Workflow runs stuck in "Queued" with no jobs: cancel returns 409, delete returns 403

[DonnyBoy1980]

🏷️ Discussion Type

Bug

💬 Feature/Topic Area

Actions Runner

Discussion Details

Category: Actions

Two runs in a private repository have been stuck in "Queued" for more than a day. Neither run ever created a job.

What I've tried:

1. "Cancel workflow" button on the run page: no change.
2. POST /repos/{owner}/{repo}/actions/runs/{run_id}/cancel: "Cannot cancel a workflow run that is completed."
3. POST /repos/{owner}/{repo}/actions/runs/{run_id}/force-cancel: HTTP 409, "Cannot cancel a workflow run that has not been queued yet."
4. DELETE /repos/{owner}/{repo}/actions/runs/{run_id}: HTTP 403. There is no delete option on the run page either.

Context:

• Both runs were started manually (workflow_dispatch).
• The workflow's single job uses a deployment environment and the ubuntu-24.04-arm hosted runner.
• Runs of the same workflow before and after these two started and completed normally.
• Support closed my ticket because my plan includes self-service support only.

Questions:

• Is there any way for a repository owner to clear runs in this state?
• Do runs like this eventually expire on their own, and if so after how long?
• Could they ever start later on their own, and is there a safe way to make sure they never do?

Thanks for any pointers.

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[kittimzhe]

Your three observations together are the exact signature of the orphaned-run family (documented across #209225, #210429, #211761): the run object was created, but no scheduler entrypoint ever picked it up — so "cancel: run is completed" (nothing to stop), "force-cancel 409: not queued yet" (literal — it never entered the queue), and zero jobs forever. This variant does not self-heal; the self-healing variant is the "job finished but run stuck in_progress" one, and your case isn't that.

Since it's a private repo nobody outside can verify the runs, but the documented cleanup path is time-gated rather than permission-gated: a workflow run can be deleted once it's completed or older than two weeks. For runs stuck since "more than a day," that clock is already running — at the two-week mark from each run's created_at: DELETE /repos/{owner}/{repo}/actions/runs/{run_id}. Before deleting, export the evidence if you want it for a report (GET …/actions/runs/{id} and …/jobs — deletion is irreversible).

One reassurance meanwhile: orphaned runs don't block newer ones — if you need the workflows to run now, trigger them again (push or workflow_dispatch); the new runs get their own queue entries.