# Can't start backup. Previous backup is still in progress **URL:** \ **Category:** Percona Operator for PostgreSQL\ **Tags:** postgresql\ **Created:** [May 12, 2025, 12:59pm UTC](https://forums.percona.com/t/cant-start-backup-previous-backup-is-still-in-progress/37913 "2025-05-12T12:59:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 7
**Author:** ![Emmanuel\_Tom\_Jose](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forums.percona.com/emmanuel_tom_jose/32/23312_2.png) [@Emmanuel\_Tom\_Jose](https://forums.percona.com/u/Emmanuel_Tom_Jose)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2026, 6:14am UTC](https://forums.percona.com/t/cant-start-backup-previous-backup-is-still-in-progress/37913/7 "2026-02-26T06:14:42Z")
Interesting Issue and I like the fixes outlined. If y’all don’t mind, here’s something that worked for us. The operator’s backup state management gets wedged, blocking all future backups even though pgBackRest itself isfine. Deleting stuck PerconaPGBackup resources and removing the **[pgv2.percona.com/backup-in-progress](http://pgv2.percona.com/backup-in-progress)** annotation works as a one-time fix, but it’ll happen again since the root cause (operator state tracking not handling failures gracefully) hasn’t changed across versions. We solved this permanently by bypassing the operator’s scheduling and running backups via external Kubernetes CronJobs that kubectl exec directly into the repo-host pod. The script checks pgBackRest’s own lock (“held”:true in pgbackrest info --output=json) before attempting a backup, if something’s already running, it skips gracefully instead of creating a stuck PerconaPGBackup object. This avoids the operator’s state tracking entirely, no PerconaPGBackup objects, no backup-in-progress annotations, no backlog. I posted the full CronJob YAML and setup details here in this reply. [https://forums.percona.com/t/full-and-incremental-backups-conflicting-and-stopping-all-backups/33157](https://forums.percona.com/t/full-and-incremental-backups-conflicting-and-stopping-a%20%20%20ll-backups/33157) --- _[View the full topic](https://forums.percona.com/t/cant-start-backup-previous-backup-is-still-in-progress/37913)._