SharePoint - Pause for Duration (DelayActivity) SharePoint Designer

Asked By Panter

16-Jul-07 08:04 AM

Hi,

I have created a Workflow in SharePoint Designer with a Pause for Duration
action set to 1 min. The workflow fails to continue and the status stays
'Pausing for 1 Minute'. I know it is a know issue, but on the W2003 SP2
(production server) the following patches were installed:
NetFX30-KB932394-X86.exe and NetFX30-KB929816-X86.exe obtaining zero results.

Does anyone have an idea what could be happening or how to fix the issue?

Thanks,
Edgardo

31-Jul-07 12:44 PM

After installing KB932394, my workflows would rehydrate, but the
intervals aren't as short as I would like.  With a delayactivity of 30
seconds, SharePoint dehydrates it and schedules it for rehydration in
60-90 minutes.  Try this query on your content database:
select workflow.Id, Modified, Status1, scheduledworkitems.DeliveryDate
from workflow inner join scheduledworkitems on scheduledworkitems.Id =
workflow.Id

The deliveryDate may be set to a different time zone.  Also, keep in
mind that the workflow job runs by default only every 5 minutes
(stsadm -o getproperty -propertyname job-workflow -url http://mysiteurl).

01-Aug-07 04:15 PM

This problem seems to have been an issue with time not being
synchronized between servers on the SharePoint farm and one server
being 60-90 minutes ahead of the others.  Now that our server admin
has set the farm to synchronize time between servers, the DeliveryDate
is being set properly in the content database and my 30 second delays
go off in 5 minutes as expected.

03-Aug-07 08:28 AM

Hi,

thank you for your post. I will check the server times and I will post here
the results. We only have 1 SQL2000 Server and the MOSS Server. We've set the
workflow job to 1 minute, but it just will stay paused forever (1 workflow
already more than 2 weeks). I will appreciate it, if you have more ideas.

07-Aug-07 10:36 AM

Hi,

As promised my results. Unfortunately, the deliveryDate is set correctly
(i.e. 1 minute after the scheduled workitem was created). The servers (only 1
MOSS server and 1 SQL2000 server) are synchronized. The problem persists.

I ran out of ideas and I am running out of time. Any suggestions are really
welcome.

15-Aug-07 03:38 PM

Pantera, I have the same problem, only I didn't yet check the times on
my servers, time zones, etc..
I found two other threads on msdn and tech tips where others are
having the same problem.
Bad news is that I / anyone else has not found a solution yet.

Jonathan

16-Aug-07 02:42 PM

So far, I've gotten feedback from 7 other developers (in forums) who
are having the same problem where this update (Hotfix) is not working
correctly for the Workflow delay activities, specifically Windows
Server 2003 SP2 (anybody have problems on different platform?)



So, I called MS support this morning and they transferred me to .NET
support team.  Apparently it is a Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0 issue
(Artical ID: 932394).  They took down my information and informed me
that due to the overwhelming popularity of SharePoint, that it would
take 10-20 days until they could get back to me.  OY!



So, I am going to look into other options /checks such as:

Uninstalling .net 3.0
creating a SP Designer workflow to see if I can something to work
until the delay is fixed. (maybe crack it open to see what delay(s) it
uses...)
Install VS 2005 SP1
find an alternative to delay (maybe System.Timer, etc..).
One person suggested to make sure your timezone is set on SP and SQL
server, but I checked that and all is good.


I will keep everyone updated if I find anything, but until then, we're
in a jam.



Regards,

Jonathan K. Herschel

08-Sep-07 09:19 AM

Check this link out for response from Microsoft regarding this known
issue and possible workarounds.
http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=2000437&SiteID=1

- Jonathan