SharePoint 2010 workflow fail to run after pause

Question

Situation: A Custom List and a approval workflow designed by SharePoint Designer 2010

The approval workflow will pause 5 mins when the item created , after pause, will start the approval process.

When only one item into the custom list ,after pause 5 mins , it will randomly to show the error 'xxx workfow fail to run'.

When more then one item created into the list , after pause 5 mins , it will randomly to show error ' xxx workflow fail to run' on each items , sometime only show the error on one item.

Work around: I try to modifiy the pause action longer , e.g. pause 5 mins updated to pause 1 hour. And not allow the worklfows run at same time.

e.g.

workflow a:12:30

workflow b:01:45

workflow c:02:00

I would like to know , how can I fix the 'xxx workfow fail to run' error

Thanks.

---

2014-06-17 In this case , I start the workflow at 10:06 am , and workflow pause 30mins , after pause activity done , it show error workflow fail to run.

Answer 1

I've run into the same issue recently and came across the following MS support article: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2674684

This is assuming you're running the workflow timer on multiple servers and one of those doesn't have the web application service running.