Unable to load workflow actions from the server

Roll into work and a coworker alerts me to the fact that our SharePoint 2010 workflows are not flowing.  When I tried to open any workflow, I was receiving this error:
Unable to load workflow actions from the server….

unable to load workflow actions from the server

I cracked open Fiddler, opened SharePoint Designer, then tried to open a workflow.

On the left side of Fiddler, you will see a bunch of actions, look for one line that turns red and click on it.  In the right window, you should see the error.

example:
soap:ServerException of type ‘Microsoft.SharePoint.SoapServer.SoapServerException’ was thrown.Failed to find the XML file at location ‘14\Template\Features\MissingFeature\feature.xml‘0x80131600……..

So I opened one of my WFE servers and navigated to the folder:
C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\TEMPLATE\FEATURES\MissingFeature

Sure enough, the feature folder in question was missing. To get the missing feature folder, I opened my app server and copied over the missing folder to my WFE servers. No iisreset needed.

8 thoughts on “Unable to load workflow actions from the server

  1. I was running into the same thing. I downloaded Fiddler2 and installed it, had to get it to decrypt the https traffic, but sure enough it identified a missing feature. I had to remove the feature a few days before to perform a service pack update on the server, copied over the files and it started working again. Great find.

  2. You my friend are a genius! Saved me a full reinstall of SharePoint!! Thanks again.

  3. This worked a treat ive used fiddler before, didnt think to look at using this for SPD !! sorted my issues, been a day of SharePoint errors!

  4. Fiddler can come in real handy when working with SharePoint!
    Not only working with SPD, but to monitory page loads and slow dependencies.

  5. Thank you very much

    note:
    if you can not use Fiddler to get the missing feature
    just search in ULS Logs with SoapServer keyword to know the name of the missing features

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