Why is my Amazon EC2 instance "pending"?

Question

I've been evaluating several cloud compute providers, Amazon EC2 among them. I started an instance with a Windows image, and ever since then it's been "pending", for more than 30 minutes now.

Is this a typical amount of wait for an instance to start? This would be highly undesirable for my purpose. Perhaps I started it incorrectly? I couldn't find any info on what "pending" means on Amazon - does anyone here know?

Answer 1

Pending means the instance is being created, if it has been like that for 30 minutes something went wrong, typicaly I wait for 3 minutes.

I would just create another instance and when the pending one is over, terminate it.

you would probably waste 12.5 cents tho...

Answer 2

I recently faced the same issue. After reaching out to AWS support, they provided a workaround which worked well.

You can use the AWS CLI to stop the instance, instead of AWS console. Although an instance stack in Pending state cannot be managed through AWS console, using the AWS CLI allows you to stop it and start it again. The following command should allow you to stop the instance and force it move to the "Stopped" state:

aws ec2 stop-instances --instance-ids <You instance Id>

You can find more information about how to install and use AWS CLI here: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/cli/latest/userguide/install-cliv2.html