GitHub Pages deployment stuck in Queued with zero jobs; cancellation briefly worked, but re-run became orphaned again

[lucasdemrodrigues]

🏷️ Discussion Type

Bug

💬 Feature/Topic Area

Workflow Deployment

Discussion Details

Hello,

I am experiencing what appears to be an inconsistent/orphaned GitHub Pages workflow run on a public GitHub Pages repository.

Repository: lucasdemrodrigues/lucasdemrodrigues.github.io
Workflow: pages build and deployment
Run: #73
Run ID: 33138328916
Branch: main
Commit: 1750a331f90facea11e95087957bed122df46ec5

The site itself is still online and serving the previous successful deployment (#72). The problem is that newer content from main cannot be published.

What originally happened

Run #73 was triggered for commit 1750a331f90facea11e95087957bed122df46ec5.

The build completed successfully, but the Pages deployment failed while trying to create the deployment, returning an HTTP 500/server error.

After attempting to re-run the failed workflow, the run entered an apparently inconsistent state:

status: queued
conclusion: null
jobs: []

The GitHub UI would then return:

Failed to cancel workflow

The run remained in that state for approximately 24 hours.

Interesting behavior after ~24 hours

On August 29, I tried cancelling the workflow again through the GitHub UI. This time the cancellation unexpectedly succeeded.

The API then correctly reported:

status: completed
conclusion: cancelled

updated_at: 2026-08-29T03:27:11Z

At this point, the stuck state appeared to have been cleared.

I then requested a single re-run of the failed workflow, without changing any repository files or creating a new commit.

GitHub accepted the re-run request successfully.

However, immediately afterward, the same run returned to the inconsistent state:

status: queued
conclusion: null
run_started_at: 2026-08-29T03:31:52Z
updated_at: 2026-08-29T03:31:52Z
jobs: []

I then attempted to cancel it again through the GitHub UI, but once again received:

Failed to cancel workflow

Why this looks inconsistent

The workflow is reported as queued and has a populated run_started_at, but the jobs endpoint returns zero jobs.

It therefore does not appear to be a normal workflow simply waiting for a GitHub-hosted runner.

The fact that the run could eventually be cancelled, but immediately returned to the same queued + jobs: [] state after GitHub accepted a re-run request, also suggests that retrying the workflow does not resolve the underlying problem.

I have intentionally stopped creating additional commits or repeatedly re-running the workflow because I do not want to create more queued Pages deployments while the state is inconsistent.

Current situation
Previous Pages deployment (#72): successful
Production site: still online
Current main: contains the desired update
Run #73: queued
Conclusion: null
Jobs: []
Cancellation through UI: fails
Re-running after a successful cancellation reproduced the problem

Could GitHub staff please investigate whether this run or its associated Pages deployment is stuck/orphaned in the Actions/Pages backend and clear any stale deployment/concurrency state associated with the repository?

I would also appreciate guidance on whether it is safe to trigger a fresh Pages deployment after the stuck state has been cleared.

Thank you.

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