# Unable to serialize object in variable

**URL:** <https://forum.flowable.org/t/unable-to-serialize-object-in-variable/3158>\
**Category:** Flowable Engine\
**Created:** [January 2, 2019, 9:34pm UTC](https://forum.flowable.org/t/unable-to-serialize-object-in-variable/3158 "2019-01-02T21:34:33Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 4

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![joram](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex035/user_avatar/forum.flowable.org/joram/32/26_2.png) [@joram](https://forum.flowable.org/u/joram)\
**Post date:** [March 4, 2019, 8:48am UTC](https://forum.flowable.org/t/unable-to-serialize-object-in-variable/3158/4 "2019-03-04T08:48:53Z")

</div>

> [@jeff.gehly](#):
>
> So the problem now is, how do I maintain the capability to deserialize after a server upgrade? I can’t just kill flowable and rebuild it every time. This is a nuclear option that works in development but is untennable for production. Is it a matter of the JARs, that i need to make sure the appropriate JARs are included for backwards compatibility?

The problem is indeed that serialization can change slightly between JDK versions. The alternative is to not rely on serializable objects, but to store the variables in a format that is not prone to these changes, for example by transforming the object to a json variable (JsonNode) and back.

---

_[View the full topic](https://forum.flowable.org/t/unable-to-serialize-object-in-variable/3158)._