Incremental Query Activity appears to hang

The purpose of this document is to clarify the functionality of an Incremental Query Activity when it returns zero results.

It has been reported that Incremental Query Activities have appeared hung for hours, but eventually resolve on their own. While this behavior may indicate an issue, it can also be part of the activity's normal functionality.  Incremental Query Activities have been designed to operate differently than a standard query when the query attempts to return zero rows. The query never actually hangs, but instead it elects to enter a waiting state where it waits until the next scheduled execution.

This behavior can produce the following symptoms:

• Query Activity never outputs any results to the transition.
• Audit Logs for the activity show that the query has been executed but no errors or results return.

Perform the steps below to confirm that the Incremental Query is running correctly:

1. Review the Audit logs to confirm that there are no errors.
2. Open the Incremental Query and confirm within the query preview that the current criteria returns results.
3. Duplicate the Incremental Query Activity and alter the criteria so results are returned.
4. Save the duplicated query, and then run it to see if results display.

If there are no errors in step 1, no results in step 2, but results in step 3 that then display in step 4, the Incremental Query is functioning normally.