Resolving Halted, Halting, Waiting, or Interrupted Business Processes

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A business process in a Halting, Halted, Interrupted_Man, or Interrupted_Auto state requires immediate attention because the business process stopped processing.

Business processes remain in a halted or interrupted state until some action is taken on the business process. Business processes that fail receive a state of Halted, which enables you to take manual corrective action without the business process being archived or purged.

When you notice a halted or interrupted business process, you have two options:
  • Terminate the business process.
  • Restart the business process.
When you notice a business process in a waiting state, you have three options:
  • Allow the business process to remain in the waiting state if it is waiting on one of the following:
    • Resources
    • A service or activity that is disabled, but will be enabled
  • Terminate the business process.
  • Restart the business process.
The following sections show how to diagnose and resolve issues with halting, halted, waiting, or interrupted business processes:
  • Symptoms of Halting, Halted, Waiting, or Interrupted Business Processes
  • Causes of Halting, Halted, Waiting, or Interrupted Business Processes

Symptoms of Halting, Halted, Waiting, or Interrupted Business Processes

Symptoms of an increasing number of business processes in a halting, halted, waiting, or interrupted state may include:

  • Slow system performance

    For more information on resolving a slow system, refer to the topic Slow System: Symptoms, Causes, and Resolution.

  • The database is getting full or having performance issues.

    For more information on resolving a database issues, refer to the topic Full Database Issues and Resolution.

  • Business processes complete with errors, which places them in a halted state.
  • Business Process Usage report shows an increasing number of business processes in a halted, halting, waiting, or interrupted state.

Causes of Halting, Halted, Waiting, or Interrupted Business Processes

Causes of an increasing number of business processes in a halting, halted, waiting, or interrupted state may include:
  • System, business process, or activity schedules are disabled. For example, if a business process requires an output from, or access to, a different service or business process that is scheduled to work, but the schedule is not turned on, this places the business process in a halted or waiting state.
  • System errors. For example, Java™, JVM, out of memory errors, or operating system errors may cause a business process to halt or be interrupted. Check your business process logs for causes of the halted or interrupted business processes. If the logs show JVM errors, Java errors, or operating system errors, review your operating system documentation for resolutions.
  • Improperly designed business processes. For example,
    • Using the Wait service in a business process for time periods of less than one minute, instead of using the Sleep service. This can cause a business process to be placed into a waiting state instead of an active state, until the Wait service completes.
    • Using Produce and Consume services instead of the Invoke Subprocess service to invoke subprocesses. Using Produce and Consume services places a business process into a waiting state, waiting for the Produce service to create the document and for the Consume service to use the document.
  • Sterling B2B Integrator stops running. For example, your site experiences a power outage and you must restart Sterling B2B Integrator after power is restored. Your business processes at the time of the power outage may be in halted, interrupted, or waiting states after the recovery operations run, depending on the activities being completed at the time of the outage.
To determine the cause of an increasing number of business processes in a halting, halted, waiting, or interrupted state:
  • Review the Business Process Usage report on the Operations > System > Troubleshooting page. This report shows the number of business processes in the different states. You can click the number next to the state to view detailed information about the process, which may help troubleshoot any problems.
  • Review applicable system and business process schedules to verify that they are turned on. For example, if you notice many business processes are halting and each of these business processes is dependent on the schedule of another business process or service, this indicates that the scheduled business process or service may not be turned on.

  • Review the Performance Statistics report for information related to the business process execution times. Increasing execution times for key business processes or activities may indicate that a business process is not efficiently designed, or that a resource leak may have occurred.

    For more information about the Performance Statistics report, refer to the topicTurning On and Turning Off Performance Statistics.

  • Review appropriate log files in the Operations > System > Logs page. The following log files may provide troubleshooting information:
    • archive.log – Provides information about successful and unsuccessful archiving and purging activities.
    • wf.log – Provides information about business process states, errors, and processing.
    • Adapter and service logs – Provide information on specific adapter or service activities and errors.
    • system.log – Provides information about the general system.
    • noapp.log – Provides information about ASI (application server-independent) activity. Review business processes to verify that they are effectively designed to meet your business needs.