss to explain behaviour on my current deployment.

Please read the outline of my scenario to help me understand which of my presumptions / understandings is wrong (and therefore what is causing this error). It's not consistent with my expectations.

Basic Scenario

• Requirement demands that a web service is called every X minutes (it adds pending items to a database index)
• I've opted to use a workflow / custom entity trigger model (i.e. I have a custom entity which has a CREATE plugin registered. The plugin executes my logic. An accompanying workflow is started when "completed" time + [timeout period] expires. On expiry, it creates a new trigger record and the workflow ends).
• The plugin logic works just fine. The workflow concept works fine to a point, but after a period of time the workflow stalls with a failure:

This workflow job was canceled because the workflow that started it included an infinite loop. Correct the workflow logic and try again. For information about workflow logic, see Help.

Answer 1

I doubt this can be solved like this.

I'd suggest a different approach: deploy a simple application alongside CRM and let it call the web service, which in turn can use the XRM endpoints in order to change the records.

UPDATE

Or, you can try something like this upon your crm service initialization in the plugin (dug it up from one of my plugins) leaving your workflow untouched:

CrmService service = new CrmService();
//initialize service here, then...

CorrelationToken newtoken = new CorrelationToken();
newtoken.CorrelationId = context.CorrelationId;
newtoken.CorrelationUpdatedTime = context.CorrelationUpdatedTime;

// WILD GUESS: Enforce unlimited depth ?
corToken.Depth = 0; // THIS WAS: context.Depth;

//updating correlation token
service.CorrelationTokenValue = corToken;

I admit I don't really remember much about this (code dates back to about 2 years ago), but it might help.