A purchased Elastic Compute Service (ECS) instance may not appear in the instance list of the ECS console. This topic describes the possible causes and solutions.
Problem description
You purchased an ECS instance, but the instance does not appear in the instance list of the ECS console.
Possible causes
Solution
Find the cause that matches your situation and follow the corresponding solution.
Instance not in the current region
If you have not switched to the region in which the instance resides, you cannot find the instance. Use one of the following methods to identify the region of the instance:
Switch the region at the top of the ECS console. If a region contains instances, switch to that region to view the instances.
View the regions in which your instances reside on the ECS overview page.
In the region distribution table of the My Resources section, check the Elastic Compute Service column for the number of instances in each region to identify the region in which your instances reside.
Wrong product console
The resource that you purchased may not be an ECS instance. It may be a Simple Application Server instance or a resource of another service, and you may not have opened the correct product console. Use one of the following methods to confirm the type of resource that you purchased:
Wrong account or insufficient permissions
You may be logged on with the wrong account, or the account that you use does not have the required permissions. Check the following scenarios:
Wrong Alibaba Cloud account — If you logged on to multiple Alibaba Cloud accounts in the same browser, you may have logged on with the wrong Alibaba Cloud account. Verify that you are logged on with the account that owns the instance.
RAM user without the required permissions — If you are logged on as a Resource Access Management (RAM) user, log on to the RAM console and check whether the RAM user has the ECS access permissions that are granted by the following system policies:
Management permissions (
AliyunECSFullAccess)Read-only permissions (
AliyunECSReadOnlyAccess)
If you use a custom policy that grants permissions based on tags, find the target instance on the instance list page and check whether the tags of the instance are correct.
Instance expired or released because of an overdue payment
An instance that has an overdue payment or that has expired is automatically released after a period of time. After the instance is released, you can no longer find it in the console. You can view the notifications about the instance release in the Message Center.
A released instance cannot be recovered.
Refund due to insufficient resources
Insufficient resources in a zone may cause the system to automatically issue a refund. Check My Orders to confirm whether this issue occurred. If this issue occurs, create an instance in another zone.