Hi dietl@nbsp.de,

This behavior is expected since version 7.13.0.

With CAM-10978 the following was changed:

1. The HistoricProcessInstanceStartEvent is now fired first.
2. The variables are set (see: PvmExecutionImpl line 276 ).
3. The HistoricVariableUpdateEvent instances are fired.

This leads to the execution having no variables when the HistoricProcessInstanceStartEvent is processed. Previously, the HistoricProcessInstanceStartEvent event was fired after the variables were set and their HistoricVariableUpdateEvent instances fired.

This refactoring was done to ensure correct ordering of the Historic events, i.e. a HistoricProcessInstanceStartEvent is fired before any HistoricVariableUpdateEventEntity instances are fired.

Can you describe why it is important for the variables to be available in the execution with the HistoricProcessInstanceStartEvent?

Best,
Nikola

Hi Nikola,

thank you for the explanation. 

We need to get informed when certain processes are started with certain variables. Until 7.12, HistoricProcessInstanceStartEvent did this job perfectly fine.

Is there another/better approach for achieving this in the Java API? 

Hi dietl@nbsp.de,

At this time, I am not aware of a better approach to achieve what you are describing.

One idea is to have a listener on the HistoricVariableUpdateEventEntity that would collect the process variables by process instance id. Once all the required variables are detected, you get informed.

Would this work?

Best,
Nikola

dietl@nbsp.de, I'm closing this ticket due to inactivity. If you have any more information, feel free to ping me and I'll reopen it.

Best,
Nikola

Hi Nikola,

thanks for the suggestion. The HistoricVariableUpdateEventEntity event gets called for every single variable. How would I be notified when all variables are collected? 

Besides that, I would have to implement something (maybe threadsafe) to store the variables so I can push them once I got informed that the request is complete - all in all, this seems a little bit overkill for an in my opinion quite basic requirement, which has already worked.

Hi dietl@nbsp.de,

Thanks for the ping. I'll have a more detailed look by next week and provide you with feedback.

Best,
Nikola

Hi dietl@nbsp.de,

I agree with what you described, implementing a workaround to obtain the same behavior would be overkill, and I don't see any other way to do it.

I will adjust the ticket description with the information from the comments and forward it for scheduling/decision.

Best,
Nikola

Hi dietl@nbsp.de,

I'm writing to let you know that I changed this ticket to a feature request. The reasons were the following:

• the new behavior is expected.
• The old behavior was never guaranteed or documented that you can already see variables in the HistoricProcessInstanceStartEvent.
• The ticket describes a request to have an Event Entity that provides variables.

Best,
Nikola

Hi dietl@nbsp.de,

I adjusted the Feature Request according to our ticket template.
Please let us know if that description does not yet reflect what you would like to achieve.

We will consider this ticket for the next prioritization rounds.
This does however not yet mean we will work on this in the near future.
We will update here accordingly when we make decisions.

In case you would like to speed up the inclusion of this feature, you are welcome to contribute to the platform repository by opening a pull request.
If you would like any pointers to get started, feel free to reach out.

Best,
Tobias

This ticket was migrated to github: https://github.com/camunda/camunda-bpm-platform/issues/2615. Please use this link for any future references and continue any discussion there.