How can I fix a SharePoint workflow returning "Error Occurred" due to being unable to update an item?
We recently migrated from MOSS 2007 to SP 2010 platform. We have this heavily-used SharePoint Designer workflow (500 and more instances per day) that uses InfoPath to submit data. It is basically a serial Approval workflow involving many approval levels. Post-migration almost 90% of our workflow runs end in "Error Occurred" state with the following description of the error:
The workflow could not update the item, possibly because one or more columns for the item require a different type of information.
There is no set pattern for the workflows that result in an error and restarting the workflow always resolves the issue.
We have matched all columns/content type and there is no difference in MOSS 2007 and the new forms library
Permission levels of Users are not changed
A lot of sites mention introducing a pause in the workflow before the update event, but I am skeptical in doing it. What could be the possible cause/solution to it? We cannot identify anything that is common or direct us to the root cause among these 90% failing workflows. Some of the workflow instance also result in an error:
the workflow could not update the item as it was checked out to another user.
Answer
I've had the same issue in the past and the 1 minute delay resolved it. In my experience, the inconsistencies in terms of which items fail and which don't, had us looking down the path of a lock issue. It didn't make any sense otherwise. If we took one specific item in the list and tested against it, sometimes the workflow would run successfully and other times it would fail. Depending on the hardware we used, we'd get entirely different results with the same configuration.
Others with a similar issue report locking as the issue. http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/sharepoint2010customization/thread/fc4e1073-d67f-449a-b443-e5805f5358c7
It appeared to me that maybe it was a locking/timing issue....it appeared the workflow kicked off and tried updating fields in the doc library item before the locks were released on the InfoPath form that created the item!
When you did the migration, was new hardware involved? Also factor in that SharePoint 2010 requires more power than 2007 ever did.