FME Flow Troubleshooting: Job Runs on Workbench, but not FME Flow

Introduction

Can you run a workspace successfully in FME Workbench, but it’s failing in FME Flow (formerly FME Server)? Please read below for some common troubleshooting tips, questions, and resources.

Initial Troubleshooting

• Have you reviewed the job log file for errors and/or warnings?
• Have you verified that the workspace is identical between FME Form and FME Flow?
• Can you run the workspace on FME Form on the same machine as FME Flow?
• Do all relevant datasets, file paths, web/database connections, etc., exist?
• Does the FME Flow User have permission to access the relevant resources?
• Can you run other jobs on FME Flow, such as from the Samples repository? Does the job work in Schedules or Automations? If yes to both of these, please review the following troubleshooting guide.
• Does your network allow access to and from your workspace's web services and databases?
• Do you have a distributed installation of FME Flow? Does the job work on one Engine host but not another? (You can use queue control to route the job to specific Engines for testing)
• Have you tried restarting FME Flow?

Common Issues

Please review these troubleshooting suggestions for jobs failing on FME Flow but succeeding on FME Form.

“The workspace and parameter values used in FME Form and FME Flow aren’t identical.”

To ensure the workspace and parameter values are the same, republish the workspace to FME Flow and submit the job using the same parameter values. If you’re using web or database connections, verify that the credentials match the connections you’re using on FME Workbench and FME Flow. Also, verify that your OAuth web services use the same app ID and secret.

“Mismatched version between FME Form and FME Flow.”

Confirm that your version and build of FME Form match with FME Flow. We strongly advise using the same build to avoid compatibility issues. We cannot provide additional support for users using mismatched versions.

Note that multiple versions of FME Form can be installed side-by-side, and older versions of FME can be found in our FME downloads (Past Versions). Please review the following guide.

Also, verify that the readers and writers in the workspace were not added in a newer build than your current FME version. To check the build, open the workspace in FME Workbench, go to the Navigator, and hover your mouse over the reader/writer. To update the build, right-click the reader/writer and click “Update Reader/Writer…”, select the “Update Reader/Writer…” option, and click OK.

“You’re encountering issues accessing data or a path in a mapped drive or UNC path.”

Please review the following guides to troubleshoot this issue:

• Workspace fails when reading/writing data on a Mapped Drive
• Workspace fails when reading/writing data through a UNC Path

“The following error occurs when attempting to access a web or database connection: Unauthorized request by user due to lack of proper permissions”

This error indicates that the user or token being used to submit the workspace to run has not been granted access permissions to the connection(s) being used within the workspace. Please refer to the following troubleshooting article.

“The FME Flow services are running under an account that doesn’t have permissions to access relevant datasets.”

If you’re running your FME Flow services with a service account, ensure the account has adequate permissions to all relevant directories and network drives. Please review Testing Account Permissions for FME Engine Service for more information.

If you’re running the FME Flow Engine with a service account and have workspaces with SQL Server readers/writers (with Windows Authentication), the Engine will access SQL Server as the service account. Ensure the service account has all required permissions to interact with SQL Server.

“A network firewall or configuration is blocking FME Flow’s ability to connect to web services, databases, and/or the internet.”

Ensure that your firewall configuration, ports, load balancer, and proxy settings are all correct to allow connections across your network and/or to the internet.

“For ArcGIS-related jobs, the configuration and licensing of your ArcGIS software and/or FME Flow is not complete or incorrect.”

When a workspace using Esri formats succeeds on FME Form but fails on FME Flow, check the following:

• To use ArcGIS applications with FME Flow, please review Using FME Flow with Esri ArcGIS Software.
• Ensure the correct Esri Python version has been selected in the workspace scripting parameters.
• If the issue still occurs after verifying the above, please contact Safe Support.

“A web connection stopped working after some time, but works after being republished.”

Most OAuth web services use access tokens that expire after some time and must be refreshed. Token refreshes can be done automatically by configuring the web service with an app and a redirect URI.

Creating an OAuth 2.0 Web Service and Connection in FME details how to set up OAuth connections in general.

“There’s a reprojection error when converting between NAD27 and NAD83 datums.”

You may encounter an error like this: "Could not reproject the geometry of the preceding feature: Reprojector: Could not create reprojection engine". Please review this article.

“There are errors when running a workspace using a Python script.”

Please review the following guides for common issues on FME Flow related to Python scripts.

• No module named arcpy
• FME Flow Troubleshooting: Python

For more information about working with Python on FME Flow, see Using Python with FME Flow.

“The TextStroker isn’t working on FME Flow Hosted, but it works on FME Form.”

The TextStroker uses system fonts, and Windows and Mac OS have a wider and different selection of fonts than Ubuntu (which FME Flow Hosted runs on). It's likely the font you're attempting to use isn't available on Ubuntu. As a workaround, you can select a font similar to Ubuntu.

“Other differences may exist in your FME Flow environment compared to your FME Form host.”

• Please review the following factors that may be different between your FME Form and FME Flow environments to make sure everything is as consistent as possible:
• For missing package errors such as “Python Exception <ModuleNotFoundError>: No module named ‘fmepy_<package component>’”, please review the following guide.
• Different/missing drivers or third-party client libraries (i.e, Python packages/interpreters, Oracle client, ODBC driver, JAR libraries, bindings file)
• Environment variables (i.e, PYTHONHOME)
• System encoding or locale
• Timezone of where the FME Flow Engines are installed
• Missing custom reader/writer formats, custom transformers, coordinate systems, or grid shift files
  • See Publishing Custom resources to FME Flow
• Other third-party software or anti-virus may be interfering with the job

Known Issues

Several known issues exist where a feature works correctly on FME Form but not on FME Flow. Many of these issues are eventually fixed. Please review the known issues article to see if your issue has been discovered and if a fix has been released.

Are you still experiencing issues?

Please consider posting to the FME Community Q&A if you are still experiencing issues not addressed in this article. If your issue is unresolved, you can also submit a support ticket.

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