But you are changing the definition. As I mentioned before, "version" attribute means nothing to jBPM5. So, if you put a new process definition with the same id that an already existing process, all the persisted process instances will use it (the new one). The "version" attribute doesn't matter.
The problem is what the documentation refers as "updated process" or "new version". In reality there is no update, it is just a complete different process what you have , even if one is based on the other.
Summarizing:
- 1 id -> 1 process definition. THE VERSION DOESN'T MATTER.
- When a process instance is loaded from the DB, a process definition with the same id as the id referenced by the process instance is taken from the kbase. If you have change the definition, then the process will use it. If you didn't migrate it using the API provided by jBPM, errors could occur.
- You can "logically" update a definition y adding a new process with a new id and:
- Migrating all existent process instances to e this new process id
- Letting the existing process instances to continue with the old definition (old id) and start the new processes using the new version new id)
- Abort all the existing process instances and re-start them using the new version (new id).