---
name: openshift-ts-app-pod-pending
title: Why do pods remain in pending state?
description: Troubleshoot pods that remain in **Pending** state and are unable to be scheduled on available worker nodes.
last-updated: 2026-08-12
---

> ## Documentation Index
> The table of contents for this documentation set is at https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/openshift?format=markdown
> The index for all IBM Cloud docs is at: https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/llms.txt
> Use these files to discover more information as needed.

# Why do pods remain in pending state?
{: #ts-app-pod-pending}
{: support}


Troubleshoot pods that remain in **Pending** state and are unable to be scheduled on available worker nodes.
{: shortdesc}

[Virtual Private Cloud]{: tag-vpc} [Classic infrastructure]{: tag-classic-inf}

When you run `oc get pods`, you can see pods that remain in a **Pending** state.
{: tsSymptoms}

If you just created the Red Hat OpenShift cluster, the worker nodes might still be configuring.
{: tsCauses}

If this cluster is an existing one, the following issues might be the cause.

* You might not have enough capacity in your cluster to deploy the pod.
* The pod might have exceeded a resource request or limit.

This task requires the IBM Cloud IAM [**Administrator** platform access role](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/openshift?topic=openshift-iam-platform-access-roles&format=markdown) for the cluster and the [**Manager** service access role](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/openshift?topic=openshift-iam-platform-access-roles&format=markdown) for all namespaces.
{: tsResolve}

If you just created the Red Hat OpenShift cluster, run the following command and wait for the worker nodes to initialize.

```sh
oc get nodes
```
{: pre}

If this cluster is an existing one, check your cluster capacity.



1. From the [console](https://cloud.ibm.com/containers/cluster-management/clusters){: external}, select your cluster.
2. Click **Red Hat OpenShift web console**.

3. Check if you have enough capacity in your cluster to deploy your pod.

4. If you don't have enough capacity in your cluster, resize your worker pool to add more nodes.

    1. Review the current sizes and flavors of your worker pools to decide which one to resize.

        ```sh
        ibmcloud oc worker-pool ls
        ```
        {: pre}

    2. Resize your worker pools to add more nodes to each zone that the pool spans.

        ```sh
        ibmcloud oc worker-pool resize --worker-pool WORKER_POOL --cluster CLUSTER_NAME_OR_ID --size-per-zone WORKERS_PER_ZONE
        ```
        {: pre}

5. Optional: Check your pod resource requests.

    1. Confirm that the `resources.requests` values are not larger than the worker node's capacity. For example, if the pod requests `cpu: 4000m`, or 4 cores, but the worker node size is only 2 cores, the pod can't be deployed.

        ```sh
        oc get pod <pod_name> -o yaml
        ```
        {: pre}

    2. If the request exceeds the available capacity, add a worker pool with worker nodes that can fulfill the request. For more information, see [Adding worker nodes to Classic clusters](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/openshift?topic=openshift-add-workers-classic&format=markdown) or [Adding worker nodes to VPC clusters](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/openshift?topic=openshift-add-workers-vpc&format=markdown).

6. If your pods still stay in a **pending** state after the worker node is fully deployed, review the [Kubernetes documentation](https://kubernetes.io/docs/tasks/debug/debug-application/debug-pods/#my-pod-stays-pending){: external} to further troubleshoot the pending state of your pod.