Workflow could not update the item - Unknown Error

Question

I'm using SharePoint Designer 2010 with a List workflow and I'm receiving the following error.

Description: "The workflow could not update the item, possibly because one or more columns for the item require a different type of information."

Outcome: "Unknown Error"

In order to determine which line exactly was causing this issue, I added logs in different places, including the first line. However, the workflow doesn't even attempt to start, or at least the first comment does not appear in the WF history.

I then added a "Pause for 1 min" at the beginning and this appears in the history log, but then the same error is shown.

Any ideas what can I do in order to determine the cause of this error?

Answer 1

I was finally able to fix it. It was indeed an error when trying to populate a column. More precisely, a SharePoint group has been renamed. But the main problem was I wasn't able to find exactly where the problem was as the workflow history wasn't working. What I had to do in order to make this work, was to Pause the workflow after every Log. Once I added this, then the logs began to appear in the workflow history. Hope this helps someone!

Answer 2

Some columns might received data of different data type than the expected one.

Example: Number type column receiving a text and this will create an error.

You must search for the different column...

maybe your workflow has modified any data type, check this too.

Answer 3

My issues appears to be related to item-level permissions that our workflow applies. When using the Replace List Item Permissions Action you need to use an Impersonation Step that runs as the workflow author/last modified user.

However, despite being a Site Collection Administrator, this didn't seem sufficient. Instead I added myself to an Owners group that is given explicit permission to the list item and it appears to work now.

This is a partial record from the ULS log:

SharePoint Foundation           Legacy Workflow Infrastructure  72fe    High        Error in commiting pending workflow batch items: System.UnauthorizedAccessException: <nativehr>0x80070005</nativehr><nativestack></nativestack>     at Microsoft.SharePoint.SPGlobal.HandleUnauthorizedAccessException(UnauthorizedAccessException ex)