Failed to register because the farm is already registered with a workflow service

In this post, we will explain how to solve the “Register-SPWorkflowService: Failed to register because the farm is already registered with a workflow service” issue in SharePoint Workflow Manager. Also, we’ll learn how to Reregister SharePoint Workflow Manager Service.

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Failed to register because the farm is already registered with a workflow service

In SharePoint 2016, I tried to rerun the Register-SPWorkflowService cmdlet on a farm that already has the Workflow Manager installed and registered!

My goal is to reregister SharePoint Workflow Manager Service! but the SharePoint workflow manager service is failed to register, I got the below error:

Error: Register-SPWorkflowService: Failed to register because the farm is already registered with a workflow service.

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How to Reregister SharePoint Workflow Service?

Firstly, to reregister workflow manager service on the SharePoint farm, you should do the following:

1. Delete the Workflow Service Application Proxy.
2. Run the Register-SPWorkflowService cmdlet on the server that you have the workflow manager installed.

Delete the SharePoint Workflow Service Application Proxy

• Open Central Administration.
• Below “Application Management“, click on “Manage Service Applications“.

• Select the “Workflow Service Application Proxy“.
• From the above ribbon, Click on “Delete“.

Run the Register-SPWorkflowService cmdlet

• Using a farm account or workflow admin account, Log in to the server that you configured the workflow manager on it.
• Run SharePoint Management Shell as Administrator.

• Register the SharePoint Workflow Manager service by running the below cmdlet with your own value.

Register-SPWorkflowService -SPSite 'http://sitecollectionurl' -WorkflowHostUri 'http://site:12291' -AllowOAuthHttp -force

• The workflow manager service should be registered successfully now and the “Failed to register because the farm is already registered with a workflow service” is gone!

• After registering the SharePoint Workflow Service properly, you should follow the SharePoint Workflow Manager Health Checklist to make sure that the Workflow Manager has been configured correctly.

Register Register-SPWorkflowService Known Issues

Below are also known Issues that you may face when you run Register-SPWorkflowService.

• The HTTP request has timed out after 200000 milliseconds.
• Failed to query the OAuth S2S metadata endpoint at URI.
• The Caller doesn’t have the necessary permissions required for this operation.
• Register-SPworkflowservice unable to connect to the remote service at Workflow Manager 2016.

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Conclusion

In conclusion, we have learned it’s not allowed to rerun the “Register-SPWorkflowService” cmdlet on a farm that already registered with the workflow service.

Additionally, we have learned

• How to Reregister SharePoint Workflow Manager Service,
• How to solve “Failed to register the workflow manager because the farm is already registered with a workflow service.

Applies to

• SharePoint 2019.
• SharePoint 2016.
• SharePoint 2013.
• Workflow Manager.

You might also like to read

• Configure Workflow Manager for SharePoint 2016.
• Configure Workflow Manager for SharePoint 2013.
• Workflow Manager: HTTP 403 Forbidden.

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