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Errors

This reference lists possible Workflow Task 🔗

What is a Workflow Task?
A Workflow Task is a Task that contains the context needed to make progress with a Workflow Execution.
term explanation
errors and how to resolve them.

For other types of errors, see Temporal Failures.

Each of the below errors corresponds with a WorkflowTaskFailedCause, which appears in Events under workflow_task_failed_event_attributes.

Bad Cancel Timer Attributes

This error indicates that the Workflow Task 🔗

What is a Workflow Task?
A Workflow Task is a Task that contains the context needed to make progress with a Workflow Execution.
term explanation
failed while attempting to cancel a Timer.

Check your Timer attributes for a missing Timer Id value. Add a valid Timer Id and redeploy the code.

Bad Cancel Workflow Execution Attributes

The Workflow Task 🔗

What is a Workflow Task?
A Workflow Task is a Task that contains the context needed to make progress with a Workflow Execution.
term explanation
failed due to unset CancelWorkflowExecution attributes.

Reset any missing attributes and redeploy the Workflow Task.

Bad Complete Workflow Execution Attributes

This error indicates that the Workflow Task 🔗

What is a Workflow Task?
A Workflow Task is a Task that contains the context needed to make progress with a Workflow Execution.
term explanation
failed due to unset attributes on CompleteWorkflowExecution.

Reset any missing attributes. Adjust the size of your Payload if it exceeds size limits.

Bad Continue as New Attributes

This error indicates that the Workflow Task 🔗

What is a Workflow Task?
A Workflow Task is a Task that contains the context needed to make progress with a Workflow Execution.
term explanation
failed to validate a ContinueAsNew attribute. The attribute could be unset or invalid.

Reset any missing attributes. If the payload or memo exceeded size limits, adjust the input size.

Check that the Workflow is validating search attributes after unaliasing keys.

Bad Fail Workflow Execution Attributes

This error indicates that the Workflow Task 🔗

What is a Workflow Task?
A Workflow Task is a Task that contains the context needed to make progress with a Workflow Execution.
term explanation
failed due to unset FailWorkflowExecution attributes.

If you encounter this error, make sure that StartToClostTimeout or ScheduleToCloseTimeout are set. Restart the Worker that the Workflow and Activity are registered to.

Bad Modify Workflow Properties Attributes

This error indicates that the Workflow Task 🔗

What is a Workflow Task?
A Workflow Task is a Task that contains the context needed to make progress with a Workflow Execution.
term explanation
failed to validate attributes on a property in the Upsert Memo or in a payload. These attributes are either unset or exceeding size limits.

Reset any unset and empty atrributes. Adjust the size of the Memo or payload to fit within the system's limits.

Bad Record Marker Attributes

This error indicates that the Workflow Task 🔗

What is a Workflow Task?
A Workflow Task is a Task that contains the context needed to make progress with a Workflow Execution.
term explanation
failed due to an unset or incorrect Marker name.

Enter a valid Marker name and redeploy the Task.

Bad Request Cancel Activity Attributes

This error either indicates the possibility of unset attributes for RequestCancelActivity, or an invalid History Builder state.

Update the Temporal SDK to the most recent release. Reset any unset attributes before retrying the Workflow Task 🔗

What is a Workflow Task?
A Workflow Task is a Task that contains the context needed to make progress with a Workflow Execution.
term explanation
.

If you continue to see this error, review your code for nondeterministic causes.

Bad Request Cancel External Workflow Execution Attributes

This error indicates that the Workflow Task 🔗

What is a Workflow Task?
A Workflow Task is a Task that contains the context needed to make progress with a Workflow Execution.
term explanation
failed while trying to cancel an external Workflow. Unset or invalid attributes can cause this to occur.

Reset any missing attributes, such as Workflow Id or Run Id. Adjust any fields that exceed length limits.

If a Child Workflow is set to Start and RequestCancel, remove one of these attributes. A Child Workflow cannot perform both actions in the same Workflow Task.

Bad Schedule Activity Attributes

This error indicates unset or invalid attributes for ScheduleActivityTask or CompleteWorkflowExecution.

Reset any unset or empty attributes. Adjust the size of the received payload to stay within the given size limit.

Bad Search Attributes

This error indicates that the Workflow Task 🔗

What is a Workflow Task?
A Workflow Task is a Task that contains the context needed to make progress with a Workflow Execution.
term explanation
has unset or invalid Search Attributes 🔗
What is a Search Attribute?
A Search Attribute is an indexed name used in List Filters to filter a list of Workflow Executions that have the Search Attribute in their metadata.
term explanation filtered-lists visibility
. This can cause Workflow Tasks to continue to retry without success.

