GitHub Actions run stuck queued with zero jobs and HTTP 409

[Valad092]

🏷️ Discussion Type

Question

💬 Feature/Topic Area

Other

Discussion Details

A GitHub Actions workflow run has been stuck in queued for many hours, with zero jobs. Both the standard cancel and force-cancel endpoints return HTTP 409 with the message:

Cannot cancel a workflow run that has not been queued yet.

The workflow troubleshooting guide describes this state and points to GitHub Support. Is there a supported way for someone without direct technical support to have the existing run reconciled or cancelled while preserving its record and avoiding a second run?

[aungzayyanaing]

Short answer: no, there is no supported user-side way to cancel that run — and the 409 message tells you why.

What the 409 means

Cannot cancel a workflow run that has not been queued yet means the run record exists and shows as queued in the UI, but no jobs were ever created for it internally, so there is nothing for cancel to cancel. This is not a permissions problem (that would be a 403) or a wrong run ID (that would be a 404).

That is why both endpoints refuse it:

• POST /repos/{owner}/{repo}/actions/runs/{run_id}/cancel
• POST /repos/{owner}/{repo}/actions/runs/{run_id}/force-cancel

force-cancel is for a run whose jobs are stuck after a normal cancel, not for a run that never got any jobs. Retrying either endpoint, or retrying from the UI, will keep returning 409 until the run's internal state changes, which only GitHub can do.

There is also no way to remove the run yourself

GitHub has no supported way to delete a workflow run — there is no delete-run API or UI action, only a delete-logs endpoint. So the record will stay in the run history; the goal is to get it reconciled to a terminal state (cancelled), not deleted.

The supported route, including on a free account

GitHub Support is not limited to paid plans. Anyone can open a ticket at support.github.com — select GitHub Actions — and that is the route the troubleshooting guide is pointing to. Include:

• The run URL and run ID, the repository, and the workflow file
• When the run was created (in UTC) and that the jobs list is empty
• The exact 409 response from both the cancel and force-cancel endpoints
• Confirmation that you have not created a second run for the same work

Support can reconcile the run server-side. Before filing, check GitHub Status (githubstatus.com): if an Actions incident is active, that is the underlying cause, and the run may start or become cancellable once it is resolved.

Avoiding a second run

You cannot both get the work done now and avoid a second run. If the work is urgent, start a fresh run with workflow_dispatch or a new push, and accept that you will have two run records for the same work — only do that if the workflow is safe to run twice. If a single clean record matters more than speed, wait for Support to reconcile the stuck run first.