Process Instances Start But Do Not Finish/Complete

Products

• Clarity PPM SaaS
• Clarity PPM On Premise

Issue/Introduction

Check the Administration > Processes > Instances page.
The events page queues up but instances that ran fine previously do not get processed.

The process instances are started but do not complete within it expected within seconds.

 

 

Environment

All Clarity Releases

Cause

The issue happens intermittently, typically after an upgrade/maintenance.

It is not due to a process logic issue as typically it did execute within a second after it launches.

 

Resolution

1. If the issue happens after an outage/maintenance/upgrade, review the start logic and step conditions and ensure that the conditions are met, however this is typically unchanged.

2. Obtain following dumps:

a. 3 thread dumps 5 minutes apart
b. Obtain heap dump on the BG service

3. Check for and obtain an automatic heap dump if it is produced from an out-of-memory issue.

Note: Typically the dumps do not reveal a particular action causing the BG process engine to stall other than confirming the CacheController has high retained heap size.

4. If there is an immediate need to have the process instances complete, restart the BG service running the process engine.

As each implementation is different, review the BG JVM configuration and bump up to a reasonable amount. 
Have Support review the current configuration and analyze what the JVM should be configured to.