Problem refering to a custom activity in a SharePoint 2013 workflow

Question

I have created a few custom activities to handle common tasks in a workflow. The activities are deployed in a separate sandbox solution from the workflows referencing them.
This has been working fine for a couple of months now, but suddenly I get an error when trying to activate the feature that provisions the workflow that refers to the custom activity (WriteMessage). The error is:
Error 1
Error occurred in deployment step 'Activate Features': Microsoft.Workflow.Client.ActivityValidationException: Workflow XAML failed validation due to the following errors:
Cannot create unknown type '{wf://workflow.windows.net/default/f0b36ec0-d40f-4df8-a99b-39f6dc4854a8/09e1bc2d-1cc8-4cff-ae22-32a52f54b685/$Activities}WriteMessage'. HTTP headers received from the server - ActivityId: ac291077-6536-4c63-b7b0-7701b6d29268. NodeId:
DKRDSSP15DEV03. Scope: /SharePoint/default/f0b36ec0-d40f-4df8-a99b-39f6dc4854a8/09e1bc2d-1cc8-4cff-ae22-32a52f54b685. Client ActivityId : e9d2bfd0-bb0e-4c28-bf55-8748368feb5b. ---> System.Net.WebException: The remote server returned an error: (400) Bad
Request.
   at Microsoft.Workflow.Common.AsyncResult.End[TAsyncResult](IAsyncResult result)
   at Microsoft.Workflow.Client.HttpGetResponseAsyncResult`1.End(IAsyncResult result)
   at Microsoft.Workflow.Client.ClientHelpers.SendRequest[T](HttpWebRequest request, T content)
   --- End of inner exception stack trace ---
   at Microsoft.Workflow.Client.ClientHelpers.SendRequest[T](HttpWebRequest request, T content)
   at Microsoft.Workflow.Client.WorkflowManagementClient.SendRequest[T](HttpWebRequest request, T content)
   at Microsoft.Workflow.Client.ActivityManager.Publish(ActivityDescription description, Boolean overwriteXClassName, Boolean terminateDependentInstances)
   at Microsoft.SharePoint.WorkflowServices.FabricWorkflowManagementClient.PublishActivity(String serviceGroupName, ActivityDescription activity, Boolean overwriteXClass, Nullable`1 terminateInstances)
   at Microsoft.SharePoint.WorkflowServices.FabricWorkflowDeploymentProvider.PublishActivity(FabricWorkflowManagementClient client, ActivityDescription activityDefinition, String serviceGroupName)
   at Microsoft.SharePoint.WorkflowServices.FabricWorkflowDeploymentProvider.<>c__DisplayClass5.<PublishDefinition>b__4()
   at Microsoft.SharePoint.WorkflowServices.WorkflowServiceContextExtensions.InvokeWithEcosystemRetry(WorkflowServicesContext context, EcosystemRequiredMethod method)
   at Microsoft.SharePoint.WorkflowServices.FabricWorkflowDeploymentProvider.PublishDefinition(WorkflowDefinition workflowDefinition)
   at Microsoft.SharePoint.WorkflowServices.WorkflowDefinitionStorageEventReceiver.PublishDefinition(SPItemEventProperties properties)
0 0
Vestas.SP.CMS.AlarmReports
I have tried creating a simple workflow using the custom activity, by referencing the sandbox solution. This works fine, if I create the simple workflow in a new project and deploys it and activate the workflow feature. However, if I create a similar simple
workflow in the original solution and omit the original workflows. Then I still get the above error when deploying / activating the workflow feature. 
How do I clean up my original project so it does not give me this error when deploying and activating the workflow feature?
best regards
Lars Kohsel
Best regards Lars Kohsel

Answer 1

Hi,
As the error still occur when you create a simple workflow in the original project, maybe some configurations have been changed in the project.
You can check with the new created project whether there are some difference configurations in the project.
There is a similar article for your reference.
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/cliffgreen/archive/2013/03/11/sharepoint-2013-workflow-deployment-errors.aspx
What’s more, you can also copy your original project code to the new project, then check whether it works.
If it works, the we can use the new project instead of the original project.
Thanks,
Jason
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