We had an interesting one today. One of my developers was having a problem creating a new SharePoint 2013 workflow with SharePoint Designer 2013. We were able to create the workflow, but when SharePoint went to fetch the workflow actions from the server, nothing else happened - the workflow was not created. SP2010 workflows worked fine.
The solution: For some reason, a DLL was missing from the 15 hive on the server - in this path:
C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\Web Server Extensions\15\TEMPLATE\WorkflowActivities
there should be a DLL:
Microsoft.SharePoint.WorkflowServices.Activities.dll
For whatever reason, that DLL was not in the folder. It was in the GAC, oddly enough. Once we copied the DLL from another server into the above folder, IISResetted, cleared the Designer cache, the workflow was able to be created.
Other things we tried that didn't help:
1) Re-registerWorkflow Manager
2) Removed Workflow Manager from the SharePoint server, then installed it on a separate smaller footprint server.
3) Re-registered Workflow Manager with non-SSL
4) Used Fiddler to see what was going on
The clue was in one message in the ULS logs - several OOTB features were missing:
Feature definition with id 00bfea71-c796-4402-9f2f-0eb9a6e71b18 not
found. [WebPageLibrary]
Feature definition with id 065c78be-5231-477e-a972-14177cc5b3c7 not
found. [BizAppsListTemplates]
Feature definition with id 00bfea71-5932-4f9c-ad71-1557e5751100 not found.
[IssuesList]
Feature definition with id 7201d6a4-a5d3-49a1-8c19-19c4bac6e668 not
found. [MetaDataNav]
Feature definition with id 0806d127-06e6-447a-980e-2e90b03101b8 not
found. [PremiumWeb]
Feature definition with id 00bfea71-4ea5-48d4-a4ad-305cf7030140 not
found. [WorkflowHistoryList]
Anyway, once that DLL was copied over - didn't have to GAC it or anything - all was well once again.
