# Manually fail a task

Octopus implements a queue of running background tasks. Sometimes, a task may hang, or be canceled, but never actually finish canceling. This prevents any new tasks from beginning, and new tasks will eventually appear as Timed Out.

When a task is queued, you'll see a list of tasks that it is waiting on in the task summary:

:::figure
![Cancel a running task](/docs/img/releases/images/cancel-tasks.png)
:::

You can navigate to any of these tasks, and then click the Cancel button in the top right corner on the executing/waiting/queued task (you may need to click it twice). This will mark the blocked task as Failed and then allow your new task to proceed.

## Abandon a stuck task

If a deployment or runbook run never finishes canceling, you can abandon it. Once a task has been canceling for more than 10 minutes, an **Abandon** button appears on the task page. Abandoning records the task as **Canceled** so it stops blocking work waiting on it, but it only changes what Octopus records: any scripts or steps already running on your deployment targets keep running untracked, the usual cancellation clean-up is skipped, and the action can't be undone. Treat it as a last resort when the stuck task is causing more harm than the inconsistency it leaves behind. You'll need the `TaskCancel` permission for the task's project and environment.