How do you track down Workflow Errors in SharePoint 2013?

Question

I recently set up SP 2013 to use workflows and I created a custom workflow in SPD 2013 that basically creates tasks and sets the items status when those tasks are completed. The problem is as soon as the workflow is started, either by changing an item or the workflows page, the workflow is cancelled with the following error:

RequestorId: 8eccd8bc-e1c8-a54e-d4cb-1ae01280b9a6. Details: System.ApplicationException: HTTP 401 {"Transfer-Encoding":["chunked"],"X-SharePointHealthScore":["0"],"SPClientServiceRequestDuration":["12"],"SPRequestGuid":["8eccd8bc-e1c8-a54e-d4cb-1ae01280b9a6"],"request-id":["8eccd8bc-e1c8-a54e-d4cb-1ae01280b9a6"],"X-FRAME-OPTIONS":["SAMEORIGIN"],"MicrosoftSharePointTeamServices":["15.0.0.4420"],"X-Content-Type-Options":["nosniff"],"X-MS-InvokeApp":["1; RequireReadOnly"],"Cache-Control":["max-age=0, private"],"Date":["Mon, 25 Mar 2013 19:11:46 GMT"],"Server":["Microsoft-IIS/8.0"],"WWW-Authenticate":["NTLM"],"X-AspNet-Version":["4.0.30319"],"X-Powered-By":["ASP.NET"]} {"error":{"code":"-2147024891, System.UnauthorizedAccessException","message":{"lang":"en-US","value":"Access denied. You do not have permission to perform this action or access this resource."}}} at Microsoft.Activities.Hosting.Runtime.Subroutine.SubroutineChild.Execute(CodeActivityContext context) at System.Activities.CodeActivity.InternalExecute(ActivityInstance instance, ActivityExecutor executor, BookmarkManager bookmarkManager) at System.Activities.Runtime.ActivityExecutor.ExecuteActivityWorkItem.ExecuteBody(ActivityExecutor executor, BookmarkManager bookmarkManager, Location resultLocation)

I have seen Why does a workflow cancel with "access denied" for all but users with Full Control accesse? but it does not apply as I have full rights for the site and I am starting the workflow.

I also verified that starting an empty workflow that does nothing gets the same "Access Denied" error when it is initiated.

This error is rather generic, is there any way to get more information as to what account is having the issue and what permissions/resource it needs access to?

Answer 1

This ended up being a permission for the user initiating the workflow though they had permissions to edit the entire site adding them to the site with edit permissions (directly and not through an AD group) fixed the problem.

There isn't much out there for tracking down bugs with workflows, this is the best resource I have found so far: http://ranaictiu-technicalblog.blogspot.com/2013/03/sharepoint-2013-workflow-debugdiagnosis.html

Answer 2

Activate site feature Workflows can use app permissions

Site actions > Site Settings > Site features > Workflows can use app permissions

Answer 3

You won't get much debugging help in SPD2013. Best you can do is add a lot of Write to History activities along the way to see how far the workflow got before failing. THis is one area where VS2012/2013 excels over SPD.

Answer 4

You needs to give permission to workflow app on your site collection or web please take look into following link. its working.

http://www.fabiangwilliams.com/2014/06/19/gotcha-on-sharepoint-designer-workflows-in-app-step/