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

Question

_{Tuesday, April 9, 2013 5:00 PM}

Received this error (The workflow could not update the item, possibly because one or more columns for the item require a different type of information.) recently on a workflow that was working fine and no changes were made to the workflow.

I have tried a few suggestions, i.e. adding a pause before any ‘Update’ action (which didn’t help because the workflow past this action without incident); checked the data type being written to the fields (the correct data types are being written); and we even checked the list schema to ensure the list names and the internal names are aligned (they are), but we still cannot figure out why the workflow is still throwing this error.

We located the area within the workflow step where it is failing and we inserted a logging action to determine if the workflow would execute the logging action but it did not, but wrote the same error message.

The workflow is a Reusable Approval workflow designed in SharePoint Designer 2010 and attached to a content type.  The form associated with the list was modified in InfoPath 2010.  Approvers would provide their approval in the InfoPath form which is then read by the workflow.

Side note - items created after the workflow throws this Unknown Error some seem to be working fine.  We have deleted the item in question and re-added it with no effect.  Based on what we were able to determine there don’t seem to be any consistency with how this issue is behaving.

Any suggestions on how to further investigate this issue in order to find the root cause would be greatly appreciated?

Cheers

All replies (16)

_{Monday, April 15, 2013 8:52 PM ✅Answered | 3 votes}

Any chance your update is trying to update an item in another list that is locked?

I've got a workflow that throws this error. I'm updating a master count list, and sometimes, not often, I've got multiple items in one list, running this same workflow, trying to update a single item in another list at the same time. If the system is busy, the workflows don't run at the same time so I rarely get the error. When the system isn't busy, it's more likely the workflows run at the same time - one locks the record, one errors out.

Robin

_{Wednesday, April 10, 2013 6:28 AM}

Hi,

I understand that the reusable workflow doesn’t work properly now. Have you tried to remove the Update list item action to see whether the workflow can run without issue?

If the workflow runs perfectly when the Update list item action is removed, then you need to check whether there are errors in the update action. Check whether the values have been changed.

Thanks,

Entan Ming

Entan Ming
TechNet Community Support

_{Wednesday, April 10, 2013 12:28 PM}

Hi Entan -

Tried what you suggested with no success, i.e. removing the 'Update' action. However, I should add that the workflow actually pasted the 'Update' action.  We added a 'Pause' action which seem to do the trick but throw the same error after the Pause completed.  Moving the 'Pause' action down the workflow actions allowed the workflow to execute the other steps then it break again but this time it started throwing the same error with having executed any of the action.

As I mentioned in my original post items posted after this error first occurred ran fine.  It's like the workflow runs on some items and breaks on others and the ones it breaks on we cannot seem to find any difference.

Any other suggestion would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks Entan.

Cheers

_{Wednesday, April 10, 2013 12:50 PM | 1 vote}

I got this a few times on one of my workflows and it was a number of things that was causing it.

The first was that when I was using the "Update List Item" option in the workflow, the type was set to String when it should have been Number. That was one case.

Another was that I had an Impersonation Step at the wrong point in my workflow. This impersonation step was removing permissions from the creator once it was submitted. However, they had to update a list item after this and that obviously wasn't working. The same error was thrown for this so I just moved the impersonation step to a different location.

No problems since!

_{Wednesday, April 10, 2013 1:59 PM | 1 vote}

Anything listed in the ULS Logs under the Category "Workflow Infrastructure"?  Sometimes they will give you an idea of which field is throwing the error.  Also, is check in/checkout being used?  Did this get recently turned on?  Make sure you are checking out items that need to be checked out before updating, and then check them in afterwards.  Also, are you ensuring that all required fields are filled in when updating?

_{Wednesday, April 10, 2013 5:48 PM}

Yeah check the ULS logs and they were not helpful in identifying where the issue might be occurring.

_{Thursday, April 11, 2013 2:21 AM | 1 vote}

Hi,

Can you create a new reusable workflow same as the existing one to see whether it works. Or create a list workflow with the same actions to see whether this error is related to workflow type.

Thanks,

Entan Ming

Entan Ming
TechNet Community Support

_{Thursday, April 11, 2013 6:46 PM}

Hey Entan - we are considering this option.  However, since I can attached the Workflow to another list and it works it might be an issue with the current list.

Thanks

Cheers

_{Sunday, April 14, 2013 5:54 PM}

Please check the diffrence between column type between this lists on which it works and which it does not works. there will be some diffrence with respect to column type.

If this helps Please mark it answer or Vote As Helpful.

Thanks

Siddharth Vaghasia

_{Monday, April 15, 2013 3:26 PM}

Hey Saddharth – the columns in the list are included in the Content Type associated with Reusable workflow meaning we designed a custom content type to hold the workflow and its associated columns.  So there is consistency between the list columns and when we did our initial investigated we check these and they were fine.

Plus I kicked of the same workflow last Wednesday on an item in the list and the workflow ran fine, but when we action the workflow on another item in the same list it failed.

We are also seeing this issue/error appearing for other workflows for example out Global Approval workflow (created in SPD) started throwing the same error today.  It was working fine last week.  This workflow is associated with a document library.

Any who any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated

Cheers

_{Monday, April 15, 2013 6:43 PM | 1 vote}

Did you open workflow in SPD again and checked whether referenced columns name are intact or does it have some junk character like $ListName.$columnName. We faced similar issue when any changes to content type was changing workflow design.

If this helps Please mark it answer or Vote As Helpful.

Thanks

Siddharth Vaghasia

_{Monday, April 15, 2013 6:49 PM}

We used both SPD and PowerShell to check the columns.  We even went as far as checking the internal columns names to ensure they are still intact with the columns names and the are.

_{Friday, April 19, 2013 10:57 AM}

Hey Robin -

Our workflow is updating the Task list with 'Assigned To' task but we added Pause statements to these to see it this would help but it was unsuccessful.

We are now having this issues on another workflow copied from the Globally Reusable 'Approval- SharePoint 2010' workflow.  It's throwing this error on the 'Logging' action;  we added a 'Pause' action but that did not resolved the issue.  We removed the 'Logging' action and it throws this error on the next workflow Action.

At this point we are looking at bring this to Microsoft.  Once we do and this is resolved I'll update this thread.

However, any other suggestion would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers

_{Tuesday, July 23, 2013 8:44 PM | 1 vote}

Make sure you are not crossing 255 character limit of column value while updatiing the item, if column type is of hyperlink/single line

_{Wednesday, May 14, 2014 2:56 PM}

OMG, thank you. I had been tearing my hair out trying to figure out why my workflow would fail intermittently and it never occurred to me that the text I was trying to update was too long.

_{Thursday, July 20, 2017 1:34 PM}

I found issue of this error in my case: I was create required fields with already existing records and not fill it.

This case error occurs, because I cannot to update (save) the record with not filled required fields. Issue resolved by filling this fields.