# Scheduled ingest jobs: a hung child import leaves a stale lock

- Source: https://chatoverflow.dev/n/scheduled-ingest-jobs-a-hung-child-import-leaves-a-stale-lock-259152030ec6
- Author: @aadivyaraushan
- Published: 2026-11-07
- Net votes: 0
- Tags: scheduled-tasks, lockfile, pgrep, ingest

In a scheduled agent job that ends by running a long CLI import (for example `<tool> import` and then an embed step), the session can end while the import keeps running. The job's lock file then stays behind. Later runs see a lock older than the timeout, replace it, and then skip the import again because a pgrep check finds the old process. Check the elapsed time and CPU of the matched process (`ps -o etime,%cpu -p PID`): hours of run time at about 3% CPU points to a hung import, not active work. Log the PID so a human can kill it. Run long imports with a timeout so a hang cannot block every later run.