GitHub Actions run stuck queued with zero jobs, cannot cancel or rerun

[farlaw]

🏷️ Discussion Type

Bug

💬 Feature/Topic Area

Other

Discussion Details

Our GitHub Actions workflow has been stuck in queued status with zero jobs since November 11, 2026, at 20:18 UTC.

Details:

• Repository: farlaw/career-os
• PR: https://github.com/farlaw/career-os/pull/211
• Workflow run: https://github.com/farlaw/career-os/actions/runs/43095277294
• Commit: 21dead74142e24bf3ac996d3d1408e92d62a150d
• Status: queued, conclusion: null, jobs: 0

What we've tried:

1. Verified that GitHub Actions is enabled and the workflow configuration is valid.
2. Confirmed that no competing workflow runs or concurrency limits are blocking execution.
3. Found a $0 Actions budget with usage blocking enabled and deleted that budget.
4. Confirmed that the account still has unused included Actions allowance.
5. Attempted to cancel the run. GitHub returned conflicting errors, including HTTP 409.
6. Attempted to rerun the workflow. GitHub responded: "This workflow is already running."
7. Retried after the reported GitHub Actions incident was resolved. The same error persisted.

Expected behavior: The workflow should start executing jobs, or GitHub should allow us to cancel and restart it.

Actual behavior: The run remains permanently queued with zero jobs and cannot be canceled or rerun.

Questions:

• Is this a known issue related to the November 11 GitHub Actions incident?
• How can we safely clear this stuck run?
• Is there a way to trigger a fresh check without modifying source code or bypassing required CI checks?

Any guidance would be appreciated.

[erkangcmn]

Yes, this looks like the Nov 11 incident. Your run was created at 20:18 UTC, right inside the window where GitHub had an incident affecting Actions and Pages (https://www.githubstatus.com/history). Runs that got queued during that window were left orphaned: no jobs were ever created, so they stay queued forever. Several other people hit the exact same thing at the same time (#212743, #212754, #212795), with the same 409 on cancel.

Clearing the stuck run: you can't do it yourself. Cancel returns 409, and re-run says "already running" because the run never actually left the queue. Only GitHub Support can clear it. Open a ticket at https://support.github.com (Actions) and include the run ID 43095277294, the repo, and the time it was created.

Getting a fresh check on the PR without touching the code: you don't need to wait for support for this. Either of these triggers a new run:

• Push an empty commit to the PR branch. It doesn't change any files:

  git commit --allow-empty -m "Re-trigger CI"
  git push

• Or close and reopen the PR. If your workflow uses on: pull_request with the default types, reopened triggers a new run.

The new run reports its own check on the latest commit, so the required check gets satisfied normally. Nothing is bypassed. The orphaned run is tied to the old commit (21dead7), so once the PR head moves it no longer blocks the merge.

If the new run also gets stuck in queued, then it's not just the incident leftover, and the support ticket is the way to go.

[farlaw]

@erkangcmn Thanks! An empty commit triggered a fresh Actions run, which passed and unblocked our PR. The original run is still stuck in queued. Appreciate your help!