Make sure that all attributes are defined before retrying the Task. Adjust the size of the Payload to fit within the system's size limits.

Bad Signal Input Size

This error indicates that the Payload has exceeded the Signal's 🔗

What is a Signal?
A Signal is an asynchronous request to a Workflow Execution.
term signals explanation
available input size.

Adjust the size of the Payload, and redeploy the Workflow Task 🔗

What is a Workflow Task?
A Workflow Task is a Task that contains the context needed to make progress with a Workflow Execution.
term explanation
.

Bad Signal Workflow Execution Attributes

This error indicates that the Workflow Task 🔗

What is a Workflow Task?
A Workflow Task is a Task that contains the context needed to make progress with a Workflow Execution.
term explanation
failed to validate attributes for SignalExternalWorkflowExecution.

Reset any unset, missing, nil, or invalid attributes. Adjust the input to fit within the system's size limits.

Bad Start Child Execution Attributes

This error indicates that the Workflow Task 🔗

What is a Workflow Task?
A Workflow Task is a Task that contains the context needed to make progress with a Workflow Execution.
term explanation
failed to validate attributes for StartChildWorkflowExecution

Adjust the input size of the attributes to fall within the system's size limits.

Make sure that Search Attribute 🔗

What is a Search Attribute?
A Search Attribute is an indexed name used in List Filters to filter a list of Workflow Executions that have the Search Attribute in their metadata.
term explanation filtered-lists visibility
validation is performed after unaliasing keys.

Bad Start Timer Attributes

This error indicates that the scheduled Event 🔗

What is an Event?
Events are created by the Temporal Cluster in response to external occurrences and Commands generated by a Workflow Execution.
term explanation
is missing a Timer Id.

Set a valid Timer Id and retry the Workflow Task 🔗

What is a Workflow Task?
A Workflow Task is a Task that contains the context needed to make progress with a Workflow Execution.
term explanation
.

Cause Bad Binary

This error indicates that the Worker deployment returned a bad binary checksum.

Cause Bad Update

This error indicates that a Workflow Execution 🔗

What is a Workflow Execution?
A Temporal Workflow Execution is a durable, scalable, reliable, and reactive function execution. It is the main unit of execution of a Temporal Application.
term explanation
tried to complete before receiving an Update.

BadUpdate can happen when a Worker 🔗

What is a Worker?
In day-to-day conversations, the term Worker is used to denote both a Worker Program and a Worker Process. Temporal documentation aims to be explicit and differentiate between them.
term explanation
generates a Workflow Task Completed 🔗
Events reference
Events are created by the Temporal Cluster in response to external occurrences and Commands generated by a Workflow Execution.
reference
message with missing fields or an invalid Update response format.

This error might indicate usage of an unsupported SDK. Make sure you're using a supported SDK.

Cause Reset Workflow

This error indicates that the Workflow Task 🔗

What is a Workflow Task?
A Workflow Task is a Task that contains the context needed to make progress with a Workflow Execution.
term explanation
failed due to a request to reset the Workflow.

If the system hasn't started a new Workflow, manually reset the Workflow.

Cause Unhandled Update

UnhandledUpdate occurs when a Workflow Update is received by the Temporal Server while a Workflow Task being processed on a Worker produces a Command that would cause the Workflow to transition to a closed state.

Temporal rejects the Workflow Task completion to guarantee that the Update is eventually handled by Workflow code and rewinds the Workflow so it can handle the pending Update.

This error can happen when the Workflow receives frequent Updates.

Cause Unspecified

This error indicates that the Workflow Task 🔗

What is a Workflow Task?
A Workflow Task is a Task that contains the context needed to make progress with a Workflow Execution.
term explanation
has failed for an unknown reason.

If you see this error, examine your Workflow Definition.

Failover Close Command

This error indicates that a Namespace failover forced the Workflow Task 🔗

What is a Workflow Task?
A Workflow Task is a Task that contains the context needed to make progress with a Workflow Execution.
term explanation
to close. The system automatically schedules a retry when this error occurs.

Force Close Command

This error indicates that the Workflow Task 🔗

What is a Workflow Task?
A Workflow Task is a Task that contains the context needed to make progress with a Workflow Execution.
term explanation
was forced to close. A retry will be scheduled if the error is recoverable.

Non-Deterministic Error

The Workflow Task 🔗

What is a Workflow Task?
A Workflow Task is a Task that contains the context needed to make progress with a Workflow Execution.
term explanation
failed due to a nondeterministic error.

Pending Activities Limit Exceeded

The Workflow has reached capacity for pending Activities. Therefore, the Workflow Task 🔗

What is a Workflow Task?
A Workflow Task is a Task that contains the context needed to make progress with a Workflow Execution.
term explanation
was failed to prevent the creation of another Activity.

