Workflow appears stuck running after jobs have finished or been canceled

Overview

You may see a workflow duration timer keep running in the CircleCI UI even after the underlying jobs have finished or been canceled. The workflow can still look active when nothing is actually executing.

This is a known inconsistency between the UI and the true workflow state. It does not mean compute is still running, and it does not mean you are being billed for the stuck timer.

How to confirm the true state

Use the CircleCI v2 API to verify whether the workflow is still active:

Get a workflow’s jobs
Confirm that none of the jobs are actively running. In a small number of cases, a job may still show as "running" even though all steps have completed.
Get a workflow
If the workflow has completed, the response will include a stopped_at value. This can be true even when a job still appears “running” in the UI.

A completed workflow may look like any of the following:

"stopped_at": "2026-07-03T13:06:57Z",
"status": "not_running"
"stopped_at": null

If the API indicates the workflow has completed (including when "stopped_at": null is present as described above), the stuck timer is a UI inconsistency and nothing is still executing.

If needed, you can also cancel again via the API:

Cancel a workflow
Cancels are limited to builds from the last 3 months.

You may also cancel individual jobs with:

Workflows that use serial groups

If the stuck workflow uses serial groups, select Release Serial Group in the UI.

After releasing, wait at least one day. When many serial groups are in flight, unlocking them can take a while. Avoid repeatedly releasing or canceling while that process is underway.

Billing and credit usage

Check usage in the Insights usage dashboard.

Compute minutes shown in the UI can look inflated when the timer keeps ticking. Credit usage should still line up with other comparable builds. CircleCI bills based on actual compute time, not the stuck UI timer.

If Insights does not show unexpected credit use, you can treat this as a UI display issue and ignore the running timer.

When to contact Support

If after checking the API the workflow still looks truly active and Insights shows unexpected credit use, contact Support for further assistance.

For serial-group cases, wait at least a day after using Release Serial Group before opening a ticket, unless Insights shows unexpected credit use sooner.

Additional Resources