Ulysses Ludwig’Blog

(See also http://www.sharepointassist.com/2009/01/08/sharepoint-workflow-failed-on-start-retrying/)

Problem

You’re developing a Windows Workflow Foundation (WWF) workflow and no matter what you do you get the Workflow “Failed on Start (retrying)” message.  In my case I debugged over and over again only to see the TaskCreate method throw an exception (that you can’t capture) and fail. 

Solution

Specify a token other than the default Workflow1 or top level token.  I like to use “task1, task2, or taskAdmin” or something of those sorts to organize my workflow tokens. 

Explanation

I believe the workflow fails because SharePoint can’t “callback” properly to the original task if that task is associated with a generic or top level token even if you have only one task in your workflow.  This is a common mistake and even after over a year of WWF development I still get caught here and there in my haste.

Workflow "Failed on Start (retrying) – again", 10.0 out of 10 based on 1 rating