Redriving Map Runs in Step Functions executions - Amazon Step Functions
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Redriving Map Runs in Step Functions executions

You can restart unsuccessful child workflow executions in a Map Run by redriving your parent workflow. A redriven parent workflow redrives all the unsuccessful states, including Distributed Map. A parent workflow redrives unsuccessful states if there's no <stateType>Exited event corresponding to the <stateType>Entered event for a state when the parent workflow completed its execution. For example, if the event history doesn't contain the MapStateExited event for a MapStateEntered event, you can redrive the parent workflow to redrive all the unsuccessful child workflow executions in the Map Run.

A Map Run is either not started or fails in the original execution attempt when the state machine doesn't have the required permission to access the ItemReader (Map), ResultWriter (Map), or both. If the Map Run wasn't started in the original execution attempt of the parent workflow, redriving the parent workflow starts the Map Run for the first time. To resolve this, add the required permissions to your state machine role, and then redrive the parent workflow. If you redrive the parent workflow without adding the required permissions, it attempts to start a new Map Run run that will fail again. For information about the permissions that you might need, see IAM policies for using Distributed Map states.

Redrive eligibility for child workflows in a Map Run

You can redrive the unsuccessful child workflow executions in a Map Run if the following conditions are met:

  • You started the parent workflow execution on or after November 15, 2023. Executions that you started prior to this date aren't eligible for redrive.

  • You haven't exceeded the hard limit of 1000 redrives of a given Map Run. If you've exceeded this limit, you'll receive the States.Runtime error.

  • The parent workflow is redrivable. If the parent workflow isn't redrivable, you can't redrive the child workflow executions in a Map Run. For more information about redrive eligibility of a workflow, see Redrive eligibility for unsuccessful executions.

  • The child workflow executions of type Standard in your Map Run haven't exceeded the 25,000 execution event history limit. Child workflow executions that have exceeded the event history limit are counted towards the tolerated failure threshold and considered as failed. For more information about the redrive eligibility of an execution, see Redrive eligibility for unsuccessful executions.

A new Map Run is started and the existing Map Run isn't redriven in the following cases even if the Map Run failed in the original execution attempt:

A Map Run can continue to run even after the parent workflow stops or times out. In these scenarios, the redrive doesn't happen immediately:

  • Map Run might still be canceling in progress child workflow executions of type Standard, or waiting for child workflow executions of type Express to complete their executions.

  • Map Run might still be writing results to the ResultWriter (Map), if you configured it to export results.

In these cases, the running Map Run completes its operations before attempting to redrive.

Child workflow execution redrive behavior

The redriven child workflow executions in a Map Run exhibit the behavior as described in the following table.

Express child workflow Standard child workflow
All child workflow executions that failed or timed out in the original execution attempt are started using the StartExecution API action. The first state in ItemProcessor is run first. All child workflow executions that failed, timed out, or canceled in the original execution attempt are redriven using the RedriveExecution API action. These child workflows are redriven from the last state in ItemProcessor that resulted in their unsuccessful execution.

Unsuccessful executions can always be redriven. This is because Express child workflow executions are always started as a new execution using the StartExecution API action.

Unsuccessful Standard child workflow executions can't always be redriven. If an execution isn't redrivable, it won't be attempted again. The last error or output of the execution is permanent. This is possible when an execution exceeds 25,000 history events, or its redrivable period of 14 days has expired.

A Standard child workflow execution might not be redrivable if the parent workflow execution has closed within 14 days, but the child workflow execution closed earlier than 14 days.

Express child workflow executions use the same execution ARN as the original execution attempt, but you can't distinctly identify their individual redrives. Standard child workflow executions use the same execution ARN as the original execution attempt. You can distinctly identify the individual redrives in the console and using APIs, such as GetExecutionHistory and DescribeExecution. For more information, see Examining redriven executions.

If you've redriven a Map Run, and it has reached its concurrency limit, the child workflow executions in that Map Run transition to the pending state. The execution status of the Map Run also transitions to the Pending redrive state. Until the specified concurrency limit can allow for more child workflow executions to run, the execution remains in the Pending redrive state.

