# Actor Statuses

> Source: `src/content/docs/actors/statuses.mdx`
> Canonical URL: https://rivet.dev/docs/actors/statuses
> Description: Understand the lifecycle statuses of Rivet Actors, what they mean, how they appear in the API, and how to troubleshoot common issues.

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## Statuses

These are the statuses you can see in the dashboard for each actor.

| Status | Description |
|---|---|
| **Starting** | The actor has been created but has not yet become connectable. |
| **Running** | The actor is live and accepting connections. |
| **Destroyed** | The actor has been gracefully destroyed. |
| **Crashed** | The actor failed to start or encountered a fatal error. See [Troubleshooting](/docs/actors/troubleshooting#actor-status-is-crashed) for common failure reasons. |
| **Sleeping** | The actor has been put to sleep from inactivity. It will be woken up automatically when a new request arrives. |
| **Pending** | The actor is waiting to be allocated to a runner. This happens when no runner is available to handle the actor. See [Troubleshooting](/docs/actors/troubleshooting#actor-status-is-pending) for common causes. |
| **Crash Loop Backoff** | The actor failed to allocate and is waiting to retry with a backoff. This typically means repeated allocation failures. The backoff prevents overloading your infrastructure in the case of a widespread misconfiguration in your backend. See [Troubleshooting](/docs/actors/troubleshooting#actor-status-is-crashed) for common failure reasons. |

## API Representation

The actor object returned by the full engine API (used by the dashboard) includes the following timestamp fields used to derive status:

| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| `createTs` | When the actor was first created. Always present. |
| `connectableTs` | When the actor became connectable. Null if not yet running. |
| `destroyTs` | When the actor was destroyed. |
| `sleepTs` | When the actor entered a sleeping state. |
| `pendingAllocationTs` | When the actor started waiting for an allocation. |
| `rescheduleTs` | When the actor will retry allocation after a failure. |
| `error` | Error details if the actor failed. |

_Source doc path: /docs/actors/statuses_