How to fix Error: Timeout while waiting for state in Terraform

Look at the Terraform error message to see which resource and state transition timed out:

Error: timeout while waiting for state to become 'running' (timeout: 5m0s)
  on main.tf line 12, in resource "aws_instance" "example":
  12:   resource "aws_instance" "example" {

This tells you exactly what to investigate in your cloud provider's console.

Log into your cloud provider (AWS, GCP, Azure, etc.) and verify the resource status:

AWS: Check EC2 dashboard for instance status, RDS for database status
GCP: Check Compute Engine or Cloud SQL dashboards
Azure: Check Virtual Machines or Database blade

Determine if the resource is still provisioning, stuck, or if the operation actually completed.

Add or modify the timeouts block for the resource:

resource "aws_instance" "example" {
  ami           = "ami-0c55b159cbfafe1f0"
  instance_type = "t2.micro"

  timeouts {
    create = "30m"
    delete = "10m"
    update = "20m"
  }
}

resource "aws_db_instance" "example" {
  allocated_storage = 20
  engine            = "mysql"
  
  timeouts {
    create = "60m"
    update = "80m"
    delete = "40m"
  }
}

Set the timeout based on your resource type—databases and complex resources need longer timeouts.

Run Terraform with debug logging to see what states it's checking:

TF_LOG=DEBUG terraform apply

This shows the actual API calls and state transitions. Look for patterns in what state Terraform is stuck waiting for and how frequently the provider is polling.

Visit your cloud provider's status page:

- AWS: https://status.aws.amazon.com/
- GCP: https://status.cloud.google.com/
- Azure: https://status.azure.com/
- Terraform: https://status.hashicorp.com/

Look for any degradation in the region or service you're using. If there's an outage, wait for it to resolve.

Ensure all dependencies are properly declared:

resource "aws_security_group" "example" {
  name = "example"
}

resource "aws_instance" "example" {
  ami                    = "ami-0c55b159cbfafe1f0"
  instance_type         = "t2.micro"
  vpc_security_group_ids = [aws_security_group.example.id]  # Explicit dependency
}

Without proper dependencies, resources may be created out of order, causing the instance to wait for the security group.

Verify you haven't hit service limits:

# AWS - Check service quotas
aws service-quotas list-service-quotas --service-code ec2 --region us-east-1

# Check current usage
aws ec2 describe-account-attributes --region us-east-1

Common limits:
- EC2 instances per region (default 20)
- Database instances per account (default 40)
- Load balancers per region (default 20)

Request quota increases if needed.

When Terraform times out on instance creation, it often means the AZ has no capacity for that instance type:

# AWS - Check available capacity
aws ec2 describe-spot-price-history \
  --instance-types t2.micro \
  --region us-east-1 \
  --start-time $(date -u +%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S) \
  --product-descriptions "Linux/UNIX"

Try using a different instance type or availability zone:

resource "aws_instance" "example" {
  ami               = "ami-0c55b159cbfafe1f0"
  instance_type     = "t2.small"  # Try different type
  availability_zone = "us-east-1b"  # Try different AZ
}

After investigating and fixing the root cause, retry:

# First, check Terraform's state
terraform state list
terraform state show aws_instance.example

# If the resource exists but is still provisioning, just retry apply
terraform apply

# If you need to force recreation
terraform taint aws_instance.example
terraform apply