Skip to content

"ghost" EC2 on Autoscaling Groups

0

We are running into some weird issues without our EC2 and Autoscaling groups. Sometimes one of our instances starts failing checks, and we have to terminate it. Once we do that, the instance looks to be terminated from the EC2 dashboard and API, but somehow the autoscaling group associated with it thinks the instance still exists. When we go into the "Instance management" tab in the autoscaling group you can see the instance id of the "ghost" instance is still there. If you click on it to see details it opens a page with a loading spinner and "It is taking a bit longer than usual to fetch your data", which never completes. This is not temporary: that instance was terminated days ago. Because the autoscaling group still thinks the instances exist it never spins up a new one to meet the minimum instance requirements. The autoscaling activities doesn't show any logs or events related (ie.: trying to terminate instance or start a new one, it just thinks everything is working normally).

Our EC2 dashboard showing a single instance on the region: Enter image description here

The instances that the autoscaling group thinks it's associated with. The first one is the same as the one above, and the one selected is the one that "doesn't exist" Enter image description here

Instance detail page once you click on it Enter image description here

Selecting the instance and clicking "detach" solves the issue, but this has happened a few times and we would like to get to the root of the issue.

asked 2 years ago476 views
2 Answers
0

Hello.

This is most likely a UI bug or a problem on the AWS side, so please contact AWS Support by opening a case under "Account and billing".
https://docs.aws.amazon.com/awssupport/latest/user/case-management.html

Also, please report any problems using "Feedback" at the bottom left of the management console screen.
a

a

EXPERT
answered 2 years ago
EXPERT
reviewed 2 years ago
0

This commonly happens when there are Suspended Processes in the ASG. Can you scroll to the bottom of the Details tab of the ASG and check if the HealthCheck process is suspended? More details here: https://repost.aws/knowledge-center/auto-scaling-terminate-instance

EXPERT
answered 2 years ago

You are not logged in. Log in to post an answer.

A good answer clearly answers the question and provides constructive feedback and encourages professional growth in the question asker.