diff --git a/distributed/tests/test_stress.py b/distributed/tests/test_stress.py
index 755f5f97efd..55fb653e1b5 100644
--- a/distributed/tests/test_stress.py
+++ b/distributed/tests/test_stress.py
@@ -228,6 +228,12 @@ async def test_close_connections(c, s, *workers):
         x = x.rechunk((1000, 1))
 
     future = c.compute(x.sum())
+
+    # need to wait to ensure the scheduler actually registered anything
+    # processing. Computation itself should take a few seconds so this should be
+    # a safe period to wait.
+    await asyncio.sleep(0.05)
+
     while any(s.processing.values()):
         await asyncio.sleep(0.5)
         worker = random.choice(list(workers))
diff --git a/distributed/worker.py b/distributed/worker.py
index fc38d435a59..025e809c807 100644
--- a/distributed/worker.py
+++ b/distributed/worker.py
@@ -2259,8 +2259,9 @@ def steal_request(self, key):
         # There may be a race condition between stealing and releasing a task.
         # In this case the self.tasks is already cleared. The `None` will be
         # registered as `already-computing` on the other end
-        if key in self.tasks:
-            state = self.tasks[key].state
+        ts = self.tasks.get(key)
+        if ts:
+            state = ts.state
         else:
             state = None
 
@@ -2268,7 +2269,12 @@ def steal_request(self, key):
         self.batched_stream.send(response)
 
         if state in ("ready", "waiting", "constrained"):
-            self.release_key(key, reason="steal_request")
+            self.transition(ts, "waiting")
+            # FIXME GH4413 We no longer want to execute this task but there is
+            # no state to identify this. We still need to track it,
+            # otherwise this worker may never fetch it in case it is still
+            # required
+            ts.runspec = None
 
     def release_key(self, key, reason=None, cause=None, report=True):
         try:
@@ -2582,7 +2588,17 @@ async def execute(self, key, report=False):
                 executor_error = e
                 raise
 
-            if ts.state not in ("executing", "long-running"):
+            # We'll need to check again for the task state since it may have
+            # changed since the execution was kicked off. In particular, it may
+            # have been canceled and released already in which case we'll have
+            # to drop the result immediately
+            key = ts.key
+            ts = self.tasks.get(key)
+
+            if ts is None:
+                logger.debug(
+                    "Dropping result for %s since task has already been released." % key
+                )
                 return
 
             result["key"] = ts.key
@@ -2940,6 +2956,9 @@ def validate_state(self):
         try:
             assert len(self.data_needed) == len(set(self.data_needed))
             waiting_keys = set()
+
+            assert self.executing_count >= 0
+
             for ts in self.tasks.values():
                 assert ts.state is not None
                 # check that worker has task