# Using serial strategy for playbook imported in a toplevel playbook causes entire play termination if some host is unreachable

**URL:** <https://forum.ansible.com/t/using-serial-strategy-for-playbook-imported-in-a-toplevel-playbook-causes-entire-play-termination-if-some-host-is-unreachable/27055>\
**Category:** Ansible Project\
**Created:** [March 20, 2018, 3:55pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/using-serial-strategy-for-playbook-imported-in-a-toplevel-playbook-causes-entire-play-termination-if-some-host-is-unreachable/27055 "2018-03-20T15:55:53Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Andrey\_Agenosov](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4da419/32.png) [@Andrey\_Agenosov](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Andrey_Agenosov)\
**Post date:** [March 20, 2018, 3:55pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/using-serial-strategy-for-playbook-imported-in-a-toplevel-playbook-causes-entire-play-termination-if-some-host-is-unreachable/27055/1 "2018-03-20T15:55:53Z")

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Hello all.  
Here is a simplified example:

`

- import\_playbook: test\_unavailable\_node\_different\_strategy.yml

- hosts: 127.0.0.1  
connection: local

# The question is would we end up here in case of imported playbook (above) touches unavailable host

tasks:

- debug: msg="Playbook finished"Введите код…  
`

And the code for imported playbook:

`

- hosts: all

# Comment the line below and everything would be fine

serial: 1

tasks:

- debug: msg="{{ inventory\_hostname }}"Введите код…  
`

So when I’m launching something like this  
`ansible-playbook -i '127.0.0.1,10.0.0.1' use_unavailable_nodes.yml --ask-pass -u andreyВведите код...`  
when the 10.0.0.1 host is unreachable, the entire play aborts before reaching the task to be performed locally (see main playbook).

If you comment _‘serial: 1’_ then the local action in the main playbook also would be performed.  
Why there is such behaviour? Is this a bug or I’m missing something?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![mhalano](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/ansible/user_avatar/forum.ansible.com/mhalano/32/1815_2.png) [@mhalano](https://forum.ansible.com/u/mhalano)\
**Post date:** [March 20, 2018, 5:53pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/using-serial-strategy-for-playbook-imported-in-a-toplevel-playbook-causes-entire-play-termination-if-some-host-is-unreachable/27055/2 "2018-03-20T17:53:48Z")

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I ran a playbook on batches and one host failed but just that batch stopped.