Maximum Workflow depth in Ms Dynamics CRM 2011/2013 or how according to Microsoft infinite = 8

There is an inbuilt protection against infinite loops in workflows in Dynamics CRM:

This workflow job was canceled because the workflow that started it included an infinite loop. Correct the workflow logic and try again.

Unfortunately the error will be trigger even if there are no infinite loops. This is because the check to determine whether a workflow is in an infinite loop relies on the maximum execution depth, which by default is set to 8.

This means that if you have a chain of workflows/plugins that exceeds this number you will get the above error, which can be confusing as it might leave you trying to work out how are your workflows/plugins, getting into an infinite loop.

The solution is to increment the Maximum Workflow depth, which can be done from PowerShell, like this:

Add-pssnapin Microsoft.crm.powershell -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue 

$workflows = Get-CrmSetting -SettingType WorkflowSettings 

$workflows.MaxDepth = 12 

Set-CrmSetting $workflows

We ended up using 12 as we have long intricate (potential) chains of workflows, I think it never goes higher than 10 but better safe than sorry.