Workflow steps remaining in ready state for long

[Mike Gambier]

Hi Ashish,

That sounds like a typical 'Workflow is broken' issue.

I suggest you look at your Workflow services, the background jobs, to see 
what's happening. After all SWEQSRV (events), SWWDHEX (deadlines) and 
SWWERRE (exceptions) essentially are Workflow, although the RFC batch job 
sometimes has to pick up the baton occasionally.

So if nothing's happening, check if the jobs are still scheduled (SWEQADM 
and SWU3 will give you clues but don't always tell the truth) and look in 
the batch log to see how they have been performing (if at all) recently.

Sometimes Basis Teams (or whoever schedules the jobs) forget to re-schedule 
them when a system is bounced. But sometimes they can also terminate of 
their own accord because of feedback errors.

Mike GT

>From: "Ashish Paranjpe" <aaparanjpe at gmail.com>
>Reply-To: "SAP Workflow Users' Group" <sap-wug at mit.edu>
>To: "SAP Workflow Users' Group" <sap-wug at mit.edu>
>Subject: Re: Workflow steps remaining in ready state for long
>Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 19:34:38 +0100
>
>HI Mike,
>Thanks for the reply. Just to make sure that I have been able to convey my
>issue correctly, I am adding the following things:
>
>1. I gave the first step as an example. This does not necessarily happen at
>the first step. This may happen at any step in the workflow(being stuck as
>ready status).
>
>2. This is happening across the entire workflow system in
>workflows developed for all modules.
>
>
>Does this make the issue different or clearer?
>
>Thanks,
>Ashish
>
>
>On 1/12/07, Mike Gambier <madgambler at hotmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>Ashish,
>>
>>If I were you I'd check the following things to start with:
>>
>>1. Is this a new/amended step? If so, are there any temporary exceptions
>>(e.g. database locks) being fed back? Check in tech log if it is on, or
>>failing that have a look in SWWWIRET to see if there are any clues there.
>>If
>>you find you do have temporary exceptions make sure you activated the
>>Workflow exception handling batch job SWWERRE to have another go at trying
>>the steps again (check in SWU3).
>>
>>2. If you have changed anything on related to the WF definition or
>>Business
>>Object related to the task that is appearing to stubbornly refuse to start
>>(but it used to work fine), it's probably something in your
>>code/environment
>>causing a feedback error. Syntax check your WF and code for errors, such
>>as
>>Agent Determination missing on dialog steps elsehwere in the definition.
>>Try
>>generating the Business Object, make sure the WF you are triggering is
>>active on the right version and the event linkage looks right. Drop the
>>Workflow buffers using SWU_OBUF to be sure you are using the latest
>>versions
>>of everything, if in doubt, and try to trigger the same WF again using
>>SWUE
>>maybe.
>>
>>3. Check the data related to your 'stuck' steps. Are all of your WFs
>>hanging
>>at this point or are some working OK? If the latter is true then your
>>definition may be dodgy with regards to binding or logic and may need
>>revising. Normally this would error though rather than stall, but you
>>never
>>know.
>>
>>4. If you have changed the way the WF is triggered (perhaps a different
>>event entirely or a new container binding) make sure the WF being kicked
>>off
>>is receiving the new info properly. Perhaps your event raising code isn't
>>quite right now?
>>
>>5. Check for dumps to see if WF-BATCH is complaining about something that
>>might be related.
>>
>>6. If this is the first step in your Workflow and you're using the Event
>>Queue check to see what kind of 'delay' you have between delivery jobs.
>>Sometimes events can take a while to come through because they have lots
>>of
>>competition with other events. Wouldn't explain why your first step
>>appears
>>to be 'stuck' but it might explain why there's an apparent delay between
>>events and WFs starting.
>>
>>7. Sometimes the triggering event is only partially delivered and the call
>>to your next step ends up being parked temporarily as a tRFC entry in
>>ARFCSSTATE for destination WORKFLOW_LOCAL_100 if the aren't enough dialog
>>process for Workflow to get hold of at the time. Have a peak at the RFC
>>queue to see if this is filling up.
>>
>>Mike GT
>>
>> >From: "Ashish Paranjpe" <aaparanjpe at gmail.com>
>> >Reply-To: "SAP Workflow Users' Group" <sap-wug at mit.edu>
>> >To: SAP-WUG at mit.edu
>> >Subject: Workflow steps remaining in ready state for long
>> >Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 15:38:34 +0100
>> >
>> >Hi All,
>> >I am facing a very atypical issue which I will try and explain below:
>> >
>> >When a workflow is triggered in the system, the first step of the
>>workflow
>> >is a background step. Now Ideally, i would have expected this step to
>> >change
>> >from "READY" state to "INPROCESS" within a fraction of a second. What
>> >happens with our workflows is that these steps continue to remain  în
>> >"READY" state for 2-3 hrs. Please note that there is no deadline
>>monitoring
>> >active for these steps.
>> >
>> >I have 2 questions based on this:
>> >
>> >1. How does the workflow system function with regard to changing a step
>> >state?
>> >2. More important quaetion : Why is this above mentioned problem
>>occurring
>> >in our system? Is it something to do with system performance?
>> >
>> >
>> >I may have raised this question before, but could not get a proper
>>solution
>> >to the issue.
>> >
>> >Thanks in advance.
>> >
>> >Ashish
>>
>>
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>>
>>


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