The runner has received a shutdown signal CI/CD Origin: Build & delivery Last updated 25 Oct 2026

GitHub Actions: The runner has received a shutdown signal. This can happen when the runner service is stopped, or a manually started runner is canceled

The machine running your job was shut down or reclaimed while the job was running — a self-hosted runner stopped, a spot instance was preempted, or the host ran out of resources.

Exact message you may see The runner has received a shutdown signalThis can happen when the runner service is stopped, or a manually started runner is canceledThe operation was canceled. runner shutdownrunner received a shutdown signal
Explore the map of this error Full error map →
Seen on: GitHub Actions Linux

Meaning

For GitHub-hosted runners this is rare and usually transient (re-run). On self-hosted or autoscaled runners it means the runner process or VM was stopped: a deployment of the runner, an instance reclaim, a Ctrl+C on a manually started runner, or resource exhaustion that killed the service.

Common causes

  • Self-hosted runner process or service stopped/restarted
  • Spot or preemptible instance reclaimed by the cloud provider
  • Host out of memory or disk, so the runner agent was killed
  • Autoscaler scaling down while a job was running
  • Manual cancel of a runner started in a terminal

⚡ Quick fix

  1. Re-run the job (transient)
  2. For self-hosted: run the runner as a service and check journalctl for restarts
  3. Disable scale-in while jobs run; use on-demand instances for long jobs

Detailed fix by platform

Linux

  1. sudo journalctl -u 'actions.runner.*' --since "1 hour ago" and dmesg | grep -i -E "killed process|out of memory"

GitHub Actions

  1. Use ephemeral runners with a termination grace period or runs-on a larger hosted runner for heavy jobs

How to diagnose

  1. Runner — Hosted or self-hosted?
  2. Host — Reclaimed, rebooted or out of memory?
  3. Pattern — Always at the same step?

🔧 Still not fixed?

Many errors look alike. If the steps above didn’t solve it, one of these is probably what you’re facing:

Where this error sits

Origin: Build & delivery. Errors that are often confused with or caused by this one (click to open):

API rate limit exceeded — GitHub Actions: HttpError: API rate limit exceeded for installation ID 123456 / secondary rate limit (CI/CD)API rate limit exceed…Cache not found / Unable to reserve cache — GitHub Actions: Cache not found for input keys: npm-Linux-abc123 / Failed to save: Unable to reserve cache with key, another job may be creating this cache (CI/CD)Cache not found / Una…Credentials could not be loaded — GitHub Actions: Error: Credentials could not be loaded, please check your action inputs: Could not load credentials from any providers (CI/CD)Credentials could not…exceeded the maximum execution time — GitHub Actions: The job running on runner GitHub Actions 12 has exceeded the maximum execution time of 360 minutes (CI/CD)exceeded the maximum …No space left on device (runner) — GitHub Actions: System.IO.IOException: No space left on device — the runner's disk is full (CI/CD)No space left on devi…Process completed with exit code 137 — GitHub Actions: Error: Process completed with exit code 137 (Killed — out of memory) (CI/CD)Process completed wit…runner registration token invalid — GitLab CI: ERROR: Registering runner... failed runner=abc status=couldn't execute POST against https://gitlab.com/api/v4/runners: 403 Forbidden (CI/CD)runner registration t…This job is stuck because you don't have any active runners — GitLab CI: This job is stuck because you don't have any active runners online or available with any of these tags assigned to them (CI/CD)This job is stuck bec…The runne…

Explore the map of this error Full error map →

🧠 Still stuck? Analyze your error

Paste the full message, response headers or stack trace — we'll detect the platform and point to the most likely cause.

💬 What worked for others

No tips yet — did something else fix this for you?

Share what worked for you

Tips are checked by an editor before they appear. Links are removed.