1.)    Your user has at least edit permissions on the list
2.)    Your current user has a user profile
a. Navigate to Central Administration -> Application Management -> Select the User Profile Service -> Select manage User Profiles -> Search for your account -> if an account is found you should be fine
3.)    Make sure you are not creating/starting the workflow as the SharePoint Setup/Install account or a System Account
4.)    User Profile Service Application is running
5.)    You are able to complete a full synchronization of the User Profile Service
a. Make sure the User Profile Synchronization Account has replicate directory changes in Active Directory
6.)    Last but not least is an IIS reset
a. An IIS reset will drop existing connections to your web server for a few seconds. It is recommended to do this during non-business hours.

SharePoint 2013 workflows created with SP Designer would cancel automatically with an internal status of ‘Canceled’ while SharePoint 2010 workflows worked just as expected.


This account needs to have at least contribute permissions to the Workflow History list (a hidden list that can be accessed through SP Designer). So here’s my solution:

• Navigate to the site that the workflow is on in SharePoint 2013 Designer.
• Go to All Files -> Lists
• Right click on Workflow History
• Select Properties
• Click on Permissions for this list under the ‘Customization’ section (This should open up the edit permissions page in the browser)
• Break inheritance on this list by selecting Stop Inheriting Permissions in the new opened browser window
• Use the check box next to the appropriate group (probably the visitors group) to select the group that needs updated permissions
• Select Edit User Permissions
• Grant the group ‘Contribute’ permissions
• Select OK

1. Close SPD2013
2. Delete everything at %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WebsiteCache
3. Delete everything at %APPDATA%\Microsoft\Web Server Extensions\Cache
4. Go to SPD2013 options –> General –> Application Options –> Uncheck the “Cache site data across SharePoint Designer sessions”

Probable solution/findings to verify:

1. Generally occurs with send email functionality in workflow.
2. Check outgoing email settings for the farm are correct.
3. Disabled firewall on the Exchange/SMTP server.
4. Check App management service is running, UPA is set up and  completed sync such that the user running the workflow has a profile.

1) Workflow end point returning the xml- This indicates wf is configured properly
2) Workflow published with Site admin account
3) User profile up and running
4) Workflow published account was coming in user profile search(verified from central admin)
5) No Logging in workflow(Just only one statement in workflow)