Livelock
A concurrency failure in which participants continue changing state but make no useful forward progress.
Concurrency Context
Livelock occurs when participants remain active but repeatedly react to one another without completing useful work. Two actors continually yielding to each other, or two retries using the same symmetric conflict policy, are typical examples. Randomized backoff or deliberate asymmetry can restore progress.
Distinction from Deadlock
In a deadlock, participants are usually blocked waiting for conditions that cannot be satisfied. In a livelock, CPU activity and state changes may continue even though the operation never converges.