Workflow Fails to Compile and Publish in SharePoint Designer 2010

Question

The SharePoint install is a SP2010 install on a 2008 R2 server. Everything is fully patched. I am running the SP Designer on the SharePoint Server directly.

I have a workflow which is intended to send an email when a new document is created in a custom list. I have deliberately kept the workflow very simple in order to illustrate this problem.

After creating this single step workflow in SP Designer, I click "Check for Errors" and SP Designer reports "The workflow contains no errors".

I then click "Publish" but the Workflow Error dialog is displayed with the message

Errors were found when compiling the workflow. The workflow files were saved but cannot be run.

Clicking the advanced button reveals more information:

Could not publish the workflow because the workflow configuration file contains errors

Any suggestions gratefully received

Solution 1

After doing a clean install of the OS and SharePoint, workflows are working flawlessly. I can only conclude that the problems were caused by left over registry settings from MOSS 2007. Thanks for the suggestions that people made.

Solution 2

I'll share what fixed it for me - deactivating all workflow features at the site collection level (that is, Workflows, Three-state workflow, Publishing Approval Workflow) and then reactivating the features. I was then able to publish my workflow. This post helped, not sure whether this only works for 365 though, but it's sure worth trying first if you are considering a reinstall.

Comments

[Nigel Ainscoe]

Thank you for your reply. I had seen the article you referred to but I am not authenticating over HTTPS so I had not tried this. I have now tried clearing the cache but this didn't help. Given that I cannot find anyone else with this problem and that the server previously hosted a MOSS 2007 I am going to re-pave the server completely and try with a clean install.