GitHub Actions synthetic BuildFailed startup_failure with zero jobs on all PRs

[erimes84]

🏷️ Discussion Type

Bug

💬 Feature/Topic Area

Workflow Configuration

Discussion Details

I'm seeing a persistent GitHub Actions startup_failure in the repository erimes84/ViradaFs.

The failure happens before any job is created or assigned to a runner.

Previously working

The repository had a working workflow:

• Workflow name: ViradaFS CI
• Path: .github/workflows/ci.yml
• workflow_id: 348754866
• Successful run: 33678517361
• Commit: a6fc568a9c931a8875b31eaa017e7a2927b4f0c9

That run completed successfully on self-hosted Linux and Windows runners.

Current behavior

GitHub now creates synthetic workflow runs with:

• Workflow name: empty
• Path: BuildFailed
• workflow_id: 348819625
• Conclusion: startup_failure
• Jobs: 0

For example:

• Run: 33692629543
• Commit: bbadf0d2915dd6f96b438da6e7eec7455983ca3e
• Conclusion: startup_failure
• No jobs were created.

The self-hosted runners remain online and Idle.

Troubleshooting already performed

We have already:

• confirmed GitHub Actions is enabled for the repository;
• confirmed Allow all actions and reusable workflows is enabled;
• confirmed the self-hosted runners are online and Idle;
• confirmed the Windows runner services are Running;
• disabled GitHub Actions for the repository and enabled it again;
• pushed new commits after re-enabling Actions;
• verified the problem occurs before runner assignment;
• confirmed GitHub Status reports Actions as operational.

Isolated reproduction

To rule out a problem specific to the existing pull request, I created a completely new branch from main and a new Draft PR containing only a Markdown file.

• PR: #198
• Commit: a033e1e5d4917ac096fa86b8a490c1368779f259
• Run: 33692832336
• workflow_id: 348819625
• Conclusion: startup_failure
• Jobs: 0

The isolated PR reproduced exactly the same problem.

No workflow file was modified in that test.

Why this looks like a backend workflow registration issue

The same repository previously executed .github/workflows/ci.yml successfully under workflow_id 348754866.

Now new push and pull_request events are consistently associated with workflow_id 348819625, path BuildFailed, and fail before GitHub creates any jobs.

Could workflow_id 348819625 be an orphaned or corrupted internal workflow registration?

Is there a way to purge/reset this workflow registration for the repository, or does this require intervention from GitHub Support?

Similar reports found

I searched the GitHub Community before opening this report and found several very similar cases:

• Discussion Orphaned "BuildFailed" workflow (deleted state) intercepts all events — no jobs start repo-wide #206103 — Orphaned BuildFailed workflow (deleted state) intercepts all events — no jobs start repo-wide
• Discussion GitHub Actions cannot start any workflow — synthetic "BuildFailed" runs on all repositories (account-wide) #202376 — GitHub Actions cannot start any workflow — synthetic BuildFailed runs on all repositories
• Discussion Deleted workflow still generating `startup_failure` runs on every push — how to remove ghost workflow? #190193 — Deleted workflow still generating startup_failure runs on every push
• Discussion Private GitHub Free Actions workflows fail before jobs start (BuildFailed/startup_failure) #202259 — Private GitHub Free Actions workflows fail before jobs start (BuildFailed / startup_failure)

Discussion #206103 in particular appears to describe almost exactly the same behavior.

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