I have seen this question asked several times, here or somewhere else on the Internet, but none of the solutions presented worked for me.
What I have :
- SharePoint 2013 OnPremise
- Workflow Manager installed on a front-end server.
- Several site collections, and on one of them (call it SiteColl01), all the workflow features activated.
- On one SiteColl01's subsite (call it SubSite01), I have 2 document libraries : OfficialLib and TestLib (testLib was created after OfficialLib, to try several solutions for the workflow)
On each of these libraries, I have created a standard 2010 Approval workflow, with same settings in each of them. I created this workflow using the Library Settings and nothing else. I insist on the fact that these workflows are STANDARD Sharepoint. No Sharepoint Designer involved (and SPD is not even installed on either of our servers)
What error I got :
On a really randomly basis, I got the error "Workflow failed on Start" and "Workflow cancelled by System Account" error messages from Wkfw History List.
What I tried :
I tried several things :
- The
Get-WFFarmStatus
got me the following :
MyFTEServer.MyDomain.com > WorkflowServiceBackend > Running
MyFTEServer.MyDomain.com > WorkflowServiceFrontEnd > Running
- The
Get-SBFarmStatus
got me the following :
MyFTEServer.MyDomain.com > Service Bus Gateway > Running
MyFTEServer.MyDomain.com > Service Bus Message Broker > Running
MyFTEServer.MyDomain.com > Service Bus Resource Provider > Running
MyFTEServer.MyDomain.com > Service Bus VSS > Running
MyFTEServer.MyDomain.com > FabricHostSvc > Running
- And here are the results of the
Get-WfFarm
cmd.
FarmType : Workflow
WFFarmDBConnectionString : Data Source=MySQLServer;Initial Catalog=WFManagementDB;Integrated Security=True;Encrypt=False
RunAsAccount : EUR\MyFarmAccount AdminGroup : BUILTIN\Administrators
Hosts : {Name: MyFTEServer.MyDomain.com, Configuration State: HostConfigurationCompleted}
InstanceDBConnectionString : Data Source=MySQLServer;Initial Catalog=WFInstanceManagementDB;Integrated Security=True;Asynchronous Processing=True;Encrypt=False
ResourceDBConnectionString : Data Source=MySQLServer;Initial Catalog=WFResourceManagementDB;Integrated Security=True;Asynchronous Processing=True;Encrypt=False
HttpPort: 12291 HttpsPort : 12290
OutboundCertificate: Thumbprint: 6520133EE703BF0184E3C1105F22219C6B9AA51E, IsGenerated: True
Endpoints :{https://MyFTEServer.MyDomain.com:12290/} SslCertificate : Thumbprint: 9B4C9BA9C07C76B3062FA6F9615A462E23888DBB, IsGenerated: True
EncryptionCertificate : Thumbprint: 9B4C9BA9C07C76B3062FA6F9615A462E23888DBB, IsGenerated: True
I read on the Internet that a CVS update from october 2018 caused an issue SharePoint workflows stop working after you install .NET security updates for CVE-2018-8421 but I checked and we did not install the security update (I know, we should, but this is not the point currently).
I read too that you have to reset SPD cache, but since no workflows has been made using SPD, I think this is irrelevant.
I tried to create a new Approval Workflow 2010 (with same parameters as the other ones), but using a user with high permissions.
- I tried to create a new Approval Workflow 2010 (with same parameters as the other ones), but using a service account (the farm service account, to be more precise).
Results : Nothing worked, I still get the same random "Workflow failed at start" and "Workflow cancelled by System Account". Random, because either me or a Member of the site are getting these messages from time to time. We could not reproduce this issue with an accurate frequency.
TLDR : On my SP2013 OnPrem farm, my Approval Workflow 2010 fails on start, cancelled by a System Account, completely randomly. Tried several internet recipes and did not work.
So, please, can you help me understand why are my standard Approval Workflow 2010 failing on start, cancelled by a system account ?
Thanks a lot and sorry for the long post (I have unfortunately no potato to give to any of you, but my eternal gratitude)