We're on 4.0.1 and switched to incremental repairs a couple of months ago. They work fine about 95% of the time, but once in a while a session will get stuck and will have to be cancelled (with `nodetool repair_admin cancel -s <uuid>`). Typically the session will be in REPAIRING but nothing will actually be happening.
Output of nodetool repair_admin: $ nodetool repair_admin id | state | last activity | coordinator | participants | participants_wp 3a059b10-4ef6-11ec-925f-8f7bcf0ba035 | REPAIRING | 6771 (s) | /[fd00:ea51:d057:200:1:0:0:8e]:25472 | fd00:ea51:d057:200:1:0:0:8e,fd00:ea51:d057:200:1:0:0:8f,fd00:ea51:d057:200:1:0:0:92,fd00:ea51:d057:100:1:0:0:571,fd00:ea51:d057:100:1:0:0:570,fd00:ea51:d057:200:1:0:0:93,fd00:ea51:d057:100:1:0:0:573,fd00:ea51:d057:200:1:0:0:90,fd00:ea51:d057:200:1:0:0:91,fd00:ea51:d057:100:1:0:0:572,fd00:ea51:d057:100:1:0:0:575,fd00:ea51:d057:100:1:0:0:574,fd00:ea51:d057:200:1:0:0:94,fd00:ea51:d057:100:1:0:0:577,fd00:ea51:d057:200:1:0:0:95,fd00:ea51:d057:100:1:0:0:576 | [fd00:ea51:d057:200:1:0:0:8e]:25472,[fd00:ea51:d057:200:1:0:0:8f]:25472,[fd00:ea51:d057:200:1:0:0:92]:25472,[fd00:ea51:d057:100:1:0:0:571]:25472,[fd00:ea51:d057:100:1:0:0:570]:25472,[fd00:ea51:d057:200:1:0:0:93]:25472,[fd00:ea51:d057:100:1:0:0:573]:25472,[fd00:ea51:d057:200:1:0:0:90]:25472,[fd00:ea51:d057:200:1:0:0:91]:25472,[fd00:ea51:d057:100:1:0:0:572]:25472,[fd00:ea51:d057:100:1:0:0:575]:25472,[fd00:ea51:d057:100:1:0:0:574]:25472,[fd00:ea51:d057:200:1:0:0:94]:25472,[fd00:ea51:d057:100:1:0:0:577]:25472,[fd00:ea51:d057:200:1:0:0:95]:25472,[fd00:ea51:d057:100:1:0:0:576]:25472 Running `jstack` on the coordinator shows two repair threads, both idle: "Repair#167:1" #602177 daemon prio=5 os_prio=0 cpu=9.60ms elapsed=57359.81s tid=0x00007fa6d1741800 nid=0x18e6c waiting on condition [0x00007fc529f9a000] java.lang.Thread.State: TIMED_WAITING (parking) at jdk.internal.misc.Unsafe.park(java.base@11.0.11/Native Method) - parking to wait for <0x000000045ba93a18> (a java.util.concurrent.locks.AbstractQueuedSynchronizer$ConditionObject) at java.util.concurrent.locks.LockSupport.parkNanos(java.base@11.0.11 /LockSupport.java:234) at java.util.concurrent.locks.AbstractQueuedSynchronizer$ConditionObject.awaitNanos(java.base@11.0.11 /AbstractQueuedSynchronizer.java:2123) at java.util.concurrent.LinkedBlockingQueue.poll(java.base@11.0.11 /LinkedBlockingQueue.java:458) at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.getTask(java.base@11.0.11 /ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1053) at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(java.base@11.0.11 /ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1114) at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(java.base@11.0.11 /ThreadPoolExecutor.java:628) at io.netty.util.concurrent.FastThreadLocalRunnable.run(FastThreadLocalRunnable.java:30) at java.lang.Thread.run(java.base@11.0.11/Thread.java:829) "Repair#170:1" #654814 daemon prio=5 os_prio=0 cpu=9.62ms elapsed=7369.98s tid=0x00007fa6aec09000 nid=0x1a96f waiting on condition [0x00007fc535aae000] java.lang.Thread.State: TIMED_WAITING (parking) at jdk.internal.misc.Unsafe.park(java.base@11.0.11/Native Method) - parking to wait for <0x00000004c45bf7d8> (a java.util.concurrent.locks.AbstractQueuedSynchronizer$ConditionObject) at java.util.concurrent.locks.LockSupport.parkNanos(java.base@11.0.11 /LockSupport.java:234) at java.util.concurrent.locks.AbstractQueuedSynchronizer$ConditionObject.awaitNanos(java.base@11.0.11 /AbstractQueuedSynchronizer.java:2123) at java.util.concurrent.LinkedBlockingQueue.poll(java.base@11.0.11 /LinkedBlockingQueue.java:458) at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.getTask(java.base@11.0.11 /ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1053) at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(java.base@11.0.11 /ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1114) at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(java.base@11.0.11 /ThreadPoolExecutor.java:628) at io.netty.util.concurrent.FastThreadLocalRunnable.run(FastThreadLocalRunnable.java:30) at java.lang.Thread.run(java.base@11.0.11/Thread.java:829) nodetool netstats says there is nothing happening: $ nodetool netstats | head -n 2 Mode: NORMAL Not sending any streams. There's nothing interesting in the logs for this repair; the last relevant thing was a bunch of "Created 0 sync tasks based on 6 merkle tree responses for 3a059b10-4ef6-11ec- 925f-8f7bcf0ba035 (took: 0ms)" and then back and forth for the last couple of hours with things like 2021-11-26T21:33:20Z cassandra10nuq 129529 | INFO [OptionalTasks:1] LocalSessions.java:938 - Attempting to learn the outcome of unfinished local incremental repair session 3a059b10-4ef6-11ec-925f-8f7bcf0ba035 2021-11-26T21:33:20Z cassandra10nuq 129529 | INFO [AntiEntropyStage:1] LocalSessions.java:987 - Received StatusResponse for repair session 3a059b10-4ef6-11ec-925f-8f7bcf0ba035 with state REPAIRING, which is not actionable. Doing nothing. Typically, cancelling the session and rerunning with the exact same command line will succeed. -- James Brown Engineer