Why are my Pull Requests being automatically abandoned?

Question

Large pull requests are being automatically abandoned, with the message below:

Message: Microsoft.VisualStudio.Services.TFS abandoned the pull request

Pull Request has entered a broken state and was abandoned. Reason: Failed to create an iteration for the Pull Request. Try reactivating the pull request. If issue persists over multiple reactivations, contact customer support.

For reference, we periodically perform large website upgrades that result in huge PRs, with anywhere from 50k - 90k changed files. This auto-abandon issue is new behavior, experienced for the first time in April 2025.

We have addressed the debugging steps below:

1. Reactivate the Pull Request:
   1. Go to the PR in Azure DevOps.
   2. Click "Reactivate". This often resolves transient issues.
      1. We have done this multiple times, but the PR continues to get abandoned
2. Check for Repository or Branch Issues:
   1. Ensure the source and target branches still exist.
      1. Confirmed
   2. Make sure there are no corrupted files or merge conflicts that could prevent iteration creation.
      1. There are merge conflicts, but this doesn't happen on other PRs with merge conflicts
3. Review PR History:
   1. Look at the PR's activity log for any unusual events or errors.
      1. Not sure where to find activity/audit logs for PRs
   2. Check if any recent force-pushes or rebases might have caused inconsistencies.
      1. Confirmed
4. Try Creating a New PR:
   1. If reactivation fails repeatedly, close the broken PR.
   2. Create a new PR from the same source branch to the target branch.
      1. Doesn't help - new PR experiences the same behavior

Any ideas or suggestions are greatly appreciated, thanks for your help!

Answer 1

Hi Stephanie

There isn't an official confirmation from Microsoft stating that large pull requests specifically cause automatic abandonment in Azure DevOps.

However, Azure DevOps does impose limits on repository size, push size, and file size, which could indirectly affect PR processing.

Hope this helps!

Please Let me know if you have any queries.

If you found the information helpful, please click "Upvote" on the post to let us know and consider accepting the answer as the token of appreciation. Thank You.

Answer 2

Hi Kevin Davidson

Thanks for using the Q&A platform.

This issue appears to be related to a scalability or system limitation, specifically when handling extremely large pull requests, 50k–90k changed files.

A workaround I would suggest is to try breaking the PR into smaller chunks, even if the upgrade is massive, use separate feature branches, or component-based commits.

If the response was helpful, please feel free to mark it as “Accepted Answer” and consider giving it an upvote. This helps others in the community as well.

Regards,

Obinna.

Answer 3

Hi Kevin Davidson

Could you please follow the below steps to resolve this issue:

1. If feasible, consider breaking large changes into smaller, manageable PRs to avoid hitting any potential size limits. Instead of submitting one massive PR, consider dividing the changes into smaller, more manageable PRs.
2. Implement feature branches for different components. This strategy allows for isolated development and testing, making it easier to manage and merge changes incrementally.
3. Azure DevOps might have difficulty processing pull requests with a very large number of file changes, which can result in failures to create iterations.
4. While you have mentioned that merge conflicts are present, and similar conflicts don't cause issues in smaller PRs, the combination of conflicts and the sheer size of the PR might be contributing to the problem.
5. To view the Audit Logs, Go to Organization Settings -> Policies -> Enable the option of Log Audit Events and refresh the page, you will then be able to see Auditing Option in Organization Settings.

Additional References:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/devops/repos/git/complete-pull-requests?view=azure-devops&utm_source=chatgpt.com&tabs=browser

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/devops/organizations/audit/azure-devops-auditing?view=azure-devops&tabs=preview-page

Hope this helps!

Please Let me know if you have any queries.

If you found the information helpful, please click "Upvote" on the post to let us know and consider accepting the answer as the token of appreciation. Thank You.

Answer 4

@Durga Reshma Malthi are you confirming that the size of the pull request can cause this specific issue? Is this a known issue with Azure DevOps? I've yet to find any official source confirming this assumption.

Answer 5

Thanks for the responses. So it sounds like we still don't know for sure what is causing this, but presumably related to the size of the PR. Interesting how this hasn't happened in the past with other large PRs, we'll see if our IT department can enable the "Log Audit Events" option if this continues to be a nuisance.