For example, say that the concurrency limit of the Distributed Map in your workflow is 3000, and the number of child workflows to be rerun is 6000. This causes 3000 child workflows to run in parallel while the remaining 3000 workflows remain in the Pending redrive state. After the first batch of 3000 child workflows complete their execution, the remaining 3000 child workflows are run.

When a Map Run has completed its execution or is aborted, the count of child workflow executions in the Pending redrive state is reset to 0.

Scenarios of input used on Map Run redrive

Depending on how you provided input to the Distributed Map in the original execution attempt, a redriven Map Run will use the input as described in the following table.

Input in the original execution attempt Input used on Map Run redrive
Input passed from a previous state or the execution input. The redriven Map Run uses the same input.
Input passed using ItemReader (Map) and the Map Run didn't start the child workflow executions because one of the following conditions is true:
The redriven Map Run uses the input in the Amazon S3 bucket.
Input passed using ItemReader. The Map Run failed after starting or attempting to start child workflow executions. The redriven Map Run uses the same input provided in the original execution attempt.

IAM permission to redrive a Map Run

Step Functions needs appropriate permission to redrive a Map Run. The following IAM policy example grants the least privilege required to your state machine for redriving a Map Run. Remember to replace the italicized text with your resource-specific information.

{ "Version": "2012-10-17", "Statement": [ { "Effect": "Allow", "Action": [ "states:RedriveExecution" ], "Resource": "arn:aws-cn:states:us-west-2:123456789012:execution:myStateMachine/myMapRunLabel:*" } ] }

Redriving Map Run in console

The following image shows the execution graph of a state machine that contains a Distributed Map. This execution failed because the Map Run failed. To redrive the Map Run, you must redrive the parent workflow.

Graph of a failed state machine execution caused by a failed Map Run.
To redrive a Map Run from the console
  1. Open the Step Functions console, and then choose an existing state machine that contains a Distributed Map that failed execution.

  2. On the state machine detail page, under Executions, choose a failed execution instance of this state machine.

  3. Choose Redrive.

  4. In the Redrive dialog box, choose Redrive execution.

    Tip

    You can also redrive a Map Run from the Execution Details or Map Run Details page.

    If you're on the Execution Details page, do one of the following to redrive the execution:

    • Choose Recover, and then select Redrive from failure.

    • Choose Actions, and then select Redrive.

    If you're on the Map Run Details page, choose Recover, and then select Redrive from failure.

    Notice that redrive uses the same state machine definition and ARN. It continues running the execution from the step that failed in the original execution attempt. In this example, it's the Distributed Map step named Map and the Process input step inside it. After restarting the unsuccessful child workflow executions of the Map Run, redrive will continue execution for the Done step.

  5. From the Execution Details page, choose Map Run to see the details of the redriven Map Run.

    On this page, you can view the results of the redriven execution. For example, in the Map Run execution summary section, you can see Redrive count, which represents the number of times the Map Run has been redriven. In the Events section, you can see the redrive related execution events appended to the events of the original execution attempt. For example, the MapRunRedriven event.

After you've redriven a Map Run, you can examine its redrive details in the console or using the GetExecutionHistory and DescribeExecution API actions. For more information about examining a redriven execution, see Examining redriven executions.

Redriving Map Run using API

You can redrive an eligible Map Run using the RedriveExecution API on the parent workflow. This API restarts unsuccessful child workflow executions in a Map Run.

In the Amazon Command Line Interface (Amazon CLI), run the following command to redrive an unsuccessful state machine execution. Remember to replace the italicized text with your resource-specific information.

aws stepfunctions redrive-execution --execution-arn arn:aws-cn:states:us-west-2:123456789012:execution:myStateMachine:foo

After you have redriven a Map Run, you can examine its redrive details in the console or using the DescribeMapRun API action. To examine the redrive details of Standard workflow executions in a Map Run, you can use the GetExecutionHistory or DescribeExecution API action. For more information about examining a redriven execution, see Examining redriven executions.

You can examine the redrive details of Express workflow executions in a Map Run on the Step Functions console if you've enabled logging on the parent workflow. For more information, see Using CloudWatch Logs to log execution history in Step Functions.