High severityresource
Power BI Refresh Error:
RunSlotLimitExceeded
What does this error mean?
A dbt Cloud job was queued but could not start because all available run slots for the account are occupied by other running jobs, and the queued run timed out or was cancelled while waiting.
Common causes
- 1The dbt Cloud account plan's run slot limit is too low for the number of jobs that need to run concurrently, causing a queue backlog
- 2A long-running production job is blocking run slots during a period when many CI/CD jobs are also triggered
- 3Multiple external orchestrators are all triggering dbt Cloud jobs simultaneously, exhausting the account's concurrency limit
How to fix it
- 1Step 1: Check the current queue depth in the dbt Cloud Runs view to confirm that runs are queued behind active ones.
- 2Step 2: Stagger job schedules so that large batch jobs do not run at the same time as CI jobs or other concurrent production jobs.
- 3Step 3: Upgrade the dbt Cloud plan to unlock additional run slots — Team plans (created after July 2023) have unlimited concurrency; Legacy Team plans have a fixed slot count.
- 4Step 4: For CI jobs, note that CI checks do not consume run slots on current plan types, so separating CI from scheduled jobs may reduce slot contention.