GitLab Pipeline Stuck on Pending

How to fix it

Try these in order — the most common fix is first.

1. 1. Check which runners the project can use

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   1. Go to Settings > CI/CD > Runners.
   2. Confirm at least one runner shows a green online dot.
   3. Offline runners: restart with sudo systemctl restart gitlab-runner and check journalctl --unit=gitlab-runner.service -n 100 --no-pager.
   Did this fix it? Yes No

2. 2. Match job tags and runner tags

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   1. Compare the tags: list in the job with the tags on the runner.
   2. Either remove the tags from the job or edit the runner and tick "Run untagged jobs".
   Did this fix it? Yes No

3. 3. Check protected and locked settings

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   1. Edit the runner and see if "Protected" is on; then only protected branches and tags can use it.
   2. Locked runners are tied to a single project, so enable them for yours.
   Did this fix it? Yes No

4. 4. Check shared runner quota and verification

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   1. On GitLab.com open Settings > Usage Quotas to see compute minutes.
   2. Free accounts must add a credit card (a $1 authorization, not charged) before shared runners work.
   3. Buy more minutes ($10 per 1,000) or register your own runner.
   Did this fix it? Yes No

5. 5. Know when GitLab drops the job

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   1. Pending jobs with no matching runner fail after 1 hour; with matching but busy runners after 24 hours.
   2. Retry the pipeline once the cause is fixed.
   Did this fix it? Yes No

Symptoms

Job shows "This job is stuck because the project doesn't have any runners online assigned to it" or sits in Pending for a long time.

Why it happens

• Job tags in .gitlab-ci.yml do not match any online runner
• Runner is offline or the gitlab-runner service stopped
• Runner set to tagged jobs only while the job has no tags
• Runner is protected-only but the branch is not protected
• Out of compute minutes on GitLab.com shared runners
• No credit card on file for free GitLab.com shared runners

This guide also covers

• gitlab pipeline stuck pending
• this job is stuck because the project doesn't have any runners online
• gitlab ci job pending forever
• gitlab runner tags stuck

Other GitLab errors

• GitLab Permission Denied (publickey) Error
• GitLab Runner Not Picking Up Jobs
• GitLab "HTTP Basic: Access Denied" on Push or Clone
• GitLab "You Are Not Allowed to Push Code to Protected Branches"
• How to Resolve GitLab Merge Conflicts
• GitLab "No More Compute Minutes" or CI Minutes Quota Exceeded
• GitLab Pipeline Not Running or "yaml invalid"
• Why Is GitLab So Slow?