BP: Exception: ERROR: Internal : Execution Timeout Expired. The timeout period elapsed prior to c...

[PvD_Sweden]

Hi folks, long time no see!

Since a couple of months, we get this exception on almost all of our processes:
ERROR: Internal : Execution Timeout Expired. The timeout period elapsed prior to completion of the operation or the server is not responding. Operation cancelled by user.
Obviously, the process then terminates. However, most runs complete normally, but we have a few of these exceptions on various processes almost every day. The process is then rerun and ends without issues.

The exception above is exclusively thrown by any action withing the native BP object 'Work Queues'. We found it can be 'Get Next Item', 'Set Status', 'Marks as Exception', 'Mark Competed', or any other action within this object. We have not seen this exception on any other native BP object or indeed on our own local objects.

I found that a similar issue has been reported in this community before, and a link to the solution/workaround was provided. Unfortunately, the provided links are no longer valid.

When checking the server (VDI) we run our processes on, it was found that very little free disk space was available. Subsequently, a cleanup operation was started and now there's enough free disk space. This did however not solve the issue.

It was also suggested to avoid WorkQ Item collection data containing many columns and/or many rows. We don't have any of that. 

As a final solution, I was told to add a resume-recover-loop construct in order to handle exceptions on all BP object actions that are known to throw the exception. Obviously, we could try this but I think this will lead to more problems; the only thing to do if it fails repeatedly is to terminate - which is what we have today. Also, I feel it is a problem with either the network or with the BP object not the process - with my money of the BP object.

Oh, we're at BP 6.10.5 if that matters.

Any thoughts, ideas, tips, suggestions, workarounds or solutions? Anyone?

Happy coding!
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Paul
Sweden

[steven.boggs · Accepted solution]

Hi Paul,

Our primary guidance for the situation you describe is in our Knowledge Base article, "BPE error "The timeout period elapsed prior to completion of the operation or the server is not responding. Operation cancelled by user." when working with a large volume of Work Queue items" 

Typically, this error indicates a timeout was hit waiting for a response and can be caused by a lack of database maintenance. I understand you've looked into disk space issues and trimming Work Queue items already, but regardless of space available, the number of rows in certain BPE DB tables can cause performance issues leading to timeouts like you describe. As a next step, I'd suggest working with your DBA to obtain a Disk Usage by Top Tables report for your BPE DB, and examine the rowcounts of the tables mentioned in our maintaining a BPE DB guidance here. You could then request our example DB Housekeeping Scripts via a Support ticket, work with your DBA to alter/amend/modify them as needed, then implement them on a regular basis during your usual maintenance window to trim down data volumes to see if it helps with this scenario.

From a networking side, if you suspect there to be latency in the environment between components, the next time this issue occurs I'd suggest testing the connectivity using the guidance in our Testing for Network Connectivity Guide and working with your IT/Networking team to resolve any observed issues. 

As always, if you need additional assistance, please feel free to open a support ticket with us containing the necessary information for troubleshooting and we could help investigate further.

[PvD_Sweden]

Hi Steven,

Thanks, I'll pass that on to our BP tech department.

Happy coding!
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Paul
Sweden