At Astra, we aim to provide a seamless scanning experience. However, there may be rare cases where an automated scan gets canceled automatically by our system. This article explains the possible reasons for such cancellations and what it means for your security assessment.
Automated scans may be canceled if we detect persistent issues that prevent us from completing the scan reliably. Some of these issues include:
High response times from the target application
Repeated 5xx server errors or gateway timeouts
Target unavailability or degraded performance
Connectivity issues or dropped packets over a sustained period
In such scenarios, our engine uses an exponential backoff and retry strategy to minimize load and attempt recovery. However, if the target remains unreachable or unstable despite multiple retries, the scan is safely canceled to prevent incomplete or misleading results.
In rare cases, a scan might also be canceled due to an internal error or network glitch. While we work to minimize such occurrences, they are typically short-lived and automatically resolved.
It’s also possible that the scan was manually canceled by another member of your workspace. You can review the activity logs or check with your team to confirm if someone took this action.
No — this mechanism only applies to automated vulnerability scans.
For manual pentests, our security engineers will always attempt to reach out to you if they encounter any blocking issue (such as target unavailability or misconfiguration). Manual tests are never canceled without explicit communication.
If you see a canceled scan and did not initiate it yourself:
Check if your application was temporarily down or under heavy load during the scan window.
Verify with your team if any workspace member canceled the scan manually.
Reach out to your internal engineering/DevOps teams to verify uptime and health status.
If everything looks fine and you're unsure why the scan was canceled, feel free to contact our support team.