Troubleshoot instance termination (shutting down)

You are not billed for any instance usage while an instance is not in the running state. In other words, when you terminate an instance, you stop incurring charges for that instance as soon as its state changes to shutting-down.

Instance terminates immediately

Several issues can cause your instance to terminate immediately on start-up. See Instance terminates immediately for more information.

Delayed instance termination

If your instance remains in the shutting-down state longer than a few minutes, it might be delayed due to shutdown scripts being run by the instance.

Another possible cause is a problem with the underlying host computer. If your instance remains in the shutting-down state for several hours, Amazon EC2 treats it as a stuck instance and forcibly terminates it.

If it appears that your instance is stuck terminating and it has been longer than several hours, post a request for help to the Amazon EC2 forum. To help expedite a resolution, include the instance ID and describe the steps that you've already taken. Alternatively, if you have a support plan, create a technical support case in the Support Center.

Terminated instance still displayed

After you terminate an instance, it remains visible for a short while before being deleted. The state shows as terminated. If the entry is not deleted after several hours, contact Support.

Instances automatically launched or terminated

Generally, the following behaviors mean that you've used Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling, EC2 Fleet, or Spot Fleet to scale your computing resources automatically based on criteria that you've defined:

• You terminate an instance and a new instance launches automatically.

• You launch an instance and one of your instances terminates automatically.

• You stop an instance and it terminates and a new instance launches automatically.

To stop automatic scaling, see the Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling User Guide, EC2 Fleet, or Create a Spot Fleet request.