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It is possible a task may run longer than expected and you suspect something has gone wrong. It is even possible the task may cause a server to become unresponsive. Restarting the server will not stop the task, although it may make the server become responsive again.

To stop a Task, find the related task node (install: mysite.com) in the content list: /admin/content/node/overview, and delete it. This will stop Aegir from trying to run the task.

In the case of a site install, it may also be necessary to also delete the node for the site itself. The site may have actually installed properly. Verify the affected platform and see if Aegir imports the site. If so, you may need to reset the password to gain access to the new site. If the site doesn't import in the verify, delete any files from the sites folder on the selected platform and either try again and/or research why the task may have failed.

It can also be very helpful to try running tasks from the command line with drush (the entire Aegir web frontend is basically a user-friendly interface to a series of drush commands). You can see which command is being run by looking at a task node in Aegir. For example, if you are having problems verifying a site, you could run:
drush @mysite.com provision-verify --debug

Another option is to run the hosting task itself within the hostmaster context, which will then invoke the drush command on the applicable site. You can find the task node ID in the web frontend (look at the URL generated by Aegir to create the popup box which shows the log). If the task ID was 1234, you would then run this from the command line:
drush @hostmaster hosting-task 1234 --debug

Installation and configuration of Aegir has been greatly simplified with the release of .deb packages. However, for other operating systems, or for those installing manually, making a mistake during the installation or upgrade of Aegir or Drush is easy to do, and these tips identify some of the most common mistakes.

The Aegir User

• Make sure you have an aegir user (who we call the Aegir User) and that the Aegir User is properly configured on your server:
  • cat /etc/passwd prints all users. Find the line aegir:x:1000:1000:,,,:/var/aegir:/bin/bash. aegir usually is the Aegir User. Be cautious about using a different username, and do notuse an existing user or a user that will have any other role on the server. The Aegir User should only be used for Aegir activities.
  • Verify the Aegir install directory is the user's home. Usually, the Aegir directory is /var/aegir. Be cautious about installing Aegir in a different directory only because you are likely to get confused and nearly all the documentation assumes you have used /var/aegir
  • Make sure that the node that defines your Aegir server (e.g., www.example.com/node/2) identifies the Script User as your Aegir User. (You can find this node by clicking on the Servers menu tab and then clicking on the server URI shown in the list that appears of Aegir servers.)
  • All this is detailed in the install profile wizard
• Do not run aegir as root! - It's an unsafe and unsupported configuration that is known to cause problems

Make Sure drush Is Installed Properly

• Make sure that the node that defines your Aegir Server has the correct path to drush.
  • See /var/aegir/drush/readme.txt for install instructions
• Check your Drush setup:
  • Always run drush as your aegir user, and never as "root".
  • Make sure that the Provision module is in the aegir/.drush/provision/ directory.
  • Make sure that the Hosting module is in ~aegir/hostmaster-0.x/profiles/hostmaster/modules/hosting (substitute the platform hostmaster-0.x to match the directory on your system in which you have installed the Drupal code that is running your Aegir site)
  • Run "drush help" and make sure that "provision" commands appear. "hosting" commands will not appear in the latest (after 2009/05/18) Drush versions, unless Drupal can be fully bootstrapped

Apache

• Make sure the Aegir User can restart Apache without a password and that the corresponding command is defined in your Aegir Server Node
  • As your Aegir User, run the command shown in the "Restart command" field in your Aegir Server Node to ensure that your Aegir User can restart Apache
  • On Ubuntu, it's sudo /usr/sbin/apache2ctl graceful. The command should execute and return without asking for a password when run as the Aegir User
• Make sure Apache can parse its configuration
  • On Ubuntu, sudo apache2ctl configtest should report "System Ok"

Other Things

• On a Linux system, check that /etc/sudoers is chmod 440 (i.e., read only for the file owner and group, which is usually root)
• Attempt to run the cron tasks manually from the command line
  • php /var/aegir/drush/drush.php --root=/var/aegir/hostmaster-0.x --uri=http://youraegirsite.com hosting-tasks --debug
• Or you can retry a specific task form the command line
  • php /var/aegir/drush/drush.php --root='/var/aegir/hostmaster-0.4-alpha5' --uri='youraegirsite.net' hosting-task <nid of the task> --debug

Aegir 2.x returns the following error message

strict warning: Non-static method view::load() should not be called statically in /var/aegir/hostmaster-6.x-2.1/profiles/hostmaster/modules/views/views.module on line 1113.

Cause

It's due to a conflict between Views 3.x and PHP 5.4. For example, your server uses PHP 5.4 or more recent. And you updated Drupal core for Aegir to Drupal 6.34 or more recent and this error message is showing on all Aegir pages.

Solutions

Option 1: Install "disable_messages" module. And disable all messages related to:

strict .*.

Read more here, under "How to hide only specific error messages to specific users" section.

Option 2: Patch Views 3.x. Read more at https://www.drupal.org/node/780156 or https://www.drupal.org/node/893128#comment-4760978

Option 3: Turn off Strict warnings in your "php.ini" file. Read more at https://www.drupal.org/node/1833170#comment-6994142 or https://www.drupal.org/node/465332#comment-6533810