Let the Workflow complete any current Activities before redeploying the code.

Pending Child Workflows Limit Exceeded

This error indicates that the Workflow has reached capacity for pending Child Workflows. Therefore, the Workflow Task 🔗

What is a Workflow Task?
A Workflow Task is a Task that contains the context needed to make progress with a Workflow Execution.
term explanation
was failed to prevent additional Child Workflows from being added.

Wait for the system to finish any currently running Child Workflows before redeploying this Task.

Pending Request Cancel Limit Exceeded

This error indicates that the Workflow Task 🔗

What is a Workflow Task?
A Workflow Task is a Task that contains the context needed to make progress with a Workflow Execution.
term explanation
failed after attempting to add more cancel requests. The Workflow has reached capacity for pending requests to cancel other Workflows, and cannot accept more requests.

If you see this error, give the system time to process pending requests before retrying the Task.

Pending Signals Limit Exceeded

The Workflow has reached capacity for pending Signals. Therefore, the Workflow Task 🔗

What is a Workflow Task?
A Workflow Task is a Task that contains the context needed to make progress with a Workflow Execution.
term explanation
was failed after attempting to add more Signals 🔗
What is a Signal?
A Signal is an asynchronous request to a Workflow Execution.
term signals explanation
to an external Workflow.

Wait for Signals to be processed by the Workflow before retrying the Task.

Reset Sticky Task Queue

This error indicates that the Sticky Task Queue 🔗

What is a Task Queue?
A Task Queue is a first-in, first-out queue that a Worker Process polls for Tasks.
term explanation
needs to be reset.

If you see this error, reset the Sticky Task Queue. The system will retry automatically.

Resource Exhausted Cause Concurrent Limit

This error indicates that the concurrent poller count has been exhausted.

Adjust the poller count per Worker.

Resource Exhausted Cause Persistence Limit

This error indicates that the persistence rate limit has been reached.

Resource Exhausted Cause RPS Limit

This error indicates that the Workflow has exhausted its RPS limit.

Resource Exhausted Cause System Overload

This error indicates that the system is overloaded and cannot allocate further resources to Workflow Tasks 🔗

What is a Workflow Task?
A Workflow Task is a Task that contains the context needed to make progress with a Workflow Execution.
term explanation
.

Resource Exhausted Cause Unspecified

This error indicates that an unknown cause is preventing resources from being allocated to further Workflow Tasks 🔗

What is a Workflow Task?
A Workflow Task is a Task that contains the context needed to make progress with a Workflow Execution.
term explanation
.

Schedule Activity Duplicate Id

The Workflow Task 🔗

What is a Workflow Task?
A Workflow Task is a Task that contains the context needed to make progress with a Workflow Execution.
term explanation
failed because the Activity Id is already in use.

Check your code to see if you've already specified the same Activity Id in your Workflow. Enter another Activity Id, and try running the Workflow Task again.

Start Timer Duplicate Id

This error indicates that a Timer with the given Timer Id has already started.

Try entering a different Timer Id, and retry the Workflow Task 🔗

What is a Workflow Task?
A Workflow Task is a Task that contains the context needed to make progress with a Workflow Execution.
term explanation
.

Unhandled Command

This error indicates new available Events 🔗

Events reference
Events are created by the Temporal Cluster in response to external occurrences and Commands generated by a Workflow Execution.
reference
since the last Workflow Task 🔗
What is a Workflow Task?
A Workflow Task is a Task that contains the context needed to make progress with a Workflow Execution.
term explanation
started. The Workflow Task was failed because the Workflow 🔗
What is a Workflow?
In day-to-day conversations, the term "Workflow" frequently denotes either a Workflow Type, a Workflow Definition, or a Workflow Execution.
term explanation
attempted to close itself without handling the new Events.

UnhandledCommand can happen when the Workflow is receiving a high number of Signals 🔗

What is a Signal?
A Signal is an asynchronous request to a Workflow Execution.
term signals explanation
. If the Workflow doesn't have enough time to handle these Signals, a RetryWorkflow Task is scheduled to handle these new Events.

To prevent this error, drain the Signal Channel with the ReceiveAsync function.

If you continue to see this error, check your logs for failing Workflow Tasks. The Workflow may have been picked up by a different Worker 🔗

What is a Worker?
In day-to-day conversations, the term Worker is used to denote both a Worker Program and a Worker Process. Temporal documentation aims to be explicit and differentiate between them.
term explanation
.

Workflow Worker Unhandled Failure

This error indicates that the Workflow Task 🔗

What is a Workflow Task?
A Workflow Task is a Task that contains the context needed to make progress with a Workflow Execution.
term explanation
encountered an unhandled failure from the Workflow Definition.