Still struggling with creating a SP 2013 workflow in Visual Studio. I have removed some of the things in my workflow so I can see at what simplicity level that it starts to work. The latest exception I got in the log upon feature activation failure, is this:
Unexpected System.InvalidOperationException: Microsoft.Workflow.Client.ActivityValidationException: Workflow XAML failed validation due to the following errors:Cannot create unknown type '{http://schemas.microsoft.com/netfx/2009/xaml/activities}Variable({clr-namespace:Microsoft.SharePoint;assembly=Microsoft.SharePoint}SPListItem)'. HTTP headers received from the server - ActivityId: a57f9961-7a15-433b-b079-faecb987a4d7.
NodeId: CLTOWAAZW01. Scope: /SharePoint/default/f88d077e-525c-4c30-8fb1-855c9978e605/f975309f-5787-4997-b1d3-4b770b8d1238. Client ActivityId : a02ef59b-a183-8080-10aa-8d0356156221. ---> 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.Http... af48f99b-b1b0-8080-10aa-88ea8cd0059f
01/28/2013 13:14:35.36* w3wp.exe (0x19EC) 0x348C SharePoint Foundation Runtime tkau Unexpected ...GetResponseAsyncResult`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.Fabr... af48f99b-b1b0-8080-10aa-88ea8cd0059f
So there was a variable of type SPListItem. However, just to see if the feature could be activated, I removed the variable and subsequent places where it's used, and it still gave the very same error. What exactly is it complaining about?
Maybe 6 months from now I'll laugh that I even had to ask this, but right now, the complete lack of documentation and samples (I know there are OBSOLETE samples) is extremely frustrating. I even contacted our MSFT rep, who said he'd check internally,
but so far no new information.