WorkBench, Batch Edit, or Merging Stuck?

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If you notice that your WorkBench in Specify 7 is stuck on “Data Set Validation Status” without making progress, this usually indicates a problem with the background service that processes dataset validations and other tasks.

Data Set Validation Status message
Data Set Validation Status message2016×510 87 KB

[!caution] Data Set Validation Status
Validation of this Data Set should begin shortly
If this message persists for longer than 30 seconds, the Validation process is busy with another Data Set. Please try again later.

What Is Happening

Specify 7 relies on a background service called the Specify 7 Worker. This worker process utilizes Celery, a job queue management system, with Redis serving as the broker.

This Worker runs behind the scenes and handles important tasks such as:

  • Checking and validating data sets uploaded through the WorkBench
  • Uploading data sets into the database
  • Rolling back data sets if something goes wrong
  • Processing record merging requests

When the Worker stops running, any of these actions may appear frozen or unresponsive within Specify 7. This is why you may see the validation message stalling, even if the data itself looks fine.

Why the Worker May Stop

In practice, the Worker can stop running for several reasons. Common scenarios reported include:

  • The server hosting Specify 7 was restarted, but the Worker did not automatically restart afterward
  • The Docker container running specify7-worker exited unexpectedly due to system updates or resource limits
  • A locally installed Worker process was closed or halted in the terminal and not relaunched
  • Unattended servers allowed the Worker to quietly stop running days earlier, only noticed once users attempted a dataset operation

In all of these cases, Specify itself is still running, but it is “waiting” for the Worker to do its part. Since the Worker is down, the interface appears stuck.

What Users Should Do

End users should not attempt to re-upload their data repeatedly if this occurs. Doing so will not resolve the issue and may create multiple “in-progress” jobs. Instead:

  1. Make a note of when the issue occurred.
  2. Contact your institution’s IT support team (if hosted, reach out to the Specify Cloud team) and explain that the “Specify 7 Worker may not be running" with a link to this document.
  3. Once IT verifies and restarts the Worker, you can perform the action again and it should work as expected.

What IT Administrators Should Do

How to restart the Worker depends on your deployment method:

  • If Specify is running with Docker:
    Restart the specify7-worker container (adjust based on hosting environment and container name):

    docker restart specify7-worker

  • If Specify is installed locally:
    Follow the Worker installation instructions to launch the Worker again from the command line.

Once the Worker is running again, queued tasks in the WorkBench or record merging module should continue. Users can return to their workflow without losing progress.

Key Takeaway

Seeing a stuck “Data Set Validation Status” message is not usually a problem with your dataset or Specify itself. Instead, it signals that the background Worker stopped running and needs to be restarted by IT. After restarting the Worker, Specify resumes processing data sets and record merges normally.

If there are still issues after restarting the Worker, please reach out to support@specifysoftware.org with the Specify 7 and Worker logs!