# Temporal workflow has blank delays/gaps between activities in local/cloud setup. Is this expected? **URL:** \ **Category:** Community Support\ **Tags:** python-sdk\ **Created:** [March 18, 2026, 9:45am UTC](https://community.temporal.io/t/temporal-workflow-has-blank-delays-gaps-between-activities-in-local-cloud-setup-is-this-expected/19409 "2026-03-18T09:45:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 2\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![JanviKarbonCard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/34f0e0/32.png) [@JanviKarbonCard](https://community.temporal.io/u/JanviKarbonCard)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2026, 9:45am UTC](https://community.temporal.io/t/temporal-workflow-has-blank-delays-gaps-between-activities-in-local-cloud-setup-is-this-expected/19409/1 "2026-03-18T09:45:53Z")
## **Expected Behavior** After an activity completes, the next activity in the workflow sequence should be scheduled promptly — with only minimal overhead (milliseconds) between `ActivityTaskCompleted` and the next `ActivityTaskScheduled` event in the workflow history. In a healthy Temporal setup, the Workflow Task that drives the next `execute_activity` call should be picked up and executed quickly, even under moderate concurrency with child workflows. * * * ## **Actual Behavior** [![Image](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/uploads/temporal/original/2X/3/3fb56b536f831cc49d928eb590c81d86c15d017f.png)](https://private-user-images.githubusercontent.com/22238664/565443409-7d4f00b8-7fbf-4ab5-aa31-56a2116f6c49.png?jwt=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.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.sHpsBjMjQykuQ7kU6kzDzUz-zkU3Tyg08kNR426m7IQ) A blank/invisible gap of **10–20 seconds** appears between consecutive activities in the same `ChildWorkflow`. Specifically: - An activity (e.g. `predict_feedback_reference`) completes successfully - No next activity is scheduled for 10–20 seconds - Only after that gap does the next activity (e.g. `predict_transaction_merchant`) appear as `ActivityTaskScheduled` This gap occurs **before** the next activity is scheduled — meaning the delay is in **Workflow Task pickup/execution** , not in the activity queue or the activity execution itself. This is observed in both local Docker and Temporal Cloud environments, across a workload of ~50–150 concurrent child workflow executions. * * * ## **Steps to Reproduce the Problem** 1. Run a Temporal server locally via Docker with constrained resources (`cpus: 0.5`, `mem_limit: 1024m`) 2. Start a single worker process with `MAX_CONCURRENT_WORKFLOW_TASKS=100` and `MAX_CONCURRENT_ACTIVITIES=100` on the same machine 3. Trigger a parent workflow that fans out to **50–150 child workflows** , each executing 4 sequential activities via `await workflow.execute_activity(...)` 4. Open the Temporal UI and inspect the event history of any child workflow 5. Observe the timestamp gap between `ActivityTaskCompleted` and the subsequent `ActivityTaskScheduled` — expect ~10–20 second blank gaps * * * ## **Specifications** | **Field** | **Value** | | --- | --- | | Temporal Python SDK Version | 1.x (latest) | | Temporal Server | temporalio/auto-setup:latest (Docker) | | Temporal Server Resources | 0.5 CPUs, 1024 MB RAM, 512 PIDs | | Platform / OS | macOS (worker + Docker host) | | Observed On | Local Docker + Temporal Cloud | | Worker Concurrency | MAX\_CONCURRENT\_WORKFLOW\_TASKS=100, MAX\_CONCURRENT\_ACTIVITIES=100 | | Worker Processes | 1 | | Child Workflow Count | ~50–150 concurrent | | Database Backend | PostgreSQL 12 | ---
**Author:** ![tihomir](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/community.temporal.io/tihomir/32/6580_2.png) [@tihomir](https://community.temporal.io/u/tihomir)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2026, 2:29pm UTC](https://community.temporal.io/t/temporal-workflow-has-blank-delays-gaps-between-activities-in-local-cloud-setup-is-this-expected/19409/2 "2026-07-22T14:29:55Z")
Troubleshooting and resolving bottlenecks on both server and sdk worker side is pretty useful and common practice. Often times these types of schedule-to-start latencies could have different and multiple underlying causes, things like - small / slow / overloaded db - small / unprovisioned cluster (for example very small default number of shards) - resource starvation on cluster side - unprovisioned / resource starved workers - others from your description, one thing that is fairly obvious is the cluster side, you run auto-setup image which runs all 4 temporal services in single process on pretty low compute, and locally on your laptop it seems. we dont really know about db resources given as assume it runs locally as well this in itself is probably a possible bottleneck where some latencies are expected when running even smaller size fan-out use cases one thing that could help to troubleshoot is server and your worker metrics you have out of box grafana dashboards for both [here](https://github.com/tsurdilo/temporal-server-operations/tree/main/metrics/dashboards/server), and [here](https://github.com/tsurdilo/temporal-server-operations/tree/main/metrics/dashboards/sdk), if helps if your trying to run and test locally on docker desktop that seems to be case, maybe look at [this](https://github.com/tsurdilo/my-temporal-dockercompose) repo as well, as it would allow you to scale out better than using single process on auto-setup image as well as it has built in observability (prometheus and grafana) so you dont have to set that up yourself. its till not meant for prod testing, but maybe would give you env where you can get some base lines better if you rather run your cluster locally on docker desktop and kubernetes, check out [this](https://github.com/tsurdilo/temporal-helm-superchart) repo if helps