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Symptoms

When starting the workflow editor in Task Types, Task Type Detail, Workflow or when clicking on a workflow in the Project's Task Overview, it takes a long time (20 seconds to several minutes) to start the workflow editor.

Meanwhile, you see any of following:

• Java symbol spinning or just java.com
• A white page (or a WebCenter page with the middle white)
• a dialog saying that it fetches data
• A warning message: "Unresponsive script"
• The page from where you come shining through the new page

Solution

The problem is mostly that, starting the workflow editor is slow. This is caused due to variety of effects:

• The workflow editor is a Java applet. For this to work, your client computer needs to:
  
  • Start Java. If it's not started yet, this can take anywhere between a few seconds and 20-30 seconds (the latter typically on old computers or on computers with heavy virus scanning). Java only needs to start up once on your computer after a reboot (or after a Java update). 
  • Start the Java applet. This is the piece of code running the functionality you see. The applet is fetched from the server so this speed is dependent on your network connection to the server. This can take again between a few seconds and 10 - 30 seconds on slower network connections. Once the applet has run in your browser, it is cached, so the next time it will start faster (also depending on your caching choices). 
• The workflow editor is a powerful application which needs a lot of data for its working. This data must be fetched from the server. The speed of this is again very dependent on the network connection speed. Also the server itself plays a role. 
• We have seen some incompatibilities where the browser seems to have trouble loading the applet correctly. This is seldom.
• In some cases, the applet or browser are waiting for your input (unresponsive script warning or Java run warnings at the top of your screen).

The best approach is:

• Look around on the screen (and sometimes also 'behind it' if a pop-up was masked by another window) for requests for your input. In many cases this is a strip at the top of your screen asking whether it's ok to run the Java applet. Confirm this (otherwise you'll wait for ever). If you get a warning "Unresponsive script", click Continue. Do not click Stop script as this will not end with a useful user interface. 
• Once you are sure nothing is waiting for you, just wait long enough (can be up to 2 minutes).  Mostly, things start moving and the applet loads correctly. 
• If after three minutes you still don't have the workflow editor running: try again or switch to another browser. 
  • When trying again, it's best to completely close your browser (not only the tab in which you run the workflow applet). 
• If that is not working either, check whether the server is responsive on other pages. You might have lost your network connection or the server is no longer responsive. Run the Troubleshooting tool.
• If this problem persists, check the compatibility matrix for Java versions and browser versions in the following knowledge base articles:
  

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