On a Windows Server 2012 R2 server, running latest version of MIM 2016 on SPS Foundation 2013 with roll-ups; after editing the default Owner Approval workflow I started to get the following error when attempting to Join or Leave any groups with Ownership Approval:
Error details:
I cried, then I cried some more. Then I went and visited Mr. Google (What if Google was a Guy?) and stumbled upon this gem from the Technet forums that turned out to be the resolution… yes, it’s a FIM bug that’s still in MIM… not a feature 🙂
Error message from Event ID 3:
Microsoft.ResourceManagement.Service: System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
at Microsoft.ResourceManagement.Workflow.Hosting.HostActivator.ActivateHost(ResourceManagementWorkflowDefinition workflowDefinition, Boolean suspendWorkflowStartupAndTimerOperations)
at Microsoft.ResourceManagement.Workflow.Hosting.WorkflowManager.StartWorkflowInstance(Guid workflowInstanceIdentifier, KeyValuePair`2[] additionalParameters)
When a new approval workflow is created and approval activity is placed in this workflow it contains the following element in a XOML definition:
(…)
xmlns:ns1=”clr-namespace:System.Workflow.Activities;Assembly=System.WorkflowServices, Version=3.5.0.0 (…)
Above is from the standard approval workflow delivered with FIM that works out of the box, after editing the standard workflow or in any custom authorization workflow you create it changes to the following:
(…) xmlns:ns1=”clr-namespace:System.Workflow.Activities;Assembly=System.WorkflowServices, Version=4.0.0.0, (…)
…Editing the XOML in Extended Attributes and changing it back to 3.5.0.0 and saving the workflow resolves the issue. The bad news is it breaks again the next time you do any editing of the workflow 🙁
Details: