Stop running process instance

Camunda 7 Topics Discussion & Questions
1

Hi,
We are using custom message API (via REST) to kick off job, there is a businessKey attribute used to identify the entire job. There was case earlier when the request somehow didn’t end up spawning the external task, but from the cockpit is showing there is a process instance running. Is there a way to stop/kill that process instance since it’s not doing anything? I don’t see a way doing so from the cockpit UI.
Normally when something wrong happened, it will turn into failed tasks, which then user (in this case me) can perform action (i.e. retry/cancel) via Camunda Tasklist, but not this case. Any idea? I hope I don’t need to update the data in mysql to get rid it. Thanks!

2

Hi @z123,

you can cancel a running process instance in the process instance view. See our docs for details: https://docs.camunda.org/manual/7.7/webapps/cockpit/bpmn/process-instance-view/#cancel-a-process-instance

Does this help to answer your question?

Cheers,
Mat

3

Hi, thanks for the answer. The job was completed after I left it for a while, it looks like something was bad happening at that time. However, it is good now. Also, thanks for the docs link.

4

Hi, just want to mention additional finding here, I actually don’t see a way to cancel the process instance from the Dashboard. I do see Suspend button though. I wonder if it is because we don’t use Enterprise edition of Camunda, hence the feature is not available?

5

Hi @z123,
are you on the process defintion view or on the process instance view of the instance you want to cancel?

Cheers,
Mat

6

Hi Matthijs, you are right!
On process instance view, I can see the Cancel button, so likely I looked at process definition view.
One thing I noticed is when I navigating to particular process instance, and on dashboard below the bpmn diagram (the one with a few tabs: ‘Process Instances’, ‘Called Process Definitions’, ‘Job Definitions’, ‘Process History’, and ‘KPI’), then I click ‘Process History’ tab, and I’d think it only shows process history for this particular process instance only, but it actually list all process instances, including the old ones, which to me is somewhat confusing.

Then I click one process instance from that list, and it shows another list below (with columns are: Task, Type, Assignee, Start Time, End Time, and Duration). Do you know where are the strings shown in Task and Type columns are coming from? For example, the one showing in Type column is startEvent, messageStartEvent, intermediateMessageCatch, etc.)
Thanks a lot!

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