# Step 5: Check for suspended groups An instance group becomes suspended when it encounters too many errors while trying to launch nodes. For example, if new nodes repeatedly fail while performing bootstrap actions, the instance group will — after some time — go into the `SUSPENDED` state rather than continuously attempt to provision new nodes. A node could fail to come up if: + Hadoop or the cluster is somehow broken and does not accept a new node into the cluster + A bootstrap action fails on the new node + The node is not functioning correctly and fails to check in with Hadoop If an instance group is in the `SUSPENDED` state, and the cluster is in a `WAITING` state, you can add a cluster step to reset the desired number of core and task nodes. Adding the step resumes processing of the cluster and put the instance group back into a `RUNNING` state. For more information about how to reset a cluster in a suspended state, see [Suspended state](emr-manage-resize.md#emr-manage-resizeSuspended).