WorldServer - a project or task has been cancelled, but the Task remains visible with status 'Cancelling in progress'

A project or task has been canceled while it was being assigned. However, the project does not disappear from the active projects or Projects assigned to me view. It is still there and on the Tasks page, the task appears in step status Cancelling in progress, as displayed in this example:



The cancellation does not complete. Note: the cancellation of a project or task is a background job, This is why - when this happens -  an automatic email notification is sent to the assigned user.

Here is an example of the content of such email:

Your WorldServer background job "Cancelling (208640) in progress" (ID 1411609) failed to complete.

Go to Assignments > Background Jobs  and select the all failed jobs View. You will see the cancellation job related to the project with the status Failed. Here is an example:


The failed cancellation job is the reason why you see the tasks in status Cancellation in progress. Unfortunately, you will not be able to resume or redo the cancellation from the Background Jobs page. The resolution is to follow these steps:

1- Go to Assignments > Workflow Engine Queue
2- Make sure that the Task View is set to All tasks
3- Select the jobs in step status Cancelling in progress and click on Cancel. The project tasks will be successfully canceled.



If the tasks does not appear in the Workflow Engine Queue, you will need to cancel it from the Database following the steps described in this article:

WorldServer - How to delete active or completed/cancelled Projects or Tasks from a Worldserver Database

This is a sporadic behaviour where tasks do not complete. 

This article might be relevant:

WorldServer - after being canceled, Tasks/Jobs remain in 'To be canceled' status in the Workflow Engine Queue or in the Background Jobs