Frustrated by Magento? Then you’ll love
A Magento index can have a status of
pending, working, or require_reindex.
However, the UI represents pending as Ready, working as Processing, and require_reindex as Reindex Required.
Did I say UI? I meant Web UI. The command line UI (via shell/indexer.php uses the slightly-different-but-the-same-enough to be confusing Pending, Running, and Require Reindex.
I’m generally of the option that 90% of the complaints about Magento boil down to “Why are these people cutting my steak wrong”, but eBay’s Magento division doesn’t help its case when blatant inconsistencies like this are still a day to day part of a Magento developer’s life.