SharePoint Infrastructure Updates and Nintex Workflow

Cameron_McConnell — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 23:06:11 GMT

SharePoint Infrastructure Updates and Nintex Workflow

Recently, Microsoft released a set of ‘Infrastructure Updates’ for Windows SharePoint Services (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/951695) and Microsoft Office Server (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/951297). A side effect of these was disrupting some functionality in Nintex Workflow.

Background

When a task action is assigned to multiple recipients, in many cases the workflow will automatically update tasks in a set based on the outcome of other tasks. For example:

· If all recipients are required to approve and one rejects, the pending tasks are automatically set to ‘Not Required’.

· If only one response is required, the other tasks are set to ‘Not Required’.

The Infrastructure updates for SharePoint causes the workflow to stop at this point. The workflow displays as ‘In progress’, but the following messages are logged to the SharePoint ULS logs:

Engine RunWorkflow: System.Workflow.Activities.EventDeliveryFailedException: Event "OnTaskChanged" on interface type "Microsoft.SharePoint.Workflow.ITaskService" for instance id "60fc9629-1c39-443f-ba15-8bbb299dfbcf" cannot be delivered. ---> System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object. at Microsoft.SharePoint.Workflow.SPWorkflowHostServiceBase.LoadInstanceData(Guid instanceId, Boolean& compressedData) at Microsoft.SharePoint.Workflow.SPWinOePersistenceService.LoadWorkflowInstanceState(Guid instanceId)...

Upgrade Path

Nintex Workflow build 10830 (released 4th August 2008) has been released to address this issue.

The following table describes workflow task behaviour (Request Approval and Request Review actions) in different environments:

	Infrastructure Updates not applied	Infrastructure Updates applied
Build before 10830	Tasks behave normally	Tasks with multiple assignees may not continue
Build 10830, workflows published before 10830	Tasks behave normally	A delay will be experienced before tasks continue
Build 10830, workflows published with 10830	Tasks behave normally	Tasks behave normally

All workflows published with build 10830 (and later) will continue after the task is completed with only a brief pause.

Workflows published previous to build 10830, and workflow instances already in progress, will pause between approximately 1 and 5 minutes to continue once a task action has been completed if the Infrastructure Updates have been applied.

To avoid issues with the Infrastructure issue, build 10830 of Nintex Workflow should be installed before the SharePoint Infrastructure updates. It is recommended that workflows with approval or review actions that are assigned to multiple users are re-published when build 10830 is installed. For optimal workflow performance, install the Infrastructure updates after existing instances of workflows (those published before 10830) have completed.

To help find all the workflows in your environment, download the FindWorkflows tool from here http://download.nintex.com/sl/supportfiles/findworkflows.zip

General Discussion

SharePoint Infrastructure Updates and Nintex Workflow

SharePoint Infrastructure Updates and Nintex Workflow

Background

Upgrade Path