Today, at our customer’s site, I needed to create a Workflow Process. When I first created the Workflow Process, it was successfully created and the included into the solution. However, when I wanted to edit the Workflow Process, I encountered an error. Since the development machine is shared across multiple Organizations, at first I thought this could be due to somebody importing a new solution or creating a new Organization.
I deleted the Workflow Process and tried to recreate it. However, this time even the creation of the workflow failed. CRM 2011 threw me the following exception: System.Xaml.XamlObjectReaderException
Unhandled Exception: System.ServiceModel.FaultException`1[[Microsoft.Xrm.Sdk.OrganizationServiceFault, Microsoft.Xrm.Sdk, Version=5.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35]]: System.Xaml.XamlObjectReaderException: Microsoft Dynamics CRM has experienced an error. Reference number for administrators or support: <a href="javascript:void(0)">#B3BF2554Detail</a>: <OrganizationServiceFault xmlns:i="<a href="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"">(link)</a> xmlns="<a href="http://schemas.microsoft.com/xrm/2011/Contracts">">(link)</a> <ErrorCode>-2147220970</ErrorCode> <ErrorDetails xmlns:d2p1="<a href="http://schemas.datacontract.org/2004/07/System.Collections.Generic"">(link)</a> /> <Message>System.Xaml.XamlObjectReaderException: Microsoft Dynamics CRM has experienced an error. Reference number for administrators or support: <a href="javascript:void(0)">#B3BF2554</a></Message> <Timestamp>2013-09-04T11:56:32.1920606Z</Timestamp> <InnerFault> <ErrorCode>-2147220970</ErrorCode> <ErrorDetails xmlns:d3p1="<a href="http://schemas.datacontract.org/2004/07/System.Collections.Generic"">(link)</a> /> <Message>System.TypeLoadException: Microsoft Dynamics CRM has experienced an error. Reference number for administrators or support: <a href="javascript:void(0)">#C9C21CAC</a></Message> <Timestamp>2013-09-04T11:56:32.1920606Z</Timestamp> <InnerFault i:nil="true" /> <TraceText i:nil="true" /> </InnerFault> <TraceText i:nil="true" /> </OrganizationServiceFault>
After some research on the web, I was hinted by the error code that this exception could be caused by a Workflow Activity programmed for CRM 4.0 and deployed to CRM 2011. I looked at the most recently added asset that was just deployed to our server. This asset indeed had a Workflow Activity as part of the solution’s deployment project that was not adapted to CRM 2011. After removing this Workflow Activity from CRM using the Plug-in Registration Tool, CRM 2011 operated normally again.