ECN workflow stuck at manager approval step after upgrade to tc-12.3

PLM Teamcenter
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1

After upgrading from tc-11.6 to tc-12.3, our ECN workflows are getting stuck at the manager approval step. The workflow advances through initial reviews fine, but when it reaches the approval event for managers, it just stops. I’ve checked the workflow engine logs and see events queuing up but not processing. The approval event appears to be registered but nothing triggers. This is blocking critical release cycles for multiple product lines.

Workflow status shows:


Workflow State: ACTIVE
Current Task: Manager_Approval
Assigned To: engineering_mgr_group
Event Status: PENDING

Has anyone encountered similar workflow-engine issues after tc-12.3 upgrade? The event-queue seems backed up and approval-event handlers aren’t firing.

2

Look at your event action handlers in the workflow template. We discovered that some of our custom event actions weren’t compatible with the tc-12.3 workflow-engine API changes. The event-queue would receive the approval-event but couldn’t execute the associated actions. You might need to update your custom handler implementations to use the new API methods. Check the upgrade guide for deprecated workflow engine methods.

3

I had a very similar workflow-stuck issue after our tc-12.3 upgrade and spent days troubleshooting. The problem turned out to be multi-faceted, involving all three key areas you mentioned.

Workflow Engine Configuration: First, verify your workflow engine threading settings in site.xconf. TC-12.3 changed default thread pool sizes:


wt.workflow.engine.maxThreads=25
wt.workflow.engine.queueCapacity=500

Increase these if you have high workflow volume.

Approval Event Handler Registration: The approval-event subscription mechanism changed. You need to re-register custom handlers. Check EventSubscription objects:


QuerySpec qs = new QuerySpec(EventSubscription.class);
QueryResult qr = PersistenceHelper.manager.find(qs);
// Verify your approval event subscriptions exist

If missing, recreate them through workflow template re-deployment.

Event Queue Processing: The event-queue processing was refactored in tc-12.3. Clear any stale events first:

  1. Stop workflow engine service
  2. Run database cleanup script for orphaned workflow events (check Teamcenter admin guide section 8.4)
  3. Verify event listener configuration in wt.properties:

wt.events.default.QueueCapacity=1000
wt.events.default.ThreadPoolSize=10

Critical Fix: The main issue was event handler class loading. TC-12.3 uses a different classloader hierarchy. If you have custom approval handlers, ensure they’re in the correct codebase location and referenced properly in your workflow template XML. Update the handler class references to use fully qualified names.

Approval Task Assignment: For the Manager_Approval task specifically, verify the participant resolver is working. Test with:


WorkflowProcess process = // get your stuck process
WfAssignedActivity activity = // get Manager_Approval activity
Enumeration participants = activity.getParticipants();
// Should return valid principals from engineering_mgr_group

After making these changes, restart the workflow engine service and test with a new ECN. For stuck workflows, you may need to manually advance them or restart from a previous checkpoint.

The combination of updated thread pool settings, re-registered event handlers, and cleared event-queue should resolve your blocking issue. Monitor the MethodServer logs during workflow execution to catch any remaining event processing errors.

4

We had this exact issue. The problem was with event subscription priorities. After the upgrade, our custom approval event handlers had conflicting priorities with the default handlers, causing the event-queue to stall. We had to update the subscription priorities in the workflow template XML and restart the workflow engine service. Make sure your custom handlers aren’t blocking the default approval-event processing.

5

Another thing to verify is the approval task assignment logic. In tc-12.3, the group resolution for approval tasks changed slightly. If your engineering_mgr_group has nested groups or dynamic membership, the workflow engine might be having trouble resolving who should actually receive the approval-event notification. Check the participant resolver configuration and make sure the group structure is compatible with the new version’s requirements.

6

Check if the workflow engine service is running properly. Sometimes after upgrades, the event processing threads don’t restart correctly. You can verify this in the server manager console. Also look at the workflow engine configuration properties - there might be threading or queue size limits that need adjustment for tc-12.3. The approval-event handlers require specific thread pool settings.