PDI instance unavailable for 3+ days — "We were unable to assign an instance to you" — India region

[saarthaksha]

Hi community,

I've been trying to request a Personal Developer Instance for the past 3 days and keep getting the same error:

"We were unable to assign an instance to you. Please retry now."

Details:
- Account created: July 2026
- Region: India
- Email used: Personal Gmail (not .edu)
- Attempts: Multiple times daily across different browsers (Chrome, Edge)
- Version requested: Default/latest available
- Error appears immediately after clicking Request — no loading at all

I've tried:
✓ Different browsers
✓ Clearing cookies and cache
✓ Retrying at different times of day (morning, night)
✓ Logging out and back in

Nothing has worked. Is this a known capacity issue in the India region? Is there anything I can do from my end, or does this need to be manually triggered by the team?

Any help appreciated. I'm working on a portfolio project for my CSA and CAD certifications and can't progress without an instance.

Thank you

[Dr Atul G- LNG · Accepted solution]

Hi @saarthaksha 

Don't worry—this is quite common at the moment.

Over the past few days, many community members have reported delays when requesting a PDI. In some cases, the waiting period has been 2-3 weeks or even longer, especially for lower ServiceNow versions.

You can try requesting an instance on an earlier release, such as Zurich or an older version, but there may still be a waiting period due to high demand.

For now, patience is the best approach, as PDI availability depends on overall demand and ServiceNow's infrastructure capacity.

Latest update: I heard from community members that PDIs are now being provisioned more easily and quickly. You may try cancelling the current waitlist request and submitting a new request again.

[saarthaksha]

Thank you, Dr. Atul. Your explanation was very helpful. I was wondering why my PDI request was taking so long, and your update clarified the reason. I'll wait for some time and, if needed, I'll cancel the current request and submit a new one as you suggested. Thanks again for your guidance!

[Dr Atul G- LNG]

Good luck mate...adding one more important link, once u get pdi please make sure take back regularly 

work within that update set.

Set the update set to Complete.

Export it as an XML file.

You can also:

Export multiple update sets as a batch.

Publish an entire scoped application to an Update Set and export it.

Restore: Import the XML file into Retrieved Update Sets, then Preview and Commit the update set.

Important Notes

Always store backups outside your PDI.

GitHub is recommended for application source control.

Update Sets capture configuration changes, not business data.

Metadata such as records is not backed up automatically.

Export any required custom data, attachments, scripts, and configurations separately.

Never store passwords or sensitive credentials in a public GitHub repository.

Link: https://www.servicenow.com/community/developer-blog/how-to-backup-your-personal-developer-instance-p...