Friday, October 24, 2008

Workflow "Error" System Account An error has occurred after workflow completed MOSS 2007

Problem: If you have a "built in" or custom approval workflow setup for your document library. The workflow runs correctly, however when sometimes you look at the workflow status, you may receive an error after the task has been approved and completed such as, Event Type: Error User ID: System Account Description: An error has occurred in [name of workflow].
Resolution: When you define your workflow, there is a section "Post-completion Workflow Activities", where you can check "Update the approval status (use this workflow to control content approval)". If you check this option, and you do NOT have content approval enabled on the library level, you get the system account error message. If you do not check it, everything works fine.
Reason for occurrences: The account listed in the "User ID" column does not have permission to "something" that is being requested in the workflow code. Workflow usually running as the "system account" within SharePoint and should have access to all the objects within SharePoint. However, the system account may not have access to some resources that are outside of SharePoint and needed by the workflow code. Accessing outside resources is usually done via the .NET worker process account (e.g. NETWORK SERVICE).

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi,
really nice article. I have solved my same issue.

Thanks.

J Mendez said...

Is there anything that can be done about the workflows that were already in process before the box was unchecked, or are they condemned to either remaining permanently in the "Approved" status (& active) or being terminated & showing "Cancelled" even though they have been completed.

Michael said...

Another possibility is that the group does not exist. The same error occurs.

Stephen Prior said...

This is a great descrption of the problem. I solved this by changing the Content Approval (Require content approval for submitted items?) settings for the Document Library from No to Yes and this solved the problem.

Clem said...

Can you explain where the setting can be set? It's not on the SP Designer 2007 workflow association page. Is it an XML setting that can be put in the configuration file?

J Mendez said...

Unchecking the box worked for SharePoint 2007, but it is not working for SharePoint 2010.

Parmi said...

@J Mendez - this article is related to SP 2007, I have not verified in SP 2010, as System Account is SP 2010 is no longer recognized. specially if it is Claims based Web application.

@Clem - This setting can be set while creating a new workflow from the SP site it self. You just need to find the option "Post-completion Workflow Activities" where the checkbox is visible.

Anonymous said...

Hi all

is there any solution by now??

Unknown said...

Understood.
But I need to know if the suggested resolution is applied (Resolution: When you define your workflow, there is a section "Post-completion Workflow Activities", where you can check "Update the approval status (use this workflow to control content approval)". If you check this option, and you do NOT have content approval enabled on the library level, you get the system account error message. If you do not check it, everything works fine.) will an already running/existing workflow be resolved or resolved the error.

I'll really appreciate your response.

Unknown said...

thanks solved my problem. had to uncheck "require content approval for submitted forms" from sharepoint designer

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