question Recover PDI that was Prematurely Reclaimed in Developer forum

Recover PDI that was Prematurely Reclaimed

Justin Weitzel — Tue, 01 Jul 2025 22:08:26 GMT

To ServiceNow Team: My PDI was reclaimed prematurely and without warning or communication.

Is there anyway this can be recovered/restored? My instance was dev194428.

I see it's in a hibernating state right now so I am assuming it has been re-distributed...

Re: Recover PDI that was Prematurely Reclaimed

Dr Atul G- LNG — Tue, 01 Jul 2025 22:09:37 GMT

Here are some points to consider:
- There is no support available for PDI.
- Once a PDI is revoked, you will not receive the same PDI again. This means it’s lost, and no one can assist you, as there is no support for PDI available

Re: Recover PDI that was Prematurely Reclaimed

sandeepdutt — Wed, 02 Jul 2025 02:33:14 GMT

Hi @Justin Weitzel ,

UNfortunately NO, once your PDI is reclaimed, it cannot be recovered back.

Re: Recover PDI that was Prematurely Reclaimed

Santosh Oraon — Wed, 02 Jul 2025 03:25:01 GMT

Hi @Justin Weitzel Unfortunately, there is generally no way to recover or restore a PDI once it has been reclaimed by ServiceNow.

If my response helped please mark it correct and close the thread so that it benefits future readers.

Regards,
Santosh

Re: Recover PDI that was Prematurely Reclaimed

subhadeep1618 — Wed, 02 Jul 2025 03:41:15 GMT

Hi @Justin Weitzel

I feel for you here, because I am in the same boat.

Off late, it has been observed that any PDI which is more than a year old, and where I am doing a lot of development work, is going into hibernation and then not coming out of it.

An error message is being shown - "your instance did not wake up, please try after sometime"

That's it - and after 2 weeks of inactivity, it is being reclaimed - even though I tried waking up the instance every day.

If there is some cloud space quota or constraint, we must be informed.

Keeping us in the dark, not waking up our instance, showing error message, then reclaiming it - seems to be rather unfair. It will be better if PDI becomes a paid service.

Re: Recover PDI that was Prematurely Reclaimed

vermaamit16 — Wed, 02 Jul 2025 05:27:22 GMT

Hi @Justin Weitzel

Unfortunately, once a PDI is reclaimed, we can't do anything. You need to request for a new PDI. Going forward, please ensure to backup your data everyday without fail to avoid data loss.

Thanks and Regards

Amit Verma

Re: Recover PDI that was Prematurely Reclaimed

AniketC85155510 — Wed, 02 Jul 2025 05:43:53 GMT

Hello @Justin Weitzel ,

I've seen similar cases where PDIs were reclaimed or went into a hibernating state unexpectedly — it’s definitely frustrating, especially when there's active work going on.

Since your instance is currently in a hibernating state, there’s a slim chance it may still be recoverable — but typically, once an instance is reclaimed and redistributed, the data is purged, and restoration isn't possible.

Here’s what you can try:

Wait a few more hours or up to 24 hours — sometimes the hibernation is temporary, and it might resume on its own.
If it doesn’t come back, head over to the ServiceNow Developer Portal → release the current instance, and request a fresh PDI.
For the future, it’s a good practice to export your work via update sets or integrate with source control, so you’re covered in case of unexpected reclaims.

You can also refer to this official PDI FAQ page for details on how the platform handles PDIs.

🔹 Please mark ✅ Correct if this solves your query, and 👍 Helpful if you found the response valuable.

Best regards,
Aniket Chavan
🏆 ServiceNow MVP 2025 | 🌟 ServiceNow Rising Star 2024

Re: Recover PDI that was Prematurely Reclaimed

AndersBGS — Mon, 07 Jul 2025 13:17:52 GMT

Hi @Justin Weitzel ,

the short answer is no.

Re: Recover PDI that was Prematurely Reclaimed

AniketC85155510 — Tue, 22 Jul 2025 10:45:22 GMT

Hello @Justin Weitzel ,

Just wanted to check in to see if my earlier response helped you out or if you're still facing any issues. If your query is resolved, it would be great if you could mark my reply as helpful and accept it as the solution — that way it can also benefit others who come across the thread later.😊

Also, if you found any other responses helpful, feel free to mark those as helpful too. You can even accept multiple solutions if they contributed to resolving your issue.

Let me know if you need anything else!

Best regards,
Aniket Chavan
🏆 ServiceNow MVP 2025 | 🌟 ServiceNow Rising Star 2024