SharePoint Designer Workflow Gotcha

When creating workflows in SharePoint designer, you may have already come across this error:

"You specified identical destination filenames for some of the files you are trying to copy. Make sure all of the destination files have unique names and try again."

Not very helpful however, especially to someone who is new at this…

You can ignore the error, and the workflow will run if you have it setup to automatically trigger when a new item is created, or an existing item has changed, however, you will be unable to manually start the workflow, and you will be returned with a blank screen in your browser, with the "Old URL" url in your address bar, for example:

https://wss.company.com/_layouts/spsredirect.aspx?oldUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fwss%2Ecompany%2Ecom%2Fdev%2Fsite1%2FWorkflows%2FWorkflow%25201%2FWorkflow%25201%2Easpx%3FList%3D7c376e76%2Dc5ba%2D4bd0%2Da97a%2D610e94299b4d%26ID%3D2%26TemplateID%3D%7Bf579fe37%2Dae14%2D4c00%2Da2b9%2D8f7f59f618dd%7D%26Source%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fwss%252Ecompany%252Ecom%252Fdev%252Fsite1%252FLists%252FNew%252520Employees%252FAllItems%252Easpx

That’s even more helpful… not even a generic error.

Have no fear – here comes the explanation…

This error occurs when you have a page that is created (such as creating an Assign To-Do Item action) for the workflow, when it has the same name as the workflow itself, in my example shown below, both the workflow, and the Assign To-Do Item action have the same name of Workflow 1

Now – the fix is quite easy. Just change the name of the task from Workflow 1 to something else, such as Workflow 1 Task

And if you click Finish, the error should no longer appear, and if you check the workflow directory in SharePoint Designer, you can see that the ASPX files for the Assign To-Do Item action have been created with their new name, as there is no longer a conflict.