grafana/k6 · warning

test execution wasn't paused

Error message

test execution wasn't paused

What it means

ExecutionState.Resume() swaps currentPauseTime back to 0 to end a pause; if the swapped value was already 0 the test was not paused, so Resume() has nothing to resume and returns this error. It is the counterpart guard to Pause()'s 'already paused' error.

Source

Thrown at lib/execution.go:425

	if !atomic.CompareAndSwapInt64(es.currentPauseTime, 0, time.Now().UnixNano()) {
		return errors.New("test execution was already paused")
	}
	es.resumeNotify = make(chan struct{})
	return nil
}

// Resume unpauses the test execution. Unless the test wasn't
// yet started, it calculates the duration between now and
// the old currentPauseTime and adds it to
// Resume will emit an error if the test wasn't paused.
func (es *ExecutionState) Resume() error {
	es.pauseStateLock.Lock()
	defer es.pauseStateLock.Unlock()

	currentPausedTime := atomic.SwapInt64(es.currentPauseTime, 0)
	if currentPausedTime == 0 {
		return errors.New("test execution wasn't paused")
	}

	// Check that it's not the pause before execution actually starts
	if atomic.LoadInt64(es.startTime) != 0 {
		es.totalPausedDuration += time.Duration(time.Now().UnixNano() - currentPausedTime)
	}

	close(es.resumeNotify)

	return nil
}

// ResumeNotify returns a channel which will be closed (i.e. could
// be read from) as soon as the test execution is resumed.
//
// Since tests would likely be paused only rarely, unless you
// directly need to be notified via a channel that the test
// isn't paused or that it has resumed, it's probably a good

View on GitHub (pinned to 93accf6570)

Solutions

1. Check GET /v1/status and only resume when paused:true
2. Ensure exactly one resume follows each pause in automation scripts
3. Treat 'wasn't paused' as benign in idempotent wrappers (ignore this specific error)

Example fix

# before
k6 resume   # test was never paused -> error

# after
k6 status | grep -q '"paused": true' && k6 resume || echo 'not paused, skipping'

status=$(curl -s http://localhost:6565/v1/status)
echo "$status" | grep -q '"paused": *true' && curl -sX POST http://localhost:6565/v1/resume || echo 'not paused, skipping resume'

When it happens

Trigger: Calling POST /v1/resume on a running (never paused) test, or resuming twice after a single pause.

Common situations: Startup scripts that unconditionally resume 'just in case'; resuming after the pause already ended (double resume); orchestrators that lost track of the pause state.

Related errors

• test execution was already paused
• execution is already paused
• %s executor '%s' doesn't support pause and resume operations
• The REST API server is disabled, but this command needs to r
• getting scenario information outside of the VU context is no

AI-assisted analysis of grafana/k6@93accf6570 (2026-08-15). Data as JSON: /api/errors/44bcbf93f6ae3cac. Report an issue: GitHub.