SharePoint 2013 Workflow Error: "To try again, reload the page and then start the workflow"

• Applies to:

  SharePoint Online

Symptoms

When starting a SharePoint 2013 Workflow, you encounter the following error message displayed in an alert:

Something went wrong. To try again, reload the page and then start the workflow.

If you select Settings (the gear icon), and then Site Settings > Workflow Settings > Workflow Health, the status shows as suspended:

Cause

This error occurs if SharePoint 2013 Workflows are in a suspended state for the current SharePoint site because one or more workflows exceed some limits.

Resolution

You can remove the current SharePoint site's suspension by removing SharePoint 2013 Workflows that have exceeded their limits. Use the Workflow Settings page, or delete workflows using SharePoint Designer.

The cleanup process isn't instant. It takes time and the Workflow Health switches to a Connected status when it's done:

We recommend removing SharePoint 2013 Workflows by using the Workflow Settings page.

You can identify the workflows to be removed by using the ShowScopeDebugInfo() function.

How to run the ShowScopeDebugInfo() Function

1. On the site that is having the Workflow problem, select Settings (the gear icon), and then select Site Settings > Workflow Settings > Workflow Health.

   • You can also access Workflow Health from a URL. Example URL: https://contoso.sharepoint.com/sites/test/_layouts/15/WorkflowServiceHealth.aspx - in this example, replace contoso with your domain, and test with the name of the SharePoint site.

2. Open the Developer tools from the browser (Microsoft Edge or Google Chrome is recommended).

   • For Microsoft Edge, press the F12 key to toggle open Developer Tools.
   • For Google Chrome, press Shift+CTRL+J to open Developer Tools.

3. Select Console.

4. Type the following function name: ShowScopeDebugInfo()

   • After typing ShowScopeDebugInfo(), press Enter. It executes a JavaScript function that prints the data in background.
   • Note The Workflow Service Health page needs to be refreshed to get updated data from ShowScopeDebugInfo. The information returned by ShowScopeDebugInfo isn't real time. There's a slight delay until the results are updated.

   

   Sample output:

   {
     "SupportDocument": "https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=847765",
     "ScopePath": "/spo/ec63b09b-9748-47ba-9018-beeadd405204/f19089ae-d6c6-4feb-be0b-ff4de40a04fc/88890858-ae38-407a-b1e7-152c7cff6fe5",
     "WorkflowEndpoint": "spo-dm3-001.workflow.windows.net",
     "WorkflowAppId": "i:0i.t|ms.sp.ext|5958c314-3699-407a-b142-2d459b5161c4@72f988bf-86f1-41af-91ab-2d7cd011db47",
     "IsThrottled": false,
     "ThrottledUntil": "",
     "ActiveMessageCount": "965436",
     "StatusDetails": "MaxTopicSize",
     "ScopeSizeInBytes": "6447069028",
     "MaxScopeSizeInBytes": "6442450944",
     "CorrelationFilterCount": "1851",
     "MaxCorrelationFilterCount": "100000",
     "ScopeUsageInfoAggregatedByWorkflow": [
       {
         "workflowName": "87effe93-5c6a-474d-8a72-0ef451ff0100",
         "workflowDisplayName": "ANewWF",
         "sizeInBytes": 0,
         "correlationFilterCount": 0
       },
       {
         "workflowName": "df26aa85-85a7-4466-a273-1775c9da38bb",
         "workflowDisplayName": "Neat2013ListWorkflow",
         "sizeInBytes": 52591272,
         "correlationFilterCount": 1827
       },
       {
         "workflowName": "fc7a63c5-ff72-42e5-87fd-3f2944f8a6ef",
         "workflowDisplayName": "Spec_Document_Approval",
         "sizeInBytes": 277327,
         "correlationFilterCount": 24
       }
     ]
   }
   

5. Take note of StatusDetails, in the output. If MaxTopicSize and MaxCorrelationFilter are present, it indicates the current SharePoint site suspended all SharePoint 2013 workflows. The Workflow Service Health page displays:

   Workflows are suspended

6. Once a Workflow or Workflows are removed, a cleanup process is started. You can track the progress by refreshing the Workflow Service Health page and executing the ShowScopeDebugInfo function. ActiveMessageCount, ScopeSizeInBytes, and CorrelationFilterCount will go down, depending on which limit was exceeded. ActiveMessageCount is the slowest and might take days to clear up, but it isn’t blocking. Once the core of the cleanup background job is done, the Workflow Service Health page will no longer display Workflows are suspended, and the StatusDetails will no longer have a value.

If you can't fix the issue by removing workflows, you might opt to open a support request. If you choose to open a support request, gather some additional information about the workflow health by using the ShowScopeDebugInfo() function. For more information about the ShowScopeDebugInfo() function, see Gather SharePoint 2013 Workflow troubleshooting data with ShowScopeDebugInfo.