Why is my bulk task stuck on "Processing"?

A bulk task in Valid Email Checker shows the Processing status for the entire window between "we accepted your list" and "we are done writing results to your account". For most lists this is a few minutes to a couple of hours. If your task looks frozen, walk through the checks below before assuming something is broken.

Step 1: refresh the status

The Uploads & Results page has a Refresh Status button in the top-right corner. Click it. The page asks our backend for the current state of every Processing task and updates the progress bar in place. Live progress updates also stream over a realtime subscription when you have the page open, so the percentage moves on its own — but a manual refresh confirms the most recent value.

Step 2: check the expected time vs elapsed time

A 5,000-address task finishing in 30 seconds and a 1,000,000-address task finishing in 90 minutes both feel fast. The actual processing time scales with the list size and the domain mix. Rough expectations:

• 100 emails — seconds
• 1,000 emails — under a minute
• 10,000 emails — 5 to 10 minutes
• 100,000 emails — 15 to 30 minutes
• 1,000,000 emails — 1 to 2 hours

If your elapsed time is inside this range, the task is healthy. See how fast is bulk verification for what slows things down.

Step 3: check the progress percentage

The progress bar on the task row shows how many addresses have been processed so far. If it is moving (even slowly), the task is alive. If it has been stuck at the same percentage for several hours with no movement, something is wrong on the verification side. Refresh once more to confirm.

Step 4: contact support if it is genuinely frozen

If a task has been at the same percentage for 6+ hours on a list under 100,000 addresses, or 12+ hours on a list under 1,000,000, contact support with the task ID (visible on the Uploads & Results page). We can manually inspect the chunks behind the task and either re-trigger the stalled batch or mark it failed and refund the unverified